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Founded by Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann in 1947.1
Founded in 1947 by political scientist Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann and journalist
Erich Peter Neumann, and modelled after Paul Lazarsfeld's Wirtschaftspsychologische Forschungsstelle at the University of Vienna,
the Allensbach Institute was the first public opinion research institute in Germany,
depending primarily on the sale of market research studies for financing.
The institute conducted the "first [post-war] inquiry to assess former Nazi support",
and was contracted by the government of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1950 to carry out monthly surveys of domestic public opinion.
In 1988, political economist Renate Köcher, a former advisor to Chancellor Helmut Kohl, became managing director of the institute alongside Noelle-Neumann, who was also the sole shareholder in the company. Noelle-Neumann transferred ownership of the institute to the Allensbach Foundation for Public Opinion Research (German: Stiftung Demoskopie Allensbach) in May 1996.
The Allensbach Institute is noted for providing the most accurate prediction of the results of the closely contested 1998 German federal election.
From Wikipedia’s article on Allensbach Institute, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4