Nelly Hoffman

So I guess for listeners who, you know, they don't know the background to, to Karl Barth in that regard, uh, so he had a, I mean, a pretty complex, um, domestic arrangement for a lot of his career.

He was married to Nelly.

I think they had five children.

Um, but his, uh, research assistant was a, a younger woman called Charlotte von, von Kirschbaum, uh, who also lived with them and, um, so th-there's a really superb scholarly biography of Karl Barth that was published by, um, Christiane Tietz, uh, T-I-E-T-Z, published by Oxford University Press.

Um, yeah, I think so that topic came up when, uh, so then in the conference there were, there were two different tours of the Barth houses 'cause it's not a huge house and there were a lot of people at the conference, and so those who signed up could see it.

It's not a big living space and living working space and, um, when, um, when we were given the tour and, and, um, um, a very generous host asked us, "Does anybody have any questions?" Um, the, the first question from one of the attendants was like, "How am I supposed to imagine what this was like and how this worked for this one man living with, with, uh, two women and his relationships with both of them?" Um, and so in effect, a, a sort of defense that emerged was, um, but Barth's work is so singularly important, and the only way that, that he thought that it could carry on was if he was in a relationship with both.

And, and it's really clear from the Tietz biography that it was in many ways a really miserable life for Nelly Barth and for Charlotte, um, and, um, I, I, yeah, I just find that in-in- like incredibly uncompelling, almost like an i- an idolatry of like, uh, a man's work-

Yeah