The history of the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research in the thirty years following the death of Theodor W. Adorno has not yet been thoroughly examined. It is an exciting story of debates and conflicts, of intellectual struggles and defeats, of beautiful successes and failures; it is not a tale of heroic years, yet it offers valuable lessons for today and insights to preserve for tomorrow. Sperrgut reports from the perspective of a researcher on the work processes and working conditions of critical empirical research, which, in times of increasing financial dependency, sought to maintain autonomy and freedom, striving to connect empirical individual research with the work on the Critical Theory of capitalist society, while being guided by the interest in social emancipation and enlightenment. Sperrgut.