Career
He was considered one of the foremost confessional Lutheran theologians of the 20th century. After spending a year as an exchange student at Hartford Theological Seminary in the United States (1925-1926), Sasse returned to Germany to take up a teaching position at University of Erlangen. During this period, he became an active participant in the ecumenical movement.
In the early 1930s, he emerged as a vocal critic of the National Socialist Party and Germany"s new chancellor, Adolf Hitler.
While he did not sign the 1934 Barmen Declaration, he did author, with Dietrich Bonhoeffer and others, the first draft of the lesser known Bethel Confession of 1933. He died in a fire at his home in 1976.