Wilhelm Kamlah was born in Hohendorf an der Bode on 3 September 1905. He studied music, history, theology and philosophy in Göttingen, Tübingen, Heidelberg and Marburg, for instance under Rudolf Bultmann and Martin Heidegger. His doctoral thesis on early medieval comments on the Apocalypse of John, which was supervised by the historian Percy Ernst Schramm, was accepted in 1931. In 1932, he started working as an assistant at the Historisches Seminar at the University of Göttingen, until being banned from teaching for political reasons (1934). In 1939, he was called up for military service, earning his habilitation (post-doctoral qualification) from Königsberg University in 1940. In 1943, he was badly wounded while serving in Orel at the eastern front. Kamlah started teaching philosophy at the University of Göttingen after changing his habilitation there in 1945. In 1950, he was appointed a professor (apl. Prof.) there, followed by a professorship (a. o. Professur) at the Technische Hochschule Hannover, which he accepted in 1951. In 1954, he was appointed to the chair of philosophy at the University of Erlangen, where he remained until his retirement in 1970. Wilhelm Kamlah died in Erlangen on 24 September 1976.
Wilhelm Kamlah’s approach is based on a new concept of philosophical anthropology that - in critically debating the positions of Gehlen, Heidegger and Bultmann - seeks to make existential questions accessible to rational thought. From 1962, Kamlah worked closely with the mathematician and logician Paul Lorenzen, who was appointed to a professorship at the University of Erlangen at Kamlah’s instigation. As an alternative to the critical theory expounded by the Frankfurt School and to the logical empiricism of analytical philosophy, the two philosophers developed what became known as the Erlangen or methodological school of constructivism.
The collection encompasses 48 folders containing an average of approx. 120 sheets each. It includes manuscripts, documents as well as excerpts and bibliographies, reviews of his publications as well as mainly technical letters. The collection has been catalogued in full (Search the collections).