Otto von Gerlach

Who was Otto von Gerlach?

Karl Friedrich Otto von Gerlach was a German theologian and pastor from Berlin.

He was the youngest of five children of Carl Friedrich Leopold von Gerlach, first Lord Mayor of Berlin, and Agnes von Raumer, and brother of Ernst Ludwig von Gerlach and Ludwig Friedrich Leopold von Gerlach.

Otto von Gerlach first studied law, then theology in Berlin, Heidelberg and Göttingen. He was influenced by the Great Awakening movement and was a member of the Christlich-deutsche Tischgesellschaft of Adolph von Thadden.

In 1835 he started as a minister of the Evangelical Church in Prussia at the St. Elisabeth Church in Berlin. In the worker district he laid the groundwork for modern social work, for example, an association of unemployed workers. He pushed successfully for the building of the Elisabeth Hospital, and king Frederick William IV of Prussia let him assist in the building of the model hospital Bethanien.

In 1847, the king appointed him 4th minister of the Supreme Parish and Collegiate Church. In 1848 he became Konsistorialrat, in 1849 professor at the University of Berlin.

He married Pauline von Blankenburg on 23 June 1835, with whom he had ten children, six of which died during his lifetime.