Alfred Friedrich von der Leyen (1844–1934) and his wife Luise Isabella Kapp (1852–1908).

Von der Leyen studied at the universities of Marburg, Leipzig and Berlin, receiving his Ph.D. at Berlin in 1894 under the supervision of Karl Weinhold with a thesis on Medieval German literature.

He habilitated at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in 1899 with a thesis on Norse mythology.

From 1920 to his retirement in 1937, von der Leyen was Chair of German Philology at the University of Cologne.

[citation needed] Following World War II, von der Leyen returned to the University of Cologne, where he served as an honorary professor from 1947 to 1953.