POHLE, JOSEPH. - Theologian, born at Niederspay (Coblenza) on 13 March 1852, died at Breslau on 21 February 1922.
He studied philosophy and theology at the Gregorian University. Prevented from obtaining an office in his homeland by the Kulturkampf laws which excluded graduates of Roman universities, he taught in various seminaries in Europe, until in 1886 he took up the chair of philosophy at the seminary of Fulda, where together with Gutberlet (q.v.) he founded the Philosophisches Jahrbuch (1888). In 1889, at the wish of Leo XIII, he accepted the chair of apologetics at the newly founded Catholic University of Washington. He subsequently taught dogmatic theology at the Universities of Münster and Breslau. An admirer of Fr. Angelo Secchi, he illustrated his life and work in various writings and published several works on topics at the intersection of the natural sciences, philosophy, and theology. His principal work is the Lehrbuch der Dogmatik (3 vols., Fulda 1902-1905, frequently reprinted and revised) of Molinist tendency.