Life

Gerlach was the son of a German factory owner. He had studied at the university of Kiel

Kiel

Kiel is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 238,049 .Kiel is approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the north of Germany, the southeast of the Jutland peninsula, and the southwestern shore of the...

 under Ferdinand Tönnies

Ferdinand Tönnies

Ferdinand Tönnies was a German sociologist. He was a major contributor to sociological theory and field studies, best known for his distinction between two types of social groups, Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft...

 and received his doctorate in 1911 with a work on the role of Denmark in global economy. He then studied at the University of Leipzig

University of Leipzig

The University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in the world and the second-oldest university in Germany...

. In 1911 and 1912 he went to England and studied at the London School of Economics

London School of Economics

The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...

 (LSE) and became member of the Fabian Society

Fabian Society

The Fabian Society is a British socialist movement, whose purpose is to advance the principles of democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist, rather than revolutionary, means. It is best known for its initial ground-breaking work beginning late in the 19th century and continuing up to World...

. In 1913 he habilitated

Habilitation

Habilitation is the highest academic qualification a scholar can achieve by his or her own pursuit in several European and Asian countries. Earned after obtaining a research doctorate, such as a PhD, habilitation requires the candidate to write a professorial thesis based on independent...

 in Leipzig with a treaty on protective measures for female factory workers in England. The lecture was on syndicalism

Syndicalism

Syndicalism is a type of economic system proposed as a replacement for capitalism and an alternative to state socialism, which uses federations of collectivised trade unions or industrial unions...

.

He joined the institute for world economy and sea-trade in Kiel, directed by Bernhard Harms. From 1919 on, Gerlach taught economy at the Aachen

Aachen

Aachen has historically been a spa town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Aachen was a favoured residence of Charlemagne, and the place of coronation of the Kings of Germany. Geographically, Aachen is the westernmost town of Germany, located along its borders with Belgium and the Netherlands, ...

 Polytechnic. In 1922, Gerlach was accepted as the future director of the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research

Institute for Social Research

The Institute for Social Research is a research organization for sociology and continental philosophy, best known as the institutional home of the Frankfurt School and critical theory....

 (Institut für Sozialforschung) in Frankfurt by the Prussian ministry of education and he taught economy and sociology at Frankfurt University. He had already designed the agenda of the institute, but because of his untimely death from diabetes in 1922, Carl Grünberg

Carl Grünberg

Carl Grünberg was the first director of the Institute for Social Research. He established and edited a journal of labour and socialist history today known as Grünbergs Archiv . He retired in 1929 and left the Institute to Max Horkheimer....

 became the founding director in his stead, followed by Max Horkheimer

Max Horkheimer

Max Horkheimer was a German-Jewish philosopher-sociologist, famous for his work in critical theory as a member of the 'Frankfurt School' of social research. His most important works include The Eclipse of Reason and, in collaboration with Theodor Adorno, The Dialectic of Enlightenment...

 in 1930.

Gerlach had been close to adherents of a moderate socialism from above, coupled with social reforms (Kathedersozialisten), but became member of the SPD

Social Democratic Party of Germany

The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...

 in November 1914 and changed to the more radical USPD

Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany

The Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany was a short-lived political party in Germany during the Second Reich and the Weimar Republic. The organization was established in 1917 as the result of a split of left wing members of the Social Democratic Party of Germany...

 in the autumn of 1919. Later on, he sympathised with Anarcho-Syndicalism

Anarcho-syndicalism

Anarcho-syndicalism is a branch of anarchism which focuses on the labour movement. The word syndicalism comes from the French word syndicat which means trade union , from the Latin word syndicus which in turn comes from the Greek word σύνδικος which means caretaker of an issue...

 and became a Marxist.

Works

• Dänemarks Stellung in der Weltwirtschaft. Unter besonderer Berücksichtigung derr Handelsbezichung en zu Deutschland,Englannnd und Skandinavien. Schriften des Instituts für Seeverkehr und Weltwirtschaft an der Universität Kiel 3 (Jena 1911).
• Die Bedeutung des Arbeiterinnenschutzes. Habilitationsschrift.Leipzig Theorie und Praxis des Syndikalismus (München/Leipzig 1913).
• Syndikalismus in England. Der Staatsbürger, 4, 1, 1913.
• Die Frau und das Genossenschaftswesen (Jena 1918).
• Allgemeine Gutachten IV. In: Ignaz Jastrow
  Ignaz Jastrow
  Ignaz Jastrow was a German economist and historian, born in Nakel and educated at the universities of Breslau, Berlin, and Göttingen. He became a university docent at Berlin in 1885 and was Leopold von Ranke's assistant in historical work...
  
  (ed.), Die Reform der staatswissenschaftlichen Studien. Fünfzig Gutachten. (München/Leipzig, Verein für Sozialpolitik 1920), 75-95.

Sources

• Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History, Theories, and Political Significance (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought) (MIT Press 1995), ISBN 0-262-73113-4.