Wust was born the oldest of eleven children in Rissenthal in
Saarland. He attended the local public school, then the
Friedrich-Wilhelm-Gymnasium, in
Trier. Though his parents had hoped he would become a
Catholic priest, he decided on studying
Geisteswissenschaft. After 1907, Wust pursued
German studies,
English studies, and
philosophy in
Berlin and
Strasbourg. He taught in Berlin,
Neuss, Trier, and
Cologne, and earned his doctorate in 1914 from the
University of Bonn. maintaining an "intense" correspondence with them and publishing six essays in the magazine between 1922 and 1926. Wust, without
habilitation, was appointed professor of philosophy at the
University of Münster. At the same time as
Martin Heidegger, he developed an existentialist philosophy, though Wust's was essentially Christian. When
Adolf Hitler came to power, Wust, one of the few early readers of
Mein Kampf, became active in the church's resistance. He promoted a cultural offensive for Catholic Germany, and based much of his philosophy on what he perceived as the cultural unity of
Europe. He suffered from cancer since 1938 and died at age 56. Before his death he wrote a farewell letter to his students, which reportedly was widely read at the
Eastern Front. ==Reception==