Author, Philosopher. He was a German philosopher and sociologist, who was famous for his work in critical theory. He co-founded the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt in 1929 along with Herbert Marcuse and Theodore Adorno. Born the only son in a wealthy Orthodox Jewish household, his father owned several textile factories. When he was 15, his father coerced him to leave his formal education to work in his factories, in hope that he would continue the family's business. He left the textile business when he was drafted for World War I, but for medical reasons, he was rejected in 1919. At that point he entered the University of Munich before transferring to Frankfurt am Main, earning his doctorate degree in philosophy in 1922 with a 78-page dissertation titled "The Antinomy of Teleological Judgment." During his college days, he met Adorno. In 1925, Horkheimer earned the degree allowing him to be a full college professor, PH Dr and becoming a lecturer at the college for four years. In 1926 he married, against his father's wishes, Rose "Maidon" Riekher, who was eight years his senior, a gentile, and from an economically lower class. The couple would remain together until her death in 1969. In the 1950s he made arrangements to be buried next to his wife in a Jewish cemetery, which was a difficult task as most Jewish cemeteries refused non-Jews to be buried within their cemeteries. After opening of the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt in 1929, he was elected director in 1930, working to make the Institute a purely academic enterprise, which included "Marxist workshops." He was also Professor of Social Philosophy. In 1932 he became the editor of the Institute's periodical, "Journal for Social Research," which touched on subjects such as political philosophy and cultural analysis. With Adolph Hitler's National Socialist regime coming to power in 1933 with persecution of the Jewish population, the Institute was forced to close, with him escaping in exile through Switzerland to New York City. After meeting the president of Columbia University, he accepted in July of 1934 the offer from Columbia University to host in exile the Institute for Social Research. He continued publishing the "Journal for Social Research." In 1940, he was made a naturalize American citizen. In 1941 the institute became bankrupted and was dissolved, with him relocating to Los Angeles. Though written during the war, he and Adorno published in 1947 "Dialectic of Enlightenment," which is considered the core of critical theory. Critical theory aspires "to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them." In 1949, he returned to Germany and the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt reopened in 1950, with him being director from 1951. In 1953 when Adorno became director of the Institute, Horkheimer stepped down from director to be a professor, and retiring in 1955 from the Institute. He returned to the United States in 1954 and 1959 for lectures at the University of Chicago. As a respected man, he was given honors in Germany and remained an important figure until his death. He and Adorno are considered the "Fathers of the Institute." Besides the "Dialectic of Enlightenment," he published at least ten books during his career including "Eclipse of Reason" in 1947, which attempts to explain how the Nazi regime projected their agenda as "reasonable" and giving a warning of the possibility of this happening again. Never a prolific writer, most of his essays, which were on a variety of subjects with an ever-pessimistic outlook on life, remained unpublished in his life, yet a few were published posthumously.