Franz Hildebrandt

Returning to Scotland in 1968, Hildebrandt soon left the Methodist Church as a result of then current union talks with the Church of England, which would have required him once again to submit to renewed ordination. He joined the (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland, and was an active pastor and hospital chaplain in Edinburgh until he died in 1985. He was survived by his wife and three children. Nancy died on 12 July 2008, aged 89. David died on 16 June 2002.

Hildebrandt became well known in Methodist circles on account of his work on the theology and hymns of John and Charles Wesley. In contrast to Eberhard Bethge, Bonhoeffer's closest friend from later years, Hildebrandt deliberately eschewed the debate about Bonhoeffer's theology that ensued from the 1950s onwards.

Hildebrandt subsequently associated more and more closely with Methodism, and eventually became a minister in that church. He began to study the theological roots of Methodism in the work of John Wesley, and developed a theological perspective on Wesley (and Methodism in general) as a development of sound Reformation theology. He started work as a Methodist pastor in Romsey Town, south of Cambridge (1946), and later in Edinburgh (1951–1953).

Hildebrandt married Nancy Hope Wright in 1943; the couple had three children; David, Ruth and Esther.

Having made every effort for a number of years to find an academic post in England, including a further doctorate at the University of Cambridge (1941), Hildebrandt was eventually called to a teaching position at Drew University, a Methodist university in the USA, where he taught Biblical Theology from 1953 to 1967. During this time, he was asked to represent the World Methodist Council as an observer at the Second Vatican Council. He also received an honorary doctorate from the Kirchliche Hochschule Berlin during this period (1960).

Hildebrandt subsequently served for the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union his probationary time (Vikariat) in Dobrilugk and at the Kirche zum Heilsbronnen [de] in Schöneberg (a locality of Berlin), and his first posting as an assistant pastor in Kleinmachnow; he was ordained as a pastor in Berlin on June 18, 1933. Since his mother was of Jewish descent, he was affected by the introduction of the so-called Aryan Paragraph in some of the Protestant Churches in Germany after the Nazis came to power in 1933. Hildebrandt resigned from his post as a sign of protest against this church measure and left Germany to join his friend, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was pastor to the German congregation in London at the time.

Franz Hildebrandt (February 20, 1909, in Berlin – November 25, 1985, in Edinburgh) was a German-born Lutheran, and later Methodist, pastor and theologian, forced into exile during World War II, and subsequently active in the United Kingdom and the USA.

Hildebrandt was the son of the art professor Edmund Hildebrandt (1872–1939) and his wife Ottilie, née Schlesinger (1872–1952). He studied theology in Berlin, Marburg, and Tübingen (1926–1930). During his time in Berlin, he became a close friend of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In 1930, he was awarded a licentiate (comparable to a Ph.D.) by the University of Berlin; his first book (EST: Das Lutherische Prinzip) was based on his doctoral dissertation.