Undoubtedly, René König and the Cologne School he founded are among the central figures in the field of West German post-war sociology, alongside the Frankfurt School and the circle around Helmut Schelsky. A proper understanding of the orientation and development of social sciences in the Federal Republic, particularly empirical social research, is therefore only possible by including Cologne sociology. Against this backdrop, it is surprising that René König and the Cologne School have not yet received a systematic sociological-historical study, especially when compared to the extensively analyzed Frankfurt School. This book aims to be a first sociological-historical approach to this topic. It covers the period from König's Swiss exile in the late 1930s to the successful institutionalization of Cologne sociology.