Gustav Knak

KNAK, Gustav. b. Berlin, 12 July 1806; d. Dünmow, Lower Pomerania (now Duninowo, Poland), 27 June 1878. After the death of his father in 1819 Knak lived with an uncle at Mittenwalde, attending the Friedrich-Wilhelms Gymnasium in Berlin and later studying theology at the Friedrich-Wilhelms Universität (1826-29). After some time as a teacher of religious studies he became pastor at Wusterwitz, Lower Pomerania (now Polish Ostrowice) (1834-50), and then pastor of a Bohemian Lutheran congregation in Berlin. He had strong and old-fashioned views: he denied the Copernican theory that the earth went round the sun because it was not in the Bible (see his Die kopernicanische Wahrheit und das...