Joachim Wach

Who was Joachim Wach?

Joachim Ernst Adolphe Felix Wach was a German religious scholar from Chemnitz, who emphasised a distinction between the history of religion and the philosophy of religion.

He was descended on both sides from the famous Mendelssohn family, both the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn and the composer Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. He shared the latter's love of music and was said to have inherited some important papers and relics of his ancestor. After schooling in Dresden, he enlisted in the German army in 1916, where he served as a cavalry officer. After World War I, he studied at the Universities of Munich, Berlin, Freiburg, and Leipzig, where he received his Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1922. He taught at Leipzig University. His Habilitationsschrift, entitled Religionswissenschaft, is widely considered a landmark document in the field of the History of Religions.

Though his family had long since converted from Judaism to Christianity, he was nonetheless driven out of his teaching post by the Nazis in the early 1930s. He was able to emigrate to the United States, where he took up a post at Brown University, first as Visiting Professor of Biblical Literature and then as Associate Professor. Raised as a Lutheran, he became an Episcopalian shortly after coming to the United States. He was granted United States citizenship in 1946.