Felix Weil

Felix Weil (1898-1975) was a founding member and the original financial provider for the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

He was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina and was the son of the wealthy German-born merchant Hermann Weil and his wife Rosa Weil. At the age of 9 he was sent to attend school in Germany at the Goethe-Gymnasium, Frankfurt.

He went on to attend the universities in Tübingen and Frankfurt, where he graduated with a doctoral degree in political science. While at these universities he became increasingly interested in socialism and Marxism. According to intellectual historian Martin Jay, the topic of his dissertation was "the practical problems of implementing socialism" (Jay 1973, 5).

In 1923 he financed the First Marxist Work Week (Erste Marxistische Arbeitswoche) in the German town of Ilmenau. The event was attended by figures such as Georg Lukács, Karl Korsch, Richard Sorge, Friedrich Pollock, and Karl August Wittfogel. Based on the success of this event he went on, along with his friend Friedrich Pollock, to found the Institute for Social Research in 1924.