Gymnasium (school)
Kretschmann was born in Berlin. He obtained his PhD at Berlin University in 1914 with his dissertation entitled "Eine Theorie der Schwerkraft im Rahmen der ursprünglichen Einsteinschen Relativitätstheorie" (A theory of gravity in the framework of the original Einstein theory of relativity). His advisors were Max Planck and Heinrich Rubens. After working as a Gymnasium (school) teacher, he became Privatdozent for theoretical physics at the University of Königsberg in 1920, where he eventually became professor extraordinarius in 1926. From 1946 until 1952, Kretschmann was professor for theoretical physics and director of the institute for theoretical physics at the University of Halle-Wittenberg.