| 1900 | 11 February: Hans-Georg Gadamer (HGG) is born in Marburg as the son of Johannes Gadamer (1867-1928), a Privatdozent for pharmaceutical chemistry, and his wife Emma, née Gewiese (1869-1904). |
| 1902 | The family moves to Breslau, where HGG’s father takes up a professorship at the university. |
| 1918 | HGG completes his Abitur at Breslau’s Gymnasium zum Heiligen Geist. |
| 1919 | In the summer semester, Johannes Gadamer transitions to a professorship at the University of Marburg. Starting in the winter semester, HGG begins his studies also at the University of Marburg. His instructors are Paul Natorp and Nicolai Hartmann in philosophy, Richard Hamann in art history, Ernst-Robert Curtius in Romance literature and Ernst Elster and Friedrich Vogt in German literature. He begins his long-term friendship with Gerhard Krüger. |
| 1921 | HGG spends the summer semester in Munich. He attends classes in art history from Heinrich Wölfflin as well as lectures and seminars in philosophy from Moritz Geiger and Alexander Pfänder. He first encounters Karl Löwith. |
| 1922 | 17 May: HGG completes his dissertation summa cum laude under the direction of Paul Natorp with the title The Essence of Pleasure according to the Platonic Dialogues (Das Wesen der Lust nach den platonischen Dialogen). August: HGG falls ill with polio and must spend several months in isolation. In the fall he reads Husserl’s Logische Untersuchungen as well as Heidegger’s manuscript Anzeige der hermeneutischen Situation by way of Paul Natorp. HGG resolves to transfer to Freiburg to hear to Heidegger lecture. |
| 1923 | April: marriage to Frida Kratz (1898-1979). April – August: HGG spends the summer semester in Freiburg, where he attends a seminar from Husserl in addition to classes from Heidegger. After the end of the semester, Heidegger hosts him for nearly a month in his hut in Todtnauberg. For the winter semester HGG returns to Marburg, where Heidegger has taken up an associate professorship. |
| 1925 | In February Heidegger rejects HGG’s initial proposed Habilitationschrift dedicated to Plato and Aristotle. In the summer semester HGG begins a normal course of studies in classical philology with Paul Friedländer and Ernst Lommatzsch. |
| 1926 | 8 October: Birth of HGG’s and Frida’s daughter Jutta, with Karl Löwith as godfather. |
| 1927 | 20 July: state examination (Staatsexamen) in classical philology. After a successful exam, Heidegger offers to supervise HGG’s Habilitation in philosophy. |
| 1929 | 16 February: practice lecture on the topic “Hegelian and Ancient Dialectics” (“Hegelsche und antike Dialektik”). 23 February: Habilitation in philosophy directed by Martin Heidegger with the title Interpretations of Plato’s Philebos (Interpretationen zum platonischen Philebos). Inaugural lecture on the topic “The Role of Friendship in Philosophical Ethics” (“Die Rolle der Freundschaft in der philosophischen Ethik”). In the summer semester, HGG holds his first Marburg lecture course as a Privatdozent with the topic: “Problems of Ethics” (“Probleme der Ethik”). |
| 1930 | 10 -12 July: At the invitation of his teacher Paul Friedländer, HGG participates in a conference on the problem of the classics and antiquity organized by the Hellenist scholar Werner Jaeger in Naumburg. He first encounters Helmut Kuhn. |
| 1931 | HGG’s Habilitation appears under the title Plato’s Dialectical Ethics (Platos Dialektische Ethik) in a version revised for Felix Meiner Verlag Leipzig. |
| 1933 | 30 January: Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany 24 March: The Enabling Act is passed to grant Hitler dictatorial powers. April: HGG travels to Paris, where he meets Alexander Kojève and Leo Strauss. 21 April: Heidegger becomes rector of the University of Freiburg and claims allegiance to the supremacy of Adolf Hitler in his opening speech as rector. 24 August: HGG receives a lectureship in Marburg for ethics and aesthetics with a monthly stipend of 300 Reichsmark. 11 November: the Vow of Allegiance of the Professors of the German Universities and High-Schools to Adolf Hitler and the National-Socialistic State is sworn during a public announcement of the National-Socialist Teachers’ Association of Saxony in Leipzig, one day before the national elections and people’s vote for Germany to exit the League of Nations. As was the case for many professors and docents at the University of Marburg—among them Ernst Elster, Ernst Lommatzsch, Gerhard Krüger und Werner Krauss—HGG is one of the 900 signers. |
| 1934 | 24 January: In Marburg HGG delivers a lecture about “Plato and the Poets” for the Society of the Friends of the humanistic Gymnasium, led by Rudolf Bultmann. The lecture appears in print as a pamphlet from Klostermann Verlag in the same year. In the summer an subsequent winter-semester (1934/35) HGG substitutes the professorship of the philosopher Richard Kroner at the University of Kiel. Due to his Jewish heritage, Kroner has been dismissed by the Nazis. |
| 1935 | April: HGGs application for the title of extraordinary professor at the University of Marburg is deferred. October: HGG attends a national-socialist docent academy in Weichselmünde near Danzig led by the jurist Willi Gleispach. November: HGG travels to Frankfurt am Main to hear Heidegger’s lectures on the “Origin of the Work of Art” (“Ursprung des Kunstwerks”). |
| 1937 | 20 April: HGG receives the title of extraordinary professor. October: two-week stay in Heidegger’s hut in Todtnauberg along with Gerhard Krüger and Werner Bröcker. |
| 1938 | In the summer semester and subsequent winter semester (1938/39) HGG substitutes the professorship of Arnold Gehlen at the University of Leipzig. |
| 1939 | 1 January: as Gehlen’s successor HGG is appointed as ordinary professor for philosophy and director of the philosophy department at the University of Leipzig. 8 July: Inaugural lecture: “Hegel and the Historical Spirit” (“Hegel und der geschichtliche Geist”). 1 September: with Germany’s attack on Poland, the Second World War begins. |
| 1940 | January: HGG delivers a lecture at the German Institute of Florence: “Brot und Wein as an Expression of Hölderlin’s Historical Consciousness.” Offered professorships in Marburg, Münster and Dresden (declined). 7 October: lecture in Marburg: “Hölderlin’s Positioning toward Antiquity and the Historical Philosophy of German Idealism.” |
| 1941 | 29 May: lecture in the German Institute of Paris: “People and History in the Thinking of Herder” (“Volk und Geschichte im Denken Herders”). July: HGG visits Heidegger in Todtnauberg along with Max Kommerell and Gerhard Krüger. November: acceptance into the Saxon Academy of the Sciences. |
| 1942 | November: lecture in front of the members of the Goethe Society of Leipzig: “Goethe and Philosophy.” |
| 1943 | February: HGG contributes to a Festschrift for the 60th birthday of the Heidelberg professor Karl Jaspers, who has been suspended since 1937. The collection remains unprinted. 7 June: 100th anniversary of the death of the poet Friedrich Hölderlin. HGG participates in the memorial conference in Tübingen, where he speaks about “Hölderlin and Antiquity.” October: Together with friends and colleagues, HGG intervenes for the Marburg Romance language scholar Werner Krauss, who has been condemned to death for his activities in a communist resistance group, “The Red Orchestra” (“Die rote Kapelle”). The death sentence is commuted to imprisonment as a result. December: downtown Leipzig is destroyed by the Allies’ bombardment. |
| 1944 | 12 January: lecture on “Prometheus and the Tragedy of Culture” in front of the Dante Society in Dresden. The lecture results in a complaint to the rector of the University of Leipzig concerning HGG’s alleged “political Catholicism,” which however carries no consequences. 12 March – 4 April: lecturing trip to Portugal. Encounters with Ortega y Gasset and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker. 25 July: Max Kommerell dies in Marburg. On 5 August HGG delivers a memorial speech for his deceased friend at the University of Marburg.1 |
| 1945 | 18 April: Leipzig is occupied by US troops. 8 May: capitulation of the German Reich. 2 July: departure of the Americans from Leipzig, start of Soviet occupation. 5 July: HGG is elected dean of the philological-historical faculty. |
| 1946 | 26 January: HGG is elected rector of the University of Leipzig. 5 February: festive ceremony to reopen the University of Leipzig. HGG lectures “On the Originality of Science” (“Über die Ursprünglichkeit der Wissenschaft”). 1 July: celebratory speech for the 300th anniversary of the birth of Leibniz. October: Trip to West Germany. |
| 1947 | 14 August: after increasing difficulties with the Soviet occupiers and the German Socialist Unity Party’s university administration, HGG announces his resignation from the office of rector at the university on 1 October. 1 October: start of teaching role at the University of Frankfurt am Main, at first as a substitute, then as an ordinary professor starting 1 July 1948. |
| 1948 | 30 March – April: Trip to Argentina, where HGG lectures on “The Borders of Historical Reason” at a philosophy assembly in Mendoza. He re-encounters his friends and colleagues Karl Löwith and Helmut Kuhn, who were forced to leave Germany in the 1930s. |
| 1949 | 28 April: HGG is offered the professorship of Karl Jaspers in Heidelberg, which he accepts on 2 September. From winter semester 1949/50 until winter semester 1950/51 HGG continues as a professor in Frankfurt in addition to his work in Heidelberg. |
| 1950 | June: Divorce from Frida Gadamer and move to Heidelberg 8 July: marriage to Käte Lekebusch (1921-2006) |
| 1951 | On HGGs initiative, Karl Löwith accepts a professorship in Heidelberg, after having spent time in exile in Italy, Japan, and New York’s New School for Social Research. 27 May: HGG is accepted into the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences. In his acceptance speech he announces his theory of hermeneutics. |
| 1952 | Together with Helmut Kuhn, HGG founds the quarterly journal Philosophische Rundschau, a journal for philosophical critique. Käte Gadamer takes over the role as editor. |
| 1955 | Lecture “What is Truth?” (“Was ist Wahrheit?”) in Frankfurt am Main. |
| 1956 | 27 September: Birth of HGG’s and Käte’s daughter Andrea. |
| 1957 | 19 – 30 November: HGG delivers the Cardinal Mercier Lectures on “The Problem of Historical Consciousness” at the University of Louvain, Belgium. |
| 1958 | HGG takes over the leadership of the newly created DFG-Senate Commission for conceptual history, a position he holds until 1967. Lecture at the international assembly of aesthetics in Venice: “The Questionableness of Aesthetic Consciousness.” |
| 1960 | Publication of Truth and Method (Wahrheit und Methode. Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik). February: a Festschrift edited by Dieter Henrich and Walter Schulz, Die Gegenwart der Griechen im neueren Denken, appears for HGGs 60th birthday. |
| 1962 | HGG founds the International Hegel Association. |
| 1966 | As president of the General Society for Philosophy in Germany (1962-1968) HGG organizes an assembly on “The Problem of Language” in Heidelberg. |
| 1968 | 14 February: Retirement. HGG nonetheless carries out his duties as professor in Heidelberg until winter semester 1969/70. HGG is elected president of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences. He carries out the office until 1972. First lecturing trip to the USA, where HGG participates in multiple conferences, including a conference on Schleiermacher at Vanderbilt University. 2 September: HGG delivers the opening lecture of the 14th International Conference for Philosophy: “The Power of Reason.” He first encounters Karl Popper. |
| 1969 | April: second lecturing trips to North America (USA and Canada). He holds regular guest professor positions at various North American universities up until the year 1988. 20 – 21 June: HGG organizes a colloquium in Heidelberg for the 80th birthday of Martin Heidegger. |
| 1970 | 11 February: 70th birthday. A two volume Festschrift appears under the title: Hermeneutik und Dialektik. |
| 1971 | Election to the Order Pour le Mérite for Sciences and the Arts. Reuchlin Prize from the city of Pforzheim. Publication of the volume Hermeneutics and Ideology Critique (Hermeneutik und Ideologiekritik), which contains the most important testimonies of critical engagement with HGG’s hermeneutics by Jürgen Habermas, Karl-Otto Apel and others as well as meta-critical replies from HGG. Publication of Hegel’s Dialectics: Five Hermeneutical Studies. |
| 1972 | The first volume of the seven-volume series New Anthropology appears, edited by HGG in collaboration with the Berlin medical doctor Paul Vogler. |
| 1973 | HGG publishes Who Am I and Who Are You? (Wer bin ich und wer bist Du?), a commentary on Paul Celan’s poetry sequence Atemkristall. |
| 1976 | 26 May: Martin Heidegger dies. 16 December: Memorial for Heidegger in Freiburg, in which HGG takes part with his lecture “Being, Spirit, God” (“Sein, Geist, Gott”). |
| 1977 | HGG publishes the autobiographical writing Philosophical Teaching Years (Philosophische Lehrjahre) and a treatise on philosophy of art Art as Play, Symbol and Festival (Kunst als Spiel, Symbol und Fest). |
| 1978 | Publication of the Academy treatise The Idea of the God Between Plato and Aristotle. |
| 1979 | 13 June: Hegel Prize from the city of Stuttgart. October: Sigmund Freud Prize for scholarly prose from the German Academy for Language and Poetry in Darmstadt. Honorary doctorate from the Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. |
| 1980 | 80th birthday. In honor of HGG, the Heidelberg Academy of the Sciences organizes a colloquium Ancient Philosophy in Its Significance for the Present. |
| 1981 | 25 – 27 April: First encounter with Jacques Derrida during a colloquium in the Goethe Institute in Paris. The contributions of the colloquium appear in 1984 under the editorship of the Germanist Philippe Forget: Text and Interpretation: German-French Debate. 2 – 9 May: HGG lectures at the philosophical institute of the University of Naples and the local Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici, to which HGG stays connected as a regular lecture guest right up to his last years. Honorary doctorate from McMaster University, Canada. |
| 1983 | August: Meeting with Pope John Paul II during a colloquium organized by the Institute for the Human Sciences in the papal summer residence in Castelgandolfo. Publication of Heidegger’s Paths: Studies on the Later Works. |
| 1985 | 85th birthday. Festivities of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences. Reinhart Koselleck speaks on “History and Hermeneutics” and HGG offers a reply under the title “History and Language.” HGG’s Collected Works begin to appear in ten volumes. |
| 1986 | Karl Jaspers Prize. |
| 1987 | Hanns Martin Schleyer Prize. |
| 1988 | Honorary doctorate from the evangelic theological faculty at the University of Tübingen. Honorary doctorate from Boston College, USA. |
| 1993 | Honorary doctorate from the University of Leipzig. 17 November: colloquium with Jacques Derrida, François Lyotard, Paul Ricœur and others in the Maison Heinrich Heine in Paris. |
| 1994 | 28 February: conversation about religion with Jacques Derrida and Gianni Vattimo on the island of Capri (printed along with contributions of other participants in La Religion. Séminaire de Capri sous la direction de Jacques Derrida et Gianni Vattimo. Paris 1991; German translation: Frankfurt am Main 2001). Honorary doctorate from the University of Bamberg. |
| 1995 | 95th birthday. During a festive event at the University of Heidelberg, Paul Ricœur delivers the lecture “The Paradoxes of Authority.” The tenth and final volume of HGG’s Collected Works appears. HGG receives the Premio Feltrinelli from the Accademia Nazionale di Licei in Rome. |
| 1996 | Honorary doctorate from the University of Wrocław. |
| 1997 | Honorary doctorate from the University of Prague. |
| 1999 | Honorary doctorate from the University of Marburg. |
| 2000 | Festivities for HGG’s 100th birthday, including a colloquium with lectures from Richard Rorty, Gianni Vattimo, and Michael Theunissen (printed along with additional contributions about HGG in: “Sein das verstanden werden kann, ist Sprache”. Hommage an Hans-Georg Gadamer. Frankfurt am Main 2001). Publication of the essay collection Hermeneutical Sketches (Hermeneutische Entwürfe, Tübingen 2000). |
| 2002 | 13 March: HGG dies in Heidelberg. |