Paul Tillich (1886-1965) was born to a minister of the Prussian State Church in what is now Poland. He and his family moved to Berlin when he was young, and he studied successively at the universities of Berlin, Tübingen and Halle-Wittenberg.
Receiving his Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Breslau in 1911, Tillich was awarded his Licentiate of Theology at Halle-Wittenberg and was ordained the following year. He served as a German army chaplain in World War I, and taught theology at various German universities until 1933, when conflict with the Nazis led to him accept a position at the Union Theological Seminary in New York, where he did much of his most important work and would stay until 1955.
