Johannes von Walter

Johannes Wilhelm von Walter (born November 7, 1876 in Saint Petersburg , † January 5, 1940 in Bad Nauheim ) was a Lutheran theologian and professor of church history .

Life

Johannes von Walter was a son of Reinhold Wilhelm von Walter . After graduating from high school in 1893, Johannes von Walter initially trained as a missionary for a year at the mission seminar in Neuendettelsau before he began his studies. From 1894 to 1901 he studied history and theology in Dorpat , Leipzig and Göttingen . In 1901 he received his doctorate with a thesis on the life of Robert von Abrissel and completed his habilitation in the same year. From 1901 to 1909 he taught as a private lecturer in Göttingen. In 1909 he became an associate professor at the University of Breslau and stayed there until the outbreak of war in 1914 when he was drafted. In 1917 he became a full professor for church history at the University of Vienna . From 1921 until his death, Johannes von Walter taught at the University of Rostock . Here he unfolded the history of the church as a history of piety in Christianity . He started from piety as the most important factor for the progress of church history. His research and teaching focus were the Middle Ages and the Reformation . Walter's most important student was Ernst Wolf .

In the church struggle from 1933 he belonged to the Lutheran part of the Confessing Church and in 1934, together with Helmuth Schreiner and Friedrich Brunstäd, became representatives of the Rostock theological faculty in the Lutheran Council .

In addition to his university duties, from 1917 to 1925 he published the journal Biblical Time and Issues of Faith, Worldview and Biblical Research , and from 1929 to 1935 he was chairman of the Evangelical Working Group in Mecklenburg .

In 1913 the University of Göttingen awarded him an honorary doctorate .

Works (selection)

The essence of religion according to Erasmus and Luther , Leipzig 1906.
Germanism and Christianity , Langensalza 1926.
The history of Christianity , 2 vol., Gütersloh 1932–1938, (2nd edition 1938–1939).
Luther's Theology , Gütersloh 1940.
Christianity and piety. Collected lectures and essays , Gütersloh 1941.

literature

Baltic Biographical Archive I 400, 25–26; 107-108. (WBIS)
Ernst Wolf: Johannes von Walter in memoriam. Academic commemorative speech of March 5, 1940. In: Heinrich Holze (Ed.): The Theological Faculty Rostock under two dictatorships , Münster 2004, pp. 67–82.
Gert Haendler : "Forgotten theologians"? In memory of Friedrich Brunstäd and Johannes von Walter . In: Heinrich Holze (ed.): The Theological Faculty Rostock under two dictatorships , Münster 2004, pp. 109–116.
Lexicon of persons on German Protestantism , Göttingen 2006, p. 251.
Hermann Michael Niemann (ed.): Theology in times of change. Rostock theologians in the first half of the 20th century , Leipzig 2017.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME	Walter, Johannes von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Walter, Johannes Wilhelm von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Lutheran theologian and professor of church history
DATE OF BIRTH	November 7, 1876
PLACE OF BIRTH	St. Petersburg
DATE OF DEATH	January 5, 1940
Place of death	Bad Nauheim