He was Professor and Chair of German Philology at the University of Halle.

After graduating from the Martino-Katharineum gymnasium in Braunschweig, Baesecke studies classical philology, German philology and philosophy at the universities of Göttingen, Berlin and Heidelberg.

Baesecke was appointed Associate Professor at the University of Berlin in 1911.

Baesecke specialized in the study of Old High German literature.

He became a member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities in 1938, and received the Brothers Grimm Prize of the University of Marburg in 1950.