Born: July 12, 1806, Berlin, Germany.
Died: July 27, 1878, Dünnow, Pomerania (now Duninowo, Poland).
Buried: Friedhof der Bethlehems- oder Böhmischen Gemeinde, Kreuzberg, Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, Berlin, Germany.
Gustav was the son of Justice Commissioner Ludwig Knak and Friederike Straube.
He matriculated as a student of theology at the University of Berlin, Easter, 1826.
In the autumn of 1829 he became tutor in a private school at Königs-Wusterhausen, near Berlin, where he worked manfully for the sick and dying during the cholera year 1831.
He returned to Berlin in August, 1832, and acted as one of the editors of the well-known Geistlicher Lieder Schatz…to which he contributed a number of hymns, and for which he wrote the preface dated Dec. 11, 1832.
In the autumn of 1834 he was ordained pastor of Wusterwitz, near Dramburg, in Pomerania [now Ostrowiec, Poland]; and in the end of 1849 was appointed Gossner’s successor as Pastor of the Lutheran-Bohemian congregation (Bethlehemskirche) in Berlin.
During a holiday visit to a married daughter at Dünnow, near Stolpemünde, he was taken suddenly ill, and died there July 27, 1878; his body being removed to Berlin and laid to rest in the graveyard belonging to his church (O. Kraus, 1879, p. 266; Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, xvi. 261, &c).
Knak was a man of prayer, a faithful and successful preacher and pastor, and greatly interested in Missions at home and abroad, especially in the Lutheran missions to China and the Chinese Orphanage at Hong Kong.
As a hymn-writer he is distinguished by elegance of style, harmony of rhythm, and deep love to the personal Christ. His hymns appeared in his Simon Johanna, hast du mich lieb? Berlin, 1829 (enlarged editions pub. at Berlin 1840, and again in 1843 as his Zionsharfe); in the Berlin Geistlicher Lieder Schatz, ed. 1832; and in his Liebe urn, Liebe…Nachtrag zu dessen Zionsharfe. Werder, 2nd ed. 1849 (3rd ed. Berlin, 1850).
Julian, pp. 626–27