Johann Georg Birnstiel

Johann Georg Birnstiel (28 March 28 1858 – 31 October 1927) was a Swiss writer and minister of the Swiss Reformed Church.

Biography
Birnstiel was born and raised in Wattwil, Toggenburg. He was the son of Johann Georg Birnstiel, a businessman and bank president from Bavaria, and Salome Wälli, a Swiss woman. He was educated in Latin by a Catholic priest and later attended the Cantonal School in St. Gallen. He studied Protestant theology at the University of Basel. He was baptized in the Swiss Reformed faith by Zwingli Wirth.

On 14 June 1882 he married Nina Dürst in Andelfingen.

In 1881 Birnstiel was appointed as a Swiss Reformed pastor in Schönengrund. In 1888 he moved to Arbon, near Lake Constance, and started a new church there. He suffered from a stroke in 1913 and retired from ministry and spent the rest of his life as a writer. His writing included autobiographies, history books, and religious and theological works. In 1920, he moved to Romanshorn, where he died seven years later.