Walter Ehrlich

Walter Ehrlich (16 May 1896 in Berlin – 26 December 1968 in Bad Ragaz, Canton of St. Gallen, Switzerland) was a German philosopher.

Walter Ehrlich was born on 16 May 1896 as the son of the merchant, Jakob Ehrlich, and his wife, Nina Ehrlich, née Flatow, in Berlin. He attended the Königlich Französisches Gymnasium (Royal French Gymnasium) in Berlin until Easter of 1914. After that, he studied mathematics and theoretical physics at the Technische Hochschule in Berlin-Charlottenburg. In 1915 he joined the military and participated in the eastern campaign until October 1915. During this time, he contracted a prolonged illness, which continued until the end of the summer of 1917. In October 1917 he enrolled in the University of Berlin to study philosophy and broke off his studies at the end of 1918. In Berlin, Ehrlich attended lectures by the professors Ernst Cassirer, Max Dessoir, Benno Erdmann, Alois Riehl, Friedrich Julius Schmidt and Ernst Troeltsch. After February 1919, he began philosophical and literary studies as a regular student at the University of Heidelberg under Heinrich Maier, Heinrich Rickert, Hans Driesch, Karl Jaspers, Max von Waldberg, Friedrich Gundolf (Friedrich Leopold Gundelfinger), Friedrich Neumann and Leonardo Olschki. Heinrich Maier, philosopher who taught at the University of Heidelberg since 1918, stimulated and encouraged Ehrlich with his doctoral dissertation, Der Freiheitsbegriff bei Kant und Schopenhauer (The Concept of Freedom in Kant and Schopenhauer).