Rolf Tiedemann

Rolf Tiedemann (1932–2018) was born in Hamburg and studied philosophy, German literature, and sociology in Hamburg, Göttingen, Berlin, and Frankfurt am Main. From 1959, he worked as a research associate and later as Theodor W. Adorno’s personal assistant at the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research. In 1964, he completed his doctorate under Adorno and Max Horkheimer with the first dissertation on Walter Benjamin. Together with Hermann Schweppenhäuser, he edited the collected works of Adorno and Benjamin. From 1985 to 2002, Tiedemann directed the Theodor W. Adorno Archive in Frankfurt and initiated the publication of Adorno’s posthumous writings, editing six volumes himself. He received an honorary doctorate from the University of Hanover.