Intimate partners
Charlotte von Kirschbaum and Karl Barth: A Study in Biography and the History of Theology, by Suzanne Selinger
Were they lovers? That question haunts the relationship of Charlotte von Kirschbaum and Karl Barth. And it haunts Suzanne Selinger's book. The question can be neither easily stared down nor dismissed. During my seminary days Von Kirschbaum was refered to as the "second Mrs. Barth." It was assumed that Barth kept her as a live-in lover, and those who showed doubts about it were, as Selinger notes, considered painfully naïve.