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Friday, April 11, 2008

Otto von Zech

I've located a run of von Zech's magazine in the Chicago area. If anyone is interested in helping with photocopies, please contact me at BWSchulz2 @yahoo. com.

I need someone actually in the Chicago area willing to make copies. The volumes are not available on interlibrary loan. They are very rare.

For those who do not know: von Zech became interested in Zion's Watch Tower about 1885 while he was pastor of an Evangelical Lutheran Church. He translated The Plan of the Ages into German and was the first editior of a German language edition of Zion's Watch Tower. He also wrote a small book published by Zion's Watch Tower in 1885. It is not listed in any bibliography and is exceptionally rare. He and his son in law, Joseph Bryant, left off association with Russell in 1894. The booklet Harvest Siftings (1894) deals with this controversy.

Zech eventually was re-ordained by Paton's Larger Hope Association and became an Adventist-leaning Unitarian Unversalist.There is virtually no documentation, beyond two issues of Zion's Watch Tower. Having copies of his German-language magazine would help my research dramatically. Any offers of help?

1 comment:

RR said...

According to my notes, the source escapes me now, but I have it documented:

"Joining th movement in 1885, Von Zech became editor of Zion's Wach Thurm, the German version of Zion's atch Tower. This he replaced with Die Ernte-sichel (The Harvest Sickle) in 1891, which he edited for two decades, even setting its type. he also translated Russell's major tracts into German. Later breaking with Russell, he took his press and founded in 1900 a communitarian settlement in Virginia called Friedheim. Later he moved to Philadelphia, where he continued Die Ernte-Sichel until his death in 1906"