His father was the politician and university rector Karl Ledderhose (26 March 1821 - 1 January 1899) and his mother was Wilhelmine Justine Charlotte (nee Pfeiffer; 21 October 1826 - 29 June 1892).

[2] By 1871, Karl had been appointed vice president of the Prussian province of Alsace-Lorraine, as well as rector of the University of Strasbourg, and he would hold the latter position until 1887.

In 1886, Ledderhose was sent from Strasbourg to Paris, along with other eminent European doctors, including Karl Theodor, Duke in Bavaria, to study the novel techniques of Dr. Louis Pasteur.

[14] Due to the success of this institution, Ledderhose was later commissioned to supervise the planning and construction of a second traumatology center in Strasbourg, the Unfallkrankenhaus, which opened to the public on 27 November 1901.

[14] He remained the director of the Unfallkrankenhaus through the years of the First World War until November 1918, when the victorious French government expelled the majority of Germans living in the territory of Alsace-Lorraine.