Gottfried Leonhard Wilhelm Fritschel was a leading theologian of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Iowa and Other States. He was born 19 December 1836 in Nürnberg, now in Germany, the son of Martin Heinrich Fritschel, a merchant, and Katharina Esther Kässler. He followed his older brother, Conrad Sigmund Fritschel, to the Lutheran Missionary Institute at Neuendettelsau. In 1857, Gottfried immigrated to the United States and was ordained in the ministry of the Lutheran Iowa Synod. He was pastor at St. Sebald, Iowa, and a teacher in the Iowa Synod Seminary (later Wartburg Seminary), which had moved to St. Sebald in 1857.
[Gottfried was joined at the seminary by his brother Conrad Sigmund Fritschel; both were teachers there for thirty-one years, and the two were referred to as par nobile fratrum (Lat. ‘a noble pair of brothers’).]
In 1858, Gottfried Fritschel married Elisabeth Eleanor Köberle in St. Sebald, Iowa, and together they had ten children, with five sons entering the ministry of the Iowa Synod.
In 1874, Gottfried accepted a call to a congregation in Mendota, Illinois, and the seminary moved with him. Gottfried edited the Iowa Synod periodicals Kirchenblatt (1858-1873) and Kirchliches Zeitschrift (1876-1889). He was fluent in English and also learned to speak Swedish and Norwegian. As a theologian, Gottfried was prominent in American Lutheranism’s 19th-century doctrinal debates, notably against C. F. W. Walther of the Missouri Synod, and in the question of justification debated among Swedish- and Norwegian-American Lutherans.
He died 13 July 1889, in Mendota, Illinois.
Source: Fritschel, Herman L., 1869-. Biography of Professor Dr. Conrad Sigmund . . . and of Professor Dr. Gottfried Leonhard Wilhelm Fritschel: “A Par Nobile Fratrum.” Milwaukee: [s.n.], 1951.
Known Monographs
Fritschel, Gottfried, and Wilhelm Löhe. Passionsbetrachtungen. Nünberg, G. Löhe, 1868.
Fritschel, Gottfried. Geschichte der christlichen Missionen unter den Indianern im 17 und 18 Jahrhundert. Nebst einer Beschreibung der Religion der Indianer, Etc. Nürnberg: G. Löhe, 1870.
Fritschel, Gottfried. Die Religion der geheimen Gesellschaften. Wartburg Pub. House, 1890.
Fritschel, Gottfried. Theophilus. Eine Mitgabe für Konfirmanden. Waverly, Iowa : Wartburg Pub. House, 1891.
Fritschel, Gottfried. Die Lehre der Missouri-Synode von der Prädestination. Aus ihren eigenen Publikationen dargestellt. 2. Aufl, Wartburg Pub. House, 1894.
Fritschel, Gottfried. Traktat von Gnadenwahl. Veröffentlicht auf Beschluss der Evangel.-Luth. Synode von Iowa und andern Staaten. 3. Aufl, Druck des Wartburg Publishing House, 1895.