Karl Adam (22 October 1876 – 1 April 1966) was a German Catholic theologian, known for his work in the fields of ecclesiology and Christology. He spent most of his academic career at the University of Tübingen, where he published work influenced by Lebensphilosophie and German Romanticism including The Spirit of Catholicism (1924), which argued for an understanding of the church as a community and for a revitalisation of Christian faith. Following Adolf Hitler's rise to power in 1933, Adam sought rapprochement between the Nazi regime and the German Catholic Church. In pursuit of this aim, he published work during the Nazi era that sought to reconcile aspects of Catholic and nationalist thought, defended Nazi anti-Jewish legislation and expressed anti-Semitic sentiments. His later work included The Christ of Faith (1954), a collection of lectures on Christology.
Life and career
Early life and education
Karl Adam was born in , near Regensburg in the Upper Palatinate, Bavaria, on 22 October 1876. He had a brother, August Adam, who would also become a priest and would later in life become a critic of the Nazi regime. Soon after being ordained a priest of the Diocese of Regensburg in 1900, he matriculated at the University of Munich, studying historical and systematic theology. He worked on the Latin Fathers in Munich and received his doctorate in 1904, submitting a thesis on the ecclesiology of Tertullian, and received his habilitation in 1908, completing a Habilitationsschrift on the Eucharistic theology of Augustine. In this period Adam's thought was influenced by Ignaz von Dollinger, Albert Ehrhard and Joseph Schnitzer.
Early career
Adam taught from 1908 until 1917 at the Wilhelmsgymnasium in Munich and was a tutor to the sons of Rupprecht, Crown Prince of Bavaria. In 1910 he published an article critical of Pius X's requirement that priests take the oath against modernism, which he described as "the official death notice regarding all Catholic scholarship" in Germany. This led to an investigation by the Holy Office, which ended when Crown Prince Rupprecht intervened on Adam's behalf. In 1917 he completed monographs on Pope Callixtus I's instruction on penance and on Augustine's account of forgiveness of sins. In the same year he began teaching at the University of Strasbourg, but was required to leave Strasbourg the following year due to a provision of the Treaty of Versailles which prohibited Germans from holding positions in the French civil service. He then moved to the University of Tübingen, where he took up a professorship in systematic theology. His work in the years from 1900 to 1918 focused on historical theology.
From 1919 Adam's work dealt predominantly with systematic theology. In these years he advocated ecumenism and criticised structures and hierarchies in the church that he saw as outmoded. Upon taking the position at Tübingen in 1919 he publicly declared his intention to continue the tradition of the Tübingen school, which emphasised scholarly dialogue between Catholic and Protestant theologians. He would remain at Tübingen for three decades, where his work focused on the critique of the church, the critique of modernity, and the development of a contemporary theology. In this period he also drew on the tradition of Lebensphilosophie, a school of thought rooted in German Romanticism that emphasised the interconnectedness of life. This aspect of his work, along with his use of the German language rather than Latin and his emphasis on the humanity of Jesus, once again drew scrutiny from the Holy Office, and his book The Spirit of Catholicism (1924) was threatened with placement on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum in 1932. Eventually, however, he was informed that neither The Spirit of Catholicism nor Christ Our Brother (1927) or The Son of God (1933) would be condemned provided he made certain revisions to the texts, which he did in 1933.
Nazi era
Adam was one of several German Catholic theologians who sought rapprochement between the church and Nazi Germany after Adolf Hitler's rise to power. He saw his role as that of a mediator between the church and the Nazi regime, and envisioned a new relationship between the church and state in which the church would exert a greater influence as part of a corporatist or communitarian system. While other Catholic theologians at Tübingen did not publicly oppose the Nazi regime, Adam was unusual in publicly seeking to mediate between the church and the regime. Nonetheless, he never became a member of the Nazi Party.