{"id":1683,"date":"2023-02-17T18:36:48","date_gmt":"2023-02-17T17:36:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/?p=1683"},"modified":"2023-04-25T21:51:30","modified_gmt":"2023-04-25T19:51:30","slug":"otto-luders-1844-1912-the-first-director-of-the-dai-athens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/2023\/02\/17\/otto-luders-1844-1912-the-first-director-of-the-dai-athens\/","title":{"rendered":"Otto L\u00fcders (1844 \u2013 1912) \u2013 the first director of the DAI Athens"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-admin\/edit.php?post_type=post\"><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n<p>When the Athens department of the DAI was formally founded in 1874, the philologist-turned-diplomat Otto L\u00fcders was the first person to be appointed as its director, at the time called the <em>Sekretar<\/em> (\u201cSecretary\u201d). He held this position only briefly, and until recently very little was known about his time at the DAI. Fortunately, recent work on the institute\u2019s archive in connection with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dainst.org\/projekt\/-\/project-display\/4806692\">ARCHAthen<\/a> project and palaeographic study of early administrative documents have retrieved a wealth of information about L\u00fcders\u2019 term in office. Moreover, in 2021, a small but exciting collection of personal documents was generously donated to the DAI by the descendants of his family in Switzerland and Greece. These records allow us for the first time to glimpse several previously unknown episodes of L\u00fcders\u2019 life and his involvement in the internal workings of the DAI during the early days of the Athens department. This post focuses on L\u00fcders as a scholar, from his student years to his arrival in Athens, and his crucial part in establishing the department, which has not thus far received the attention it deserves.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Bonn years and the Franco-Prussian War<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A native of Anholt in North-Rhine Westphalia, Hermann Otto Joseph Maria L\u00fcders was born on 13 August 1844 into a family of civil servants and local politicians (his father Joseph Franz was a Prussian fiscal officer and had served as mayor of his native city from 1836 to 1846; see Anonymous 1836, 209). After graduating from the <em>K\u00f6nigliches Gymnasium zu Bonn<\/em> in August 1864, L\u00fcders enrolled at the University of Bonn to study philology (<em>fig. 1<\/em>) at a time when the university was shaken by a long-standing feud between the two chairs of the subject, Friedrich Ritschl and Otto Jahn, that came to be known as the <em>Bonner Philologenkrieg<\/em> (Reitz 2020, 139).&nbsp;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1700\" class=\"thumbnail wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"width: 940px\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1700 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-1-Lueders-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"940\" height=\"705\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-1-Lueders-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-1-Lueders-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-1-Lueders-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-1-Lueders-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 940px) 100vw, 940px\" \/><figcaption class=\"caption wp-caption-text\">Fig. 1: Otto L\u00fcders during his student years in Bonn. DAI Athens, Archive, Otto L\u00fcders Personal Papers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>After finishing his doctoral dissertation, he concluded his studies in March 1869 and enrolled as a volunteer in the Prussian army in April. There he served for a year in the 2<sup>nd<\/sup> Foot Guard Regiment and was discharged with the rank of <em>Unteroffizier<\/em> in late March 1870. His plans to prepare his dissertation for publication were interrupted by the Franco-Prussian War, which broke out in July 1870. L\u00fcders had to re-join his regiment and leave for the front. He is reported to have been a platoon leader (Wilamowitz-Moellendorf 1928, 108), and documents preserved in his personal papers indicate that he remained in France as a reserve officer until the end of the war. After Prussia\u2019s victory, he received several medals \u2013 among others, the so-called War Commemorative Medal, which was made of bronze from the captured cannons of the enemy (<em>fig. 2<\/em>).<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1701\" class=\"thumbnail wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"width: 940px\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1701 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-2-Lueders-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"940\" height=\"705\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-2-Lueders-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-2-Lueders-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-2-Lueders-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-2-Lueders-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 940px) 100vw, 940px\" \/><figcaption class=\"caption wp-caption-text\">Fig. 2: Certificate of the Commemorative War Medal awarded to Otto L\u00fcders. DAI Athens, Archive, Otto L\u00fcders Personal Papers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>L\u00fcders\u2019 university years in Bonn, his military service and his participation in the Franco-Prussian War must have made a lasting impact on the young scholar. At Bonn, the powerful and influential Otto Jahn took him under his wing. L\u00fcders became a member of the Bonn Philological Society and the famous <em>Bonner Kreis<\/em> (Calder 1987, 381; Heilen 2002, 387) and acted as personal assistant to Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker until the latter\u2019s death in 1868. L\u00fcders helped Welcker, whose advanced blindness made it impossible for him to read and write, complete his last major collection of studies on Greek mythology, literature and art history (Welcker 1867; Kekul\u00e9 1880, 385). Breaking with purely philological approaches to Classical antiquity, both Welcker and Jahn embraced the trend toward historicization and the school of <em>Sachphilologie<\/em> (Marchand 1996, 40\u201351). They were eager to combine philological texts with epigraphic sources, archaeology and the study of monuments, an approach which L\u00fcders also adopted in his dissertation on the Dionysiac artists in ancient Greece (L\u00fcders 1873). And last but not least, it was in Bonn where he met and became close friends with the young Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, later professor at Berlin. L\u00fcders in fact dedicated his dissertation to Wilamowitz, although, on account of the war, it did not appear in print until 1873. L\u00fcders persuaded Wilmowitz to leave Bonn and move to Berlin to finish his dissertation, and he also escorted Wilamowitz during his travels in Athens in 1873, but their relationship seems to have deteriorated later as Calder (1987) has argued. Wilamowitz went so far as to describe L\u00fcders as a lazy person who lacked the heart for scholarship and cared only for women and money (Calder 1987, 383, n. 65).<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><strong>The road to Athens via Rome (and Strasburg)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>&nbsp;<\/strong>L\u00fcders made many friends during his student years at Bonn <strong>(<\/strong><em>fig. 3<\/em><strong>); <\/strong>he was considered not only an attractive young man (see Calder 1987, 381) but also a promising scholar: a few months after the war, he was awarded the Institute\u2019s travel scholarship for 1871\/72 along with Gustav Hirschfeld and he spent several months in Italy (folder D-DAI-ATH-ARCHIV-NL-L\u00fcders-LD-D-01).<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1702 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-3-Lueders-868x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"868\" height=\"1024\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-3-Lueders-868x1024.jpg 868w, https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-3-Lueders-254x300.jpg 254w, https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-3-Lueders-768x907.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-3-Lueders-1301x1536.jpg 1301w, https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-3-Lueders-1735x2048.jpg 1735w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 868px) 100vw, 868px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Fig. 3: Otto L\u00fcders (middle) with fellow students during his time at Bonn. DAI Athens, Archive, Otto L\u00fcders Personal Papers.<\/p>\n<p>His sojourn at Rome in the winter of 1871\/1872 gave him the chance to network with other scholars at the <em>Instituto di Corrispondenza<\/em> and made him more well-known within German academia. It also opened career opportunities that L\u00fcders himself had perhaps not anticipated. When Ulrich K\u00f6hler, at the time <em>secr\u00e9taire interpr\u00e8te <\/em>at the German Legation at Athens, was appointed Chair of Ancient Studies at the University of Strasburg, his post at the embassy in the Greek capital was up for grabs. The multilingual, classically educated L\u00fcders saw the prospects of joining the diplomatic service, something by no means unusual for middle-class <em>Gymnasium<\/em> graduates at the time, when Greek and Latin were considered as a cornerstone for a career in the higher civil service and diplomacy (Marchand 1996, 23).<\/p>\n<p>Thus, although L\u00fcders was in a sense destined to come to Athens as a student of ancient Greece, he first arrived as a diplomat. He received notice of his appointment while still in Rome, in a formal letter from the Reich\u2019s Chancellor dated 19 February 1872 <strong>(<\/strong><em>fig. 4<\/em>) (note: the year given in Jantzen 1986, 15 is mistaken).<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1703\" class=\"thumbnail wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"width: 640px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1703 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-4-Lueders-640x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"1024\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-4-Lueders-640x1024.jpg 640w, https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-4-Lueders-187x300.jpg 187w, https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-4-Lueders-768x1229.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-4-Lueders-960x1536.jpg 960w, https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-4-Lueders-1280x2048.jpg 1280w, https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-4-Lueders-scaled.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><figcaption class=\"caption wp-caption-text\">Fig. 4: 1872, letter of L\u00fcders\u2019 appointment as secr\u00e9taire interpr\u00e8te to the German Legation at Athens. DAI Athens, Archive, Otto L\u00fcders Personal Papers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>To relay the good news to Rome faster, Theodor Mommsen, who was Head of the Historical-Philosophical Class of the Berlin Academy at the time and apparently knew of the decision, wired Wilhelm Henzen, the director of the <em>Instituto<\/em>, by telegram to tell him that L\u00fcders was to take K\u00f6hler\u2019s place and would be dispatched immediately to Athens <strong>(<\/strong><em>fig. 5<\/em><strong>)<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1704\" class=\"thumbnail wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"width: 940px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1704 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-5-Lueders-1024x777.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"940\" height=\"713\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-5-Lueders-1024x777.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-5-Lueders-300x228.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-5-Lueders-768x583.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-5-Lueders-1536x1166.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 940px) 100vw, 940px\" \/><figcaption class=\"caption wp-caption-text\">Fig. 5: Telegram by T. Mommsen to W. Henzen with instructions for L\u00fcders. DAI Athens, Archive, Otto L\u00fcders Personal Papers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>L\u00fcders\u2019 posting at the German Legation proved to be crucial, paving the way for his subsequent appointment as head of the new Athens department. Just a few days after taking up the post, he was named a corresponding member of the <em>Instituto di Corrispondenza<\/em>, which had already been transformed into a state-sponsored Prussian organization by 1871. In this capacity, L\u00fcders published a number of articles and reports on new archaeological discoveries from Greece (e.g. L\u00fcders 1874a; 1874b; 1874c). L\u00fcders served just over two years at the German Legation; when the decision to establish the Athens department was formally ratified by the Reichstag on 17 May 1872 (Fittschen 1996, 8), he soon emerged as a candidate for the position of director.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><strong>From <em>secr\u00e9taire interpr\u00e8te to <\/em>Secretary<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Several documents in the DAI Athens archive indicate that the Executive Committee\u2019s first choice to head the new department was Ulrich K\u00f6hler (e.g. D-DAI-ATH-ARCHIV-RW-00176), then based at Strasburg. Nevertheless, it was the younger L\u00fcders who was eventually appointed. The precise sequence of events that led to this decision is difficult to reconstruct but presumably had as much to do with K\u00f6hler\u2019s reluctance to leave his university chair as it did with the fact that L\u00fcders was already based in Greece. It thus was expected that he could deal quickly and efficiently with various practical matters related to the founding of the department. Also, as a staff member of Germany\u2019s diplomatic mission he reported directly to the Foreign Office, which was the ministry to which the Institute had been attached after the foundation of the German <em>Reich<\/em>. L\u00fcders was thus elected to the post of Secretary by the Berlin Academy. On 27 August 1874 he drafted a letter to the Foreign Office, stating that he was inclined to accept the position and asking to be relieved of his duties as a diplomat at the Legation so he might dedicate his full attention to it (D-DAI-ATH-ARCHIV-RW-00225). The formal notice of his appointment by order of the Kaiser arrived on 10 September 1874 <strong>(<\/strong><em>fig. 6<\/em><strong>)<\/strong>; ten days later he received a letter from the Foreign Office, releasing him from his diplomatic duties and establishing the specifics of his salary as head of the department.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1705\" class=\"thumbnail wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"width: 646px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1705 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-6-Lueders-646x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"646\" height=\"1024\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-6-Lueders-646x1024.jpg 646w, https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-6-Lueders-189x300.jpg 189w, https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-6-Lueders-768x1218.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-6-Lueders-969x1536.jpg 969w, https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-6-Lueders-1292x2048.jpg 1292w, https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-6-Lueders-scaled.jpg 1615w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 646px) 100vw, 646px\" \/><figcaption class=\"caption wp-caption-text\">Fig. 6: Letter of appointment of Otto L\u00fcders as head of the DAI Athens. DAI Athens, Archive, Otto L\u00fcders Personal Papers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Although these documents shed light on L\u00fcders\u2019 appointment, it would be a mistake to think that his involvement in establishing the department did not begin until he took office. Indeed, L\u00fcders had been made an ordinary member of the Institute on 9 December 1873 and was entrusted with logistical, financial and practical preparations for the opening long before his formal appointment, while still serving as <em>secr\u00e9taire interpr\u00e8te<\/em>. A letter to Richard Lepsius, General Secretary and member of the Executive Committee, dated 3 May 1874, for instance, reveals that L\u00fcders was responsible for drafting the rental contract for the house that was to become the first home of the department at Akadimias St. 31. It belonged to the mining engineer Andreas Kordellas (D-DAI-ATH-ARCHIV-RW-00180). Two days later, Lepsius asked L\u00fcders for a policy document on various key organizational matters, such as the new department\u2019s housing, programme of lectures, library, publications, and fellows (D-DAI-ATH-ARCHIV-RW-00223). By 20 August L\u00fcders was already busy planning the department\u2019s finances for the following year, asking the Executive Committee for more funds in order to cope with the high cost of the postal service (D-DAI-ATH-ARCHIV-RW-00224). And in another letter, dated 22 August 1874, he wrote to Berlin to ask that the official seal and stamps of the Athens department be manufactured and sent to him via the German Legation (D-DAI-ATH-ARCHIV-RW-00228).<\/p>\n<p>It seems that his new job and the exciting prospect of laying the foundation of German archaeological fieldwork in Greece led L\u00fcders to believe that he would stay in the country for many years, and that it was also the right time to plan his private life. Soon after his formal appointment as Secretary, he married Aikaterini Dosiou <strong>(<\/strong><em>fig. 7a<\/em><strong>)<\/strong>, daughter of the jurist and politician <a href=\"https:\/\/el.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/\u039a\u03c9\u03bd\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2_\u0394\u03cc\u03c3\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2\">Konstantinos Dosios<\/a> from Eordaia in northern Greece and the literary scholar, poet and translator <a href=\"http:\/\/pandektis.ekt.gr\/pandektis\/handle\/10442\/59787\">Aikaterini Mavrokordatou<\/a> from Constantinople. Their marriage must have taken place sometime after 2 October 1874, as suggested by a letter dated 3 November (D-DAI-ATH-ARCHIV-RW-00213), in which Lepsius congratulates L\u00fcders on his marriage on behalf of the Executive Committee. L\u00fcders and Aikaterini Dosiou had two daughters, Eleni and Maria, born in 1875 and 1877 respectively <strong>(<\/strong><em>fig. 7b<\/em><strong>)<\/strong>, and stayed married until L\u00fcders\u2019 death in 1912. L\u00fcders\u2019 career, however, did not go as planned, and he had to step down from his office just over a year since his appointment.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1706\" class=\"thumbnail wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"width: 940px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1706 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-7-8-Lueders-1024x596.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"940\" height=\"547\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-7-8-Lueders-1024x596.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-7-8-Lueders-300x175.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-7-8-Lueders-768x447.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-7-8-Lueders-1536x894.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 940px) 100vw, 940px\" \/><figcaption class=\"caption wp-caption-text\">Fig. 7a: Otto L\u00fcders and Aikaterini Dosiou. 7b: Otto L\u00fcders\u2019 wife Aikaterini Dosiou with their first daughter Eleni in 1876. DAI Athens, Archive, Otto L\u00fcders Personal Papers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>L\u00fcders\u2019 efforts as a director &nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>With the official opening planned for Winckelmann\u2019s birthday on 9 December, L\u00fcders spent the first months trying to get the institute up and running. Although he had some logistical support from the German Legation, he was essentially on his own. Nevertheless, as a member of several learned societies, such as the Evangelical School of Smyrna, the Greek Philological Society in Constantinople, the Archaeological Society at Athens (<em>fig. 8<\/em>), and the Parnassos Literary Society, L\u00fcders could rely on a network of colleagues for help.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1707\" class=\"thumbnail wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"width: 940px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1707 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-9-Lueders-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"940\" height=\"705\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-9-Lueders-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-9-Lueders-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-9-Lueders-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-9-Lueders-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 940px) 100vw, 940px\" \/><figcaption class=\"caption wp-caption-text\">Fig. 8: Certificate of Ordinary Member by the Archaeological Society at Athens. DAI Athens, Archive, Otto L\u00fcders Personal Papers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>To stock the library with publications, for instance, he turned to contacts in Greece and Germany, including the \u0395phor of the National Library Spyridon Komnos (D-DAI-ATH- ARCHIV-RW-00216), the Director of the Jena University Library Anton Klette (D-DAI-ATH ARCHIV-RW-00217), and the Director of the Rheinisches Landesmuseum in Bonn Ernst aus\u2019m Weerth (D-DAI-ATH ARCHIV-RW-00214), to arrange discounts on journal subscriptions and future book exchanges. At the same time, he worked closely with the Athens-based book publisher Karl Wilberg to design the department\u2019s own bulletin with the working title <em>Mittheilungen aus Griechenland<\/em>. A draft of the first issue with complete contents, including articles and book reviews, was apparently ready by January 1875, as suggested by a letter to Lepsius (D-DAI-ATH-ARCHIV-RW-00206) in which L\u00fcders asked for permission to proceed with printing (<em>fig. 9<\/em>). For reasons still unknown, however, permission was never granted, and the publication was put on hold. Although the <em>Mitteilungen<\/em> did not appear for another year, the first step had been taken.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1790\" class=\"thumbnail wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"width: 940px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1790 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-9-Lueders-neu-leserlicher-1024x830.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"940\" height=\"762\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-9-Lueders-neu-leserlicher-1024x830.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-9-Lueders-neu-leserlicher-300x243.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-9-Lueders-neu-leserlicher-768x623.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-9-Lueders-neu-leserlicher-1536x1245.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 940px) 100vw, 940px\" \/><figcaption class=\"caption wp-caption-text\">Fig. 9: Excerpt from a letter by Otto L\u00fcders to Richard Lepsius with a list of contents for the first issue of the planned bulletin &#8220;Mittheilungen aus Griechenland&#8221;. DAI Athens, Archive<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A pressing issue related to the publication of the Athens bulletin was the need to ensure that all new archaeological discoveries were adequately reported and brought to the attention of the academic community. L\u00fcders was expected to act as a correspondent, travelling across Greece to obtain first-hand knowledge of monuments, gather information about new findings, and identify potential sites for excavation (Jantzen 1986, 15). Although little is known about this activity, it appears that L\u00fcders was indeed busy compiling reports and making notes of discoveries to publish in the future bulletin. One piece of evidence of this effort is a report, dated 1874, which has been kindly brought to my attention by Katharina Brandt. It notes new discoveries from Athens and is signed with the initials O.L. (D-DAI-ATH-ARCHIV-NL-UNBEKANNT-0001). During a two-month leave in the summer of 1875, two DAI travel fellows, Rudolf Weil and Carl Robert, assisted L\u00fcders in collecting relevant information (D-DAI-ATH-ARCHIV-RW-00181). When he returned to Greece, enough material had been collected that L\u00fcders asked whether it could be scheduled for publication in the upcoming issues of one of the Institute\u2019s journals in Berlin or Rome.<\/p>\n<p>In the months following the institute\u2019s opening, L\u00fcders was planning to travel to Germany on a two-month leave to attend to various matters and also to report in person to the Executive Committee about the state of the new department and its problems (D-DAI-ATH-ARCHIV-RW-00199), but several commitments required his presence in Athens. Among others, he was charged with supervising the first DAI travel fellows that were to arrive in the spring and stay at the department, as well as with assisting German scholars passing through Athens. His most important responsibility, however, was to coordinate an extensive cartographic survey that laid the groundwork for the <em>Karten von Attika<\/em> (<em>fig. 10a<\/em>), a monumental collection of detailed topographic maps of Athens and its wider region (Curtius \u2013 Kaupert 1881\u20131894. Lohmann 2010). In a letter dated 23 February 1875, Lepsius instructed L\u00fcders to stay in Athens to provide support for the Prussian land surveyor Johann August Kaupert and his assistant who were expected in March; they planned to stay for three and a half months to start work on triangulating the Athens basin area (D-DAI-ATH-ARCHIV-RW-00197). Later letters to Lepsius suggest that, as head of the DAI Athens, L\u00fcders was constantly involved in various logistical aspects of the project, from managing its finances and securing supplies to inventorying the survey instruments (e.g. D-DAI-ATH-ARCHIV-RW-00182). The <em>Karten<\/em> was the first major project by the DAI in Greece; in the letter cited above, Richard Lepsius remarked that \u201cthere can be no better way to inaugurate the research activities of the Athens institute\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>L\u00fcders\u2019 work for the <em>Karten<\/em> was apparently mostly behind the scenes but it was not the only project that he actively supported. As early as 1873 he had been notified by the epigraphist Georg Kaibel about exciting new discoveries at the site of Tanagra in Boeotia, where numerous terracotta figurines similar to those known in the antiquities market in Athens had come to light. L\u00fcders reported on these finds in the <em>Bulletino<\/em> and in a weekly journal for the general public, <em>Im Neuen Reich<\/em> (L\u00fcders 1874b; 1874c), sparking the interest of German scholars (Bl\u00fcmner 1875). In October 1875, a few weeks before he left Athens and the DAI, L\u00fcders informed Lepsius about a trip to Tanagra that he had taken with Reinhard Kekul\u00e9, professor of Classical Archaeology at Bonn and a member of the Executive Committee of the DAI, and the young Prussian landscape painter and lithographer Ludwig Otto (D-DAI-ATH-ARCHIV-RW-00167). L\u00fcders wrote that, despite catching malaria and having to abstain from work for several days, they were allowed to inspect and excavate several tombs, apparently producing numerous examples of the so-called Tanagran terracotta figurines. Kekul\u00e9 mentions this short campaign in Tanagra only in passing (and without reference to L\u00fcders) in the book that he eventually published a few years later (Kekul\u00e9 1878, 10) as part of a large <em>corpus<\/em> of ancient terracottas commissioned by the Institute (<em>fig. 10b<\/em>).<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1710\" class=\"thumbnail wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"width: 940px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1710 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-11-12-Lueders-1024x723.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"940\" height=\"664\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-11-12-Lueders-1024x723.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-11-12-Lueders-300x212.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-11-12-Lueders-768x542.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-11-12-Lueders-1536x1084.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 940px) 100vw, 940px\" \/><figcaption class=\"caption wp-caption-text\">Fig. 10a: Frontispiece of the first volume of the Karten von Attika (Curtius \u2013 Kaupert 1881\u20131894) 10b. Tanagran terracotta figurine. Drawing by Ludwig Otto (Kekul\u00e9 1878, pl. 1)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>The way out<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As early as 1 June 1875 L\u00fcders had written to the Executive Committee to offer his resignation. From the tone of Lepsius\u2019 initial reply, which survives in the DAI Athens archive (D-DAI-ATH-ARCHIV-RW-00183), it seems that it was something that the Committee was expecting. The precise reasons for L\u00fcders\u2019 decision are not known, but several documents suggest that from early on L\u00fcders, perhaps more attuned to the life of a diplomat, had expressed concerns about various matters and found himself frequently at loggerheads with the Executive Committee. A serious point of friction was the funds allocated to the new department, including the salary and overhead for necessary expenses and supplies. In a letter to Lepsius dated 15 November 1874, L\u00fcders protested that the expenses for the institute\u2019s house and furniture were inadequate and did not cover his private residence, and he also complained about his \u201cridiculously small\u201d salary, which, he argued, was not adjusted to local conditions. In his reply (D-DAI-ATH-ARCHIV-RW-00211) Lepsius reprimanded L\u00fcders for his tone and style, pointing out that L\u00fcders had accepted those terms when he took the post; Lepsius stated that, for the benefit of both parties, the Executive Committee had chosen to treat the letter as if it had never been written. This friction was perhaps one reason why, in a letter to Theodor Wiegand, Wilamowitz writes that L\u00fcders called the Executive Committee and the Academy at Berlin the \u201ctwo Sphinxes of Classical Walpurgis Night, sitting by the Pyramids, passing judgment on the nations [\u2026]\u201d (a reference to Goethe\u2019s <em>Faust<\/em> II. 7245\u20137248; see Calder 1987, 382, n. 60). Eventually, L\u00fcders was asked to remain in office until the new director Ulrich K\u00f6hler could take the post. He finally left Athens for Berlin on 7 November 1875. A few years later, after serving as a diplomat in Odessa (<em>fig. 11<\/em>), he returned to Athens and opened a new chapter in his life and career. He became the tutor of the children of King of Greece George I and Lord Chamberlain, as well as Consul General of Germany.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1711\" class=\"thumbnail wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"width: 914px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1711 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-13-Lueders-914x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"914\" height=\"1024\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-13-Lueders-914x1024.jpg 914w, https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-13-Lueders-268x300.jpg 268w, https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-13-Lueders-768x861.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-13-Lueders-1370x1536.jpg 1370w, https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/02\/Fig-13-Lueders-1827x2048.jpg 1827w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 914px) 100vw, 914px\" \/><figcaption class=\"caption wp-caption-text\">Fig. 11: Otto L\u00fcders during his service as a diplomat in Odessa. DAI Athens, Archive, Otto L\u00fcders Personal Papers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In his history of the DAI Athens, Ulf Jantzen (1986, 15) dedicates a mere ten lines to Otto L\u00fcders\u2019 term in office, bemoaning his lack of imagination and initiative, and stating that \u201cthere is really not much to report about\u201d. Although he acknowledges that L\u00fcders was alone and had to establish an entire institute from scratch, Jantzen\u2019s assessment, based on very limited source material, casts L\u00fcders\u2019 person and his time at the DAI in an extremely unflattering light. Georg Karos\u2019 (1912) short obituary for L\u00fcders, in contrast, shows that his successors had not forgotten his memory and contribution to the department. L\u00fcders played a significant part in establishing the department\u2019s first home and its research infrastructure, and he laid the foundation for its early fieldwork and academic activities, starting even before he officially became director. Both the drafts of his letters and his official correspondence with Lepsius, however, suggest that, despite his efforts, L\u00fcders struggled to carry out his agenda, and his relationship with the Executive Committee in Berlin was tense. For L\u00fcders, of course, his time at the DAI was a very brief episode in a lifetime of prestigious offices in the German diplomatic service and at the Greek royal court. But his contribution to the establishment of the Institute\u2019s department at Athens should not be underestimated. As the study of archival materials progresses, even more previously unknown details of his activity as director may emerge.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><strong>Acknowledgements<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>My thanks go to Katharina Brandt for offering her deep knowledge and crucial support on many matters during research for this paper. Any remaining errors are my own. I am also grateful to archivist Veronika F\u00fchrer, MA, who made a transcription and palaeographic study of L\u00fcders\u2019 and Lepsius\u2019 letters cited in this essay. Otto L\u00fcders\u2019 private papers were donated to the DAI Athens in 2021 by Mrs. Daphne Maria Voelin-Liambeys with the help of her Athens-based nephew Leonidas Liambeys. The scans were produced by Julia Engelhardt.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><strong>Works cited<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Anonymous 1836<br>Cameralistische Zeitung f\u00fcr die K\u00f6niglich Preu\u00dfischen Staaten 14, 1836, 209\u2013224<\/p>\n<p>Bl\u00fcmner 1891<br>\u0397. \u0392l\u00fcmner, Terracotten aus Tanagra, AZ 32, 1875, 140\u2013143<\/p>\n<p>Calder 1987<br>W. M. Calder III, Why did Wilamowitz leave Bonn? The New Evidence, RhM 130, 1987, 366\u2013384<\/p>\n<p>Curtius \u2013 Kaupert 1881\u20131894<br>E. Curtius \u2013 J. A. Kaupert, Karten von Attika (Berlin 1881\u20131894)<\/p>\n<p>Fittschen 1996<br>K. Fittschen, Die Gr\u00fcndung des Deutschen Arch\u00e4ologischen Instituts in Athen. Ernst Curtius (1814\u20131896) zum Geburtstag, AM 111, 1\u201344<\/p>\n<p>Heilen 2002<br>S. Heilen, Der Mann, der Wilamowitz zum Duell zwingen wollte: Neue Quellen zu einer bisher unklaren Stelle der Erinnerungen, RhM 145, 2002, 374\u2013426<\/p>\n<p>Jantzen 1986<br>U. Jantzen, Einhundert Jahre Athener Institut, 1874\u20131974 (Mainz 1986)<\/p>\n<p>Karo 1912<br>G. Karo, Otto L\u00fcders, AM 37, 1912, 11\u201312<\/p>\n<p>Kekul\u00e9 1878<br>R. Kekul\u00e9, Griechische Thonfiguren aus Tanagra (Stuttgart 1878)<\/p>\n<p>Kekul\u00e9 1880<br>R. Kekul\u00e9, Das Leben Friedrich Gottlieb Welckers nach seinen eignen Aufzeichnungen und Briefen (Leipzig 1880)<\/p>\n<p>Lohmann 2010<br>H. Lohmann, Die \u201epreussischen\u201c Karten von Attika, in: H. Lohmann \u00ad\u2013 T. Mattern (eds.), Attika \u2013 Arch\u00e4ologie einer \u201ezentralen\u201c Kulturlandschaft. Akten der internationalen Tagung vom 18.\u201320. Mai 2007 in Marburg. Philippika \u2013Marburger altertumskundliche Abhandlungen 37 (Wiesbaden 2010) 263\u2013279<\/p>\n<p>L\u00fcders 1873 <br>O. L\u00fcders, Die dionysischen K\u00fcnstler (Berlin 1873)<\/p>\n<p>L\u00fcders 1874a<br>O. L\u00fcders, Funde auf dem Boden von Dekelea, AZ 31, 1874, 55\u201357<\/p>\n<p>L\u00fcders 1874b<br>O. L\u00fcders, Ritrovamenti di terre cotte in Tanagra. Lettera al sig. prof. G. Henzen. BdI 1874, 120\u2013127<\/p>\n<p>L\u00fcders 1874c<br>O. L\u00fcders, Ein St\u00fcck griechischen Kunstlebens, Im Neuen Reich 4\/1, 1874, 176\u2013182<\/p>\n<p>Marchand 1996<br>S.L. Marchand, Down from Olympus: Archaeology and Philhellenism in Germany, 1750 \u2013 1970 (Princeton, New Jersey 1996)<\/p>\n<p>Reitz 2020<br>C. Reitz, German Altertumswissenschaften, \u203aProfessorenhaarspalterei\u2039 and Organising the Classics in the 19th Century, in: E. Podoksik (ed.) Doing Humanities in Nineteenth-Century Germany (Leiden 2020) 134\u2013154<\/p>\n<p>Welcker 1867<br>F. Welcker, Kleine Schriften zur griechischen Mythologie, Kunst- und Literaturgeschichte. Herausgegeben von O. L\u00fcders (Elberfeld 1867)<\/p>\n<p>Wilamowitz-Moellendorf 1928&nbsp;<br>U. von Wilamowitz-M\u00f6llendorf, Erinnerungen 1848\u20131914 (Leipzig 1928).<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><strong>Weblinks<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/el.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/\u039a\u03c9\u03bd\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2_\u0394\u03cc\u03c3\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2\">https:\/\/el.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/\u039a\u03c9\u03bd\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2_\u0394\u03cc\u03c3\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2<\/a> (accessed 29\/01\/2023)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/pandektis.ekt.gr\/pandektis\/handle\/10442\/59787\">http:\/\/pandektis.ekt.gr\/pandektis\/handle\/10442\/59787<\/a> (accessed 29\/01\/2023)<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When the Athens department of the DAI was formally founded in 1874, the philologist-turned-diplomat Otto L\u00fcders was the first person to be appointed as its director, at the time called the Sekretar (\u201cSecretary\u201d). He held this position only briefly, and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/2023\/02\/17\/otto-luders-1844-1912-the-first-director-of-the-dai-athens\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":152,"featured_media":1712,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[147,153,32,141,140,157,154,151,136,158,133,152,149,52,89,150,146,40,145,139,138,155,143,144,86,142,137,132,148,33,156,135,102,134,108,93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ausm-weerth-ernst","category-brandt-katharina","category-dai-staff","category-dosios-konstantinos","category-dosiou-aikaterini","category-engelhardt-julia","category-fuhrer-veronika","category-george-i-king-of-greece","category-henzen-wilhelm","category-hirschfeld-gustav","category-jahn-otto","category-jantzen-ulf","category-kaibel-georg","category-karo-georg","category-kaupert-johann-august","category-kekule-reinhard","category-klette-anton","category-kohler-ulrich","category-komnos-spyros","category-kordellas-andreas","category-lepsius-richard","category-liambeys-leonidas","category-luders-eleni","category-luders-maria","category-luders-otto","category-mavrokordatou-aikaterini","category-mommsen-theodor","category-ritschl-friedrich","category-robert-carl","category-scientific-staff","category-voelin-liambeys-daphne-maria","category-von-wilamowitz-moellendorf-ulrich","category-weil-rudolf","category-welcker-friedrich-gottlieb","category-wiegand-theodor","category-wilberg-karl-1829-1882"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1683"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/152"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1683"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2133,"href":"https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1683\/revisions\/2133"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dainst.blog\/people-at-the-dai-athens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}