The published work of Ernst Troeltsch is, in many ways, easy for a researcher to access. Troeltsch died in 1923, which means most of his work except that which was posthumously published is in public domain and available digitally, or can easily be made available. In particular, the four volume Gesammelte Schriften (GS) is readily available on archive.org, and perhaps other sites as well.

One difficulty that I have run into using Troeltsch texts is the limited availability of the ongoing Kritische Gesamtausgabe (KGA) project, which is an invaluable resource but also prohibitively expensive for most colleges and universities to have on hand. Many researchers will have intermittent access through interlibrary loan, but not much more.

Another difficulty of Troeltsch’s work is that many of his writings were contributions to encyclopedia and edited book series, were updated two or three times over the years, and perhaps redacted and re-purposed yet again if included in the GS. Often it is helpful to go back to the original version of a text in an academic journal, and it is not always immediately clear where or whether these texts show up in later compiled editions of Troeltsch’s works.

This page of texts seeks to alleviate some of these difficulties and make Troeltsch’s works more available to researchers. Including the KGA here is obviously not possible, but mapping the confusing array of openly available text versions to the KGA will help to bridge the gap for researchers.

1. KGA Detailed Publication Plan
The Ernst Troeltsch Gesellschaft has a helpful page that offers relatively detailed contents notes for published as well as unpublished volumes of the KGA. This makes the critical edition easily searchable to identify which volume includes a particular essay or book by Troeltsch, without having to navigate between volume contents as on the De Gruyter website.

2. UPenn Listing of HathiTrust Troeltsch titles: This page links to Troeltsch writings available in the HathiTrust library.

Gesammelte Schriften (GS)

Bd 1 Die Soziallehren der christlichen Kirchen und Gruppen ( copy 1, copy 2,
Bd 2 Zur religiösen Lage, Religionsphilosophie und Ethik (cite, copy 1,
Bd 3 Der Historismus und seine Probleme (copy 1,
Bd 4 Aufsätze zur Geistesgeschichte und Religionssoziologie (cite, copy 1, copy 2

Vernunft und Offenbarung bei Johann Gerhard und Melanchton (1891) (copy 1,

Politische Ethik und Christentum (1904) (copy 1,

Das Historische in Kants Religionsphilosophie (1904) copy 1