Eugen Liebendörfer

Eugen Liebendörfer (16 February 1852 in Leutkirch – 3 October 1902 in Stuttgart) was the first German missionary doctor in India as part of the Basel Mission. He was also a co-founder of the Association for Medical Mission at Stuttgart that evolved into the German Institute for Medical Mission (Difäm), an organization for worldwide Christian medical mission based in Tübingen.

Early life

The Liebendörfer family had been living in the Württemberg region since the end of the Thirty Years' War. Eugen Liebendörfer was the son of Jakob Friedrich Liebendörfer (who died in 1880 at Wain), who was the station commander of the Landjäger special police force in Leutkirch, and Elisabeth Lochbiller from Memmingen (who died in 1899 at Ravensburg).

Work in India

Inspired by the Swabian Pietism movement of the German Lutheran church, Eugen Liebendörfer joined the Basel Mission. After training in Basel, he travelled to India as a missionary in 1875 at the age of 23. He arrived at the West Indian port of Calicut (Kozhikode) on 1 October 1875 and moved to work at the mission station at Thalassery, Malabar District (in the state of Kerala in modern south India) which was then part of the Madras Presidency of British Raj. Until 1846, this mission station used to be supervised by Julie and Hermann Gundert, who were the grandparents of Hermann Hesse.

On 5 November 1878, he married Emilie Lydia Layer (born in 1856 in Wilhelmsdorf, Württemberg) at the mission station at Thalassery.

On 7 July 1882 Liebendörfer witnessed the tragic death of 60 people due to a bridge collapse incident caused by a ferry that had rammed into a bridge pier.

After completing his medical education, he became the first medical missionary doctor in Kerala and remained so until 1896.

Return to Germany By the end of 1895, owing to his serious illness, he returned to Stuttgart. including a few listed below: Immanuel Kammerer: Dr. Eugen Liebendörfer : ein Bahnbrecher der deutschen ärztlichen Mission in Indien. Stuttgart Evang. Missionsverl. 1927. Immanuel Kammerer: Ein treuer Knecht des Herrn Leben und Wirken des Missionsarztes Dr. Eugen Liebendörfer in Kalikut. Stuttgart 1904.