GOGARTEN, FRIEDRICH, 1887-1967.
Collection, 1920, 1967, undated

MANUSCRIPT COLLECTION NUMBER 330

ACCESS: Unrestricted.

REPRODUCTION: Due to preservation concerns, the manuscript of "Zwischen den Zeiten" may not be photocopied.

COPYRIGHT: Information on copyright (literary rights) available from repository.

CITATION:  Friedrich Gogarten collection, MSS 330, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University.  

Friedrich Gogarten, twentieth-century dialectical theologian, was born in Dortmund on 13 January 1887. He was educated at Berlin, Jena, and Heidelberg and taught at the University of Breslau (Assistant Professor of Theology, 1931-1935) and the University of Gottingen (Professor of Systematic Theology, 1935-1955).

In 1920, Gogarten published "Zwischen den Zeiten" ("Between the Times") in Christliche Welt. Soon after, the title of this article became the title of a dialectical theology journal founded by Gogarten, Karl Barth, George Merz, and Eduard Thurneysen. From 1923-1933, the journal Zwischen den Zeiten was the main theological voice in Germany against Nazism.

Books written by Gogarten include Die Schuld der Kirche gegen die Welt (1928), Einheit von Evangelium und Volkstum? (1933), Demythologizing and History (1955), The Reality of Faith: The Problem of Subjectivism in Theology (1957), Despair and Hope for Our Time (1970), and Christ the Crisis (1970).

Gogarten died on 16 October 1967.

[Source of biographical information: Biographical Dictionary of Christian Theologians (2000), ed. Patrick W. Carey and Joseph T. Lienhard.]

The centerpiece of the collection is Gogarten's handwritten draft of "Zwischen den Zeiten," which was published in Christliche Welt no. 24 (1920). The manuscript consists of nine leaves. There are numerous corrections and annotations by Gogarten throughout the draft.

Also included are a photograph of Gogarten in Central Park, New York City, taken by John Godsey; a photograph of a sketch of Gogarten by Janet Michalson; and a printed death announcement from Gogarten's family.

The items in this collection were given to the Archives and Manuscripts Department of Pitts Theology Library by Theodore Runyon in 2004.