Hindemith's widow Gertrud devoted much thought to the preservation and scholarly processing of the estate of her husband. The Hindemith Foundation put these considerations into practice by establishing the Hindemith Institute in Frankfurt in 1974 as a research site.
At the same time, the edition headquarters of the Hindemith Complete Edition was transferred from Schott Publishers in Mainz to the Institute. The first Director of the Institute was Dr. Dieter Rexroth (1974-1991); since 1974, the Edition Director of the Hindemith Complete Edition has been Prof. Dr. Giselher Schubert, who was also Director of the Institute from 1991 until 2011.