Ulrich ichardErnst Simon (21 September 1913 in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

– 31 July 1997 in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

) was an Anglican theologian of German Jewish origin. Simon had known Thomas Mann during his childhood in Berlin and Dietrich Bonhoeffer was another near neighbour. Simon's family were non-practising Jews but their lives were at risk from the Nazis and, after flirting with the Communists, Ulrich Simon was sent to England in 1933. His father, the composer

James Simon James or Jim Simon may refer to: * James Simon (composer) (1880–1944), German composer, pianist and musicologist * James Simon (journalist), journalism professor at Fairfield University, Fairfield, Connecticut * James D. Simon (1897–1982), Loui ...

, was murdered in

Auschwitz concentration camp Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

in 1944. His older brother, Jörn Martin Simon, died in the

Moscow Trials The Moscow trials were a series of show trials held by the Soviet Union between 1936 and 1938 at the instigation of Joseph Stalin. They were nominally directed against "Trotskyists" and members of "Right Opposition" of the Communist Party of th ...

in 1937. His mother Anna Levy Simon, escaped to Switzerland where she died about 1975. She was the sister of noted Roman Law scholar,

Ernst Levy Ernst Levy (18 November 1895 – 19 April 1981) was a Swiss musicologist, composer, pianist and conductor. Life Born in Basel, Switzerland, Levy studied with Egon Petri and Raoul Pugno.. Entry: "Ernst Levy". David Dubal describes him as an "un ...

. Simon converted to Anglicanism and was made a deacon in 1938 and ordained priest in 1939. He was University Lecturer,

King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...

, 1945–60, Reader in Theology 1960–72, Professor of Christian Literature 1972–80, Dean 1978–80.''The Living Church''; Vol. 176, 1978 Ulrich Simon was a man of many paradoxes. He wrote two books on heaven, Heaven in the Christian Tradition (1958) and The Ascent to Heaven (1961), and the hope that it embodies. Yet there was a side of him which was deeply pessimistic. The phrase "sick humanity" occurs frequently in his autobiography, and he was deeply distrustful of liberalism, both the ineffective liberalism, as he saw of it, of his German childhood, and the theological liberalism of more recent times. Yet there was always hope, perhaps most in playing or listening to the string quartets of his beloved Haydn and Mozart; his last act, the day before he died, was to get his violin restrung.

Works

* ''Theology of Salvation'' a study of Isaiah 40-55 (1953) * ''Heaven in the Christian Tradition'' (1958) * ''The Ascent to Heaven'' (1961) * ''The end is not yet: a study in Christian eschatology'' (1964) * ''A Theology of Auschwitz'' (1967) * ''Sitting in Judgement'' autobiography (1978)

References

1913 births 1997 deaths German Anglicans Annihilationists Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United Kingdom Alumni of Lincoln Theological College Deans of King's College London Academics of King's College London {{England-theologian-stub