Hellmut Wilhelm was born on 10 December 1905 in the Chinese city of Qingdao, which was then a German enclave due to the Kiautschou Bay concession of 1891.
Wilhelm first attended a preparatory school in Stuttgart, then began studying at the University of Frankfurt, where he also served as his father's assistant.
He taught German language and literature at Peking University and produced the Deutsch-Chinesische Wörterbuch, a well-known German-Chinese dictionary.
[1] In 1944, Wilhelm published a set of lectures on the ancient Chinese classic Yi Jing entitled Die Wandlung: Acht Vorträge zum I-Ging – subsequently translated into English as Change: Eight Lectures on the I Ching – which have become the most widely read introduction to the Yi Jing in a Western language.
[1] In 1948, Wilhelm moved to the United States to take up a position as a professor of Chinese at the University of Washington, where he taught until he was forced to retire in 1971 due to eye problems that affected his vision and reading abilities.