Following a non-fatal heart attack, Grünberg was succeeded in 1930 by Max Horkheimer, who would rapidly become the guiding spirit of an intellectual current that was born under his directorship at the Institut, the Frankfurt School, editing its journal Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung (Journal for Social Research) and writing essays defining a critical theory of society.
In 1933, after the rise of Hitler the Institute left Germany for Geneva and then (in 1935) for New York City, where it became affiliated with Columbia University, and where the Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung became Studies in Philosophy and Social Science. It re-opened in Frankfurt in the 1950s (see following photograph of the current Institute building at Senckenberganlage 26 in Frankfurt).
The Institute has been both a research enterprise and, during its Frankfurt periods, a provider of instruction in sociology at the university there.