[8] In 1932, the university's name was extended in honour of one of the most famous native sons of Frankfurt, the poet, philosopher and writer/dramatist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

The historical roots of the university can be traced back as far as 1484,[15] when a City Council Library was established with a bequest from the patrician Ludwig von Marburg.

Some of the well-known scholars associated with this school include Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Jürgen Habermas, as well as Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm, and Walter Benjamin.

[citation needed] Other well-known scholars at the University of Frankfurt include the sociologist Karl Mannheim, the philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer, the philosophers of religion Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, and Paul Tillich, the psychologist Max Wertheimer, and the sociologist Norbert Elias.

[citation needed] The University of Frankfurt has at times been considered liberal, or left-leaning, and has had a reputation for Jewish and Marxist (or even Jewish-Marxist) scholarship.

[citation needed] During the Nazi period, "almost one third of its academics and many of its students were dismissed for racial and/or political reasons—more than at any other German university".

Ordered by their sorting number, these are:[18] In addition, there are several co-located research institutes of the Max Planck Society: The university is involved in the Hessian Center for Artificial Intelligence [de] (hessian.AI).

This campus is of particular historical significance, as Goethe University has inherited history through the acquisition of real estate.

"Campus Westend" of the university is dominated by the IG Farben Building by architect Hans Poelzig, an example of the modernist New Objectivity style.

[20][21] The style for the IG Farben Building was originally chosen as "a symbol for the scientific and mercantile German manpower, made out of iron and stone", as the IG Farben director at the time of construction, Baron von Schnitzler, stated in his opening speech in October 1930.

The ground floor is open to the public and welcomes visitors with a spacious, naturally lit foyer that leads to lecture halls, seminar rooms, and the information center, a 24-hour reference library.

The emergence of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Basic Law (Grundgesetz) can be traced back to the Frankfurter Dokumente that were handed over in the I. G. Farben Building.

The Bockenheim campus is the former centre of the university, which still houses various parts of the language and cultural sciences, the Department of Computer Science and Mathematics, the central building of the university library Johann Christian Senckenberg and some parts of the administration in buildings dating from the 1950s to the 1970s.

The Niederrad campus is home to the University Hospital and the Department of Medicine, with buildings and facilities that have grown historically since the 19th century as well as modern complexes.

The Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics honors renowned researchers who have made influential contributions to the fields of finance and money and macroeconomics, and whose work has led to practical and policy-relevant results.

There are official publications on the Goethe University website, which must be made in accordance with the Hessian Higher Education Act.

[30][31][32][33] Students are not very interested in university politics due to a voter turnout of less than 15%[34] in recent years and the incidents and judgements against the AStA.

The largest university-related alumni organisation with over 1,300 members is the Frankfurter Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Gesellschaft (fwwg), which was founded in 1988 and is open to the Department of Economics.

[62] In the 2024 edition of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, it is positioned between 201 and 250 internationally, and 22 to 24 within the country.