The Paul Tillich papers, located in the Andover-Harvard Theological Library at Harvard Divinity School, have recently been reorganized, and a new description of them has been written. View the updated finding aid.
This is an extensive finding aid; to facilitate searching it, there are links in the left-hand column to make it easier to navigate. Note that you can expand the Container List to move around the series more easily.
This finding aid gives detailed information about the collection, which includes drafts of some of Tillich's major publications, sermons, addresses, lectures, and articles. The collection also includes Tillich's early student notebooks, which represent his work at the Universities of Marburg, Frankfurt, and Berlin; his class notes and lecture notes from theology courses; and his World War II radio broadcasts.
The new finding aid includes references to a number of things that were not listed in the previous finding aid. This includes 100 boxes of correspondence from friends, colleagues, institutions, and dignitaries, as well as letters from people from all walks of life. About 100 of these letters were written in response to an article Tillich wrote for the Saturday Evening Post in June of 1958, entitled "The Lost Dimension in Religion.”
Photographs have also been added, and they include images of Tillich's parents, his sisters, his aunt, and other relatives; his university days (which include many images of his schoolmates); World War I (which documents his time as chaplain in the German army from 1914 to 1918); his teaching career in Germany and in the United States; his colleagues; trips he took to the American Southwest and to Japan; plus many formal and informal portraits of Tillich.
A personal series was also added. This series contains a 1905 German police report for the then 19-year-old Tillich for disturbing the peace with his loud singing (he was ordered to pay a fine of three marks); many honorary degrees; handwritten reports and notes from Tillich's time as chaplain in World War I; poems by Tillich, his wife Hannah, and others; a silver family chalice engraved with the date October 1, 1885; the Hanseatic Goethe Prize; and the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (Grand Cross and Knight Commander’s Cross).
Related collections have been separated from the Tillich pages:
- Hannah Tillich Papers
- Robert C. Kimball Papers (Kimball was executor of Tillich's literary estate, 1959-87)
- Literature about Paul Tillich
Please contact the Manuscripts and Archives Department with any questions by writing to archives@hds.harvard.edu.