The third chapter examines the longstanding debate over the purpose of scholarship in a commercial city without a scholarly tradition. Warburg, for his part, often mediated between the camps of merchants and academics and stirred local pride with constant references to Berlin. This chapter shows how Aby and Max Warburg played an instrumental role in leading the city towards the ultimate founding of the University of Hamburg. Tabled because of the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the university was ultimately founded in the spring of 1919 in the midst of revolution. Born of the republic, the university would draw on Hamburg’s distinct internationalism, a potential asset in the new Europe. Broken by the war and unsatisfied with the university’s traditionalism, Warburg, however, would ultimately turn his intellectual sights to his library and retreat to Kreuzlingen, Switzerland, where he would recover from a mental breakdown.