Tillich was born in Germany, in 1886. From 1904 to 1909 he studied at universities in Berlin, Tübingen, and Halle, and in 1910 he received the Ph. D. degree from the University of Breslau. He was ordained in the Lutheran Church in Berlin in 1912 and served as an army chaplain on the Western front during World War I. From 1924-25 Tillich was Associate Professor of Theology at the University of Marburg, from 1925-29 Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the Dresden Institute of Technology, and from 1929-33, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Frankfurt.