Education
Born in Cologne, he studied musicology, sociology and law at the Universities of Cologne, Freiburg i.
Born in Cologne, he studied musicology, sociology and law at the Universities of Cologne, Freiburg i.
Branch and Grenoble. In Australia he started as a dishwasher but went soon from rags to riches with his own fast food restaurant Silver"s Food Bars. He actually initiated the first fastfood chain of Australia and was a very successful entrepreneur. His academic career started in 1944 in at the New South Wales State Conservatorium of Music.
As an empirical culture-sociologist he went back to Europe (especially Paris) in 1951.
In 1958 René König brought him back to Cologne, where he taught at the University. In 1964 he was called to the University of Lausanne as a successor of Vilfredo Pareto and later at the University of Bordeaux (1974–1979).
He was one of the editors of the Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie (KZfSS) and foundet the Institut für Massenkommunikation (Institute of Mass Communication).
After he gained his doctorate (Doctor jur), the rise of Nazism led Silbermann to emigrate to the Netherlands and 1938 from Amsterdam via Paris, where he worked as a waiter, to Sydney.
Alphons Silbermann was a member of the "Cologne School" (Kölner Schule) along with René König and others