BAUMGARTEN, MICHAEL (1812-1899), German Protestant theologian, was born at Haseldorf in Schleswig-Hol stein on March 25, He studied at Kiel University (1832), and became professor ordinarius of theology at Rostock (185o). At a pastoral conference in 1856 he defended evangelical freedom as regards the legal sanctity of Sunday. He was deprived of his professorship in 1858 for this and other attempts to liberalize religion. In 1865 he helped to found the Deutsche Protestanten verein, but withdrew from it in 1877. On several occasions (1874, 1878) he sat in the Reichstag as a Progressive.