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.

Inspired by the Swabian Pietism movement of the German Lutheran church, Eugen Liebendörfer joined the Basel Mission.

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.

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

[1] Liebendörfer regularly published articles in a Malayalam news periodical and described the internal structure of the human body; in the opinion of Wilhelm Schlatter, the historiographer of the Basel Mission, the Indian doctors were not knowledgeable about this.

[1] He spent time in the Kurhaus Palmenwald in Freudenstadt, where he had friendly and close contact with the parents of Hermann Hesse.