Helmut Gollwitzer

Born in Pappenheim, Bavaria, Gollwitzer studied Protestant theology in Munich, Erlangen, Jena, and Bonn (1928–1932); he later completed a doctorate under Karl Barth in Basel (1937), writing on the understanding of the eucharist in Martin Luther and John Calvin.

He had been Karl Barth's first choice as his successor in Basel, but the university authorities turned him down due to what they called 'his unclear attitude to the Soviet Union'.

Known as a close friend of Rudi Dutschke, whose wife studied with Gollwitzer, and a pastor to Ulrike Meinhof, he was prominently involved in the political debates ensuing in the late 1960s and 1970s.

[2] In the 1950s, one of his students at the University of Bonn, Paul Oestreicher, wrote in The Independent that Gollwitzer was a pastor at heart, being equally concerned with students' personal issues like a "broken love affair" as with matters such as "the betrayal of Christian values" in Bonn society.

[5][6] He opposed United States engagement in Vietnam, in the arms race, and was a staunch critic of capitalism.