Alphons Silbermann Estate

Alphons Silbermann (1909-2000) was born in Cologne on August 11, 1909. He studied Law, Musicology and Sociology in Cologne, Freiburg and Grenoble. In 1933 Silbermann fled from the National Socialists to the Netherlands, from where he emigrated via Paris to Australia in 1938. There, he founded "Silvers's Food Bar," Australia's first fast food chain which he ran very successfully together with his parents.

At the beginning of 1952, restitution issues brought him back to Cologne for the first time. In the years to follow, Silbermann held various teaching positions in Paris, Cologne and Lausanne, among other places. In 1970 Silbermann returned to Cologne where he was appointed professor of Mass Communication and Art Sociology.  Together with René König, he was publisher and editor of the Cologne Journal of Sociology and Social Psychology and founded the Institute for Mass Communication.

Alphons Silbermann died in Cologne in 2000. He left his written estate and his working library to the Moses Mendelssohn Center. The book collection of about 2,500 volumes, which came to Potsdam in 2000, is divided into the three areas of Sociology (mainly Sociology of Literature), Communication Studies and Judaica.