Hermann Sasse


Hermann Otto Erich Sasse was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian, and author. He was considered one of the foremost confessional Lutheran theologians of the 20th century.
Born in Sonnewalde, Germany, Sasse began his career under the influence of the theological liberalism of his teachers, such as Adolf Harnack. He was ordained on 13 June 1920 in St Matthew's Church in Berlin and thereafter served several parishes in Brandenburg, He spent a year as an exchange student at Hartford Theological Seminary in the United States, where he earned a master's degree. Sasse returned to Germany to take up a teaching position at University of Erlangen.
During this period, he became an active participant in the ecumenical movement. In the early 1930s, he emerged as a vocal critic of the National Socialist Party and Germany's new chancellor, Adolf Hitler. While he did not sign the 1934 Barmen Declaration, he did author, with Dietrich Bonhoeffer and others, the first draft of the lesser known Bethel Confession of 1933.
In 1949, Sasse emigrated to Adelaide, South Australia, where he served on the faculty of Luther Seminary of the United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Australia, retiring in 1969. He died in a fire at his home in 1976.

Selected bibliography