Hermann Wohlgschaft

Hermann Wohlgschaft (born February 10, 1944 in Augsburg ) is a German Catholic theologian and author of non-fiction books. In addition to theological and spiritual writings, he wrote, among other things, a comprehensive Karl May - Biography .

Life

Hermann Wohlgschaft grew up in Augsburg and studied philosophy and theology at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich . 1970–1973 he was a research assistant at the Catholic Academy in Augsburg. In 1975 he did his doctorate in Munich with Heinrich Fries summa cum laude on the Protestant theologian Karl Barth . After his ordination (1974) he worked as a student chaplain in Augsburg, then as a parish priest in Kempten and Landsberg am Lech . From 2002 to 2016 he headed the Catholic clinic pastoral care in Günzburg . In 2008 he completed his training at the Institute for Logotherapy and Existential Analysis in Tübingen . Since his retirement he has worked pastoral care in the Kaufering parish community .

Wohlgschafts theological-spiritual writings mainly revolve around the topics “friendship and love”, “dying and death”, “time and eternity”. His Karl May biography from 1994 was the first comprehensive work on the life of the writer Karl May. His expanded version of the Karl May biography, published in 2005, represents an encyclopedic basic work in Karl May research. He also wrote Wohlgschaft a three-volume cultural history of love (2015/16). In his most recent books ( No more excuses! And I am GOD - not man, not woman ) he advocates a radical reform of the Catholic Church.

Works

• Hope in the face of death. The problem of death with Karl Barth and in contemporary theology of the German-speaking area. Munich-Paderborn-Vienna 1977.
• Believe in God today. Ways to experience God. Aschaffenburg 1983.
• Great Karl May biography. Paderborn 1994.
• Karl May. Life and work. 3 volumes. Bargfeld 2005 (as part of the historically critical edition of Karl May's works).
• Full life. But what remains after death? Würzburg: Echter , 2011.
• Man's longing - a love that does not perish. Würzburg: Echter, 2012.
• Forever and ever? About marriage, celibacy, and intimate friendships. Würzburg: Echter, 2013.
• Immortal couples. A cultural story of love. Volume 1: From Antiquity to the Renaissance. Würzburg: Echter, 2015.
• Immortal couples. A cultural story of love. Volume 2: Reformation - Baroque - Enlightenment - Classical - Romanticism. Würzburg: Echter, 2016.
• Immortal couples. A cultural story of love. Volume 3: Realism - Modernity - Postmodernism. Würzburg: Echter, 2016.
• A source of vitality: grief work in different situations. Würzburg: Echter, 2017.
• Great Death Scenes in World Literature: A Spiritual Contemplation. Würzburg: Echter, 2018.
• Guilt and reconciliation. The last judgment and the greater hope. Würzburg: Echter, 2019.
• No more excuses! Thoughts on the necessary church reform. Würzburg: Echter, 2019.
• I am GOD - not man, not woman. A plea for gender equality - also in the church. Würzburg: Echter, 2020.

Essays on Karl May Research (selection)

• That is the scale of justice. Comments on Karl May's Beyond Novel. In: Yearbook of the Karl May Society . Husum 1988.
• And peace on earth! A theological interpretation. In: Yearbook of the Karl May Society . Husum 1989.
• What I saw there has never been seen before . On the theology of the silver lion . In: Yearbook of the Karl May Society . Husum 1990.
• Babel and Bible . Approaches to feminist theology in Karl May's redemption drama. In: Yearbook of the Karl May Society . Husum 1991.
• Then I also saw God himself coming . Theological about Ardistan and Jinnistan . In: Yearbook of the Karl May Society . Husum 1993.
• Heavenly Thoughts . Karl May's visionary symbolism. In: MUT . Forum for Politics, Culture and History , No. 320/1994. Asendorf 1994.
• I want home ... . Death scenes in May's colportage novels. In: Yearbook of the Karl May Society . Husum 1997.
• He kissed her with the ardor of a faithless woman . Love stories in Karl May's colportage novels. In: Yearbook of the Karl May Society . Husum 1998.
• May's cab parable and the Enneagram or the birth of God in the human soul . In: Yearbook of the Karl May Society . Husum 1999.
• I could destroy a lot of my opponents . On Karl May's letter to Adolf Schriefer. In: Yearbook of the Karl May Society . Husum 2000.
• Creation is not yet completed . The idea of ​​development in Karl May and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. In: Yearbook of the Karl May Society . Husum 2003.
• Karl May and the theory of evolution. Sources - intellectual historical background - contemporary environment . In: Yearbook of the Karl May Society . Husum 2003.
• The greatest power on earth . The eternally feminine in Karl May's later works. In: Yearbook of the Karl May Society . Husum 2006.
• Jean Valjean or The Prince of Misery . Hugos Les Misérables and Mays Kolportagewerk. In: The Observer on the Elbe , No. 7/8/9. Radebeul 2006/07.
• We Chinese are accused of having no heaven . The Taoist wisdom in the ›Friede‹ novel by Karl Mays. In: Yearbook of the Karl May Society . Husum 2007.
• ... and stroll through the gardens of Ikbal to forget all the suffering on earth . On the Garden of Eden topos in May's literary work. In: Yearbook of the Karl May Society . Husum 2008.
• We will meet again there… . The life and death philosophy of Karl May in the context of intellectual history. In: Yearbook of the Karl May Society . Husum 2011.
• The Karl May problem is the human problem. On the truth of May's autobiography, My Life and Striving . In: The Observer on the Elbe , No. 18/19. Radebeul 2012.
• She appeared as a bat ... Vampirism - a satirical motif in Karl May. In: The Observer on the Elbe , No. 23. Radebeul 2014.
• An undogmatic Christianity or how Christian did Karl May think? In: Yearbook of the Karl May Society . Husum 2017.
• All the world be your house of God . In: Christ in the Present , No. 36/2017. Freiburg i. Br. 2017.
• Karl May and Martin Luther . In: The Observer on the Elbe , No. 29/2017. Radebeul 2017.
• Religious symbolism in Karl May's late work. In: The Observer on the Elbe, No. 31. Radebeul 2018.

Web links

• Literature by and about Hermann Wohlgschaft in the catalog of the German National Library
• Eva Eisenhofer: When the joy of sex overcame dull death. In: DIE WELT online, November 22, 2015.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Claus Roxin : Accompanying word to Grosse Karl May biography. Paderborn 1994.
2. ↑ Karl May - Life and Work. A heavily revised and completely revised new version of Hermann Wohlgschaft's biography. In: The Observer on the Elbe, No. 3, December 2004.