She engaged with the philosophies of the German philosophers Arthur Schopenhauer and Eduard von Hartmann, and published three books which contributed to the pessimism controversy in Germany.

While there, she reconnected with Emilie Kammerer, a childhood friend, who was the mother of the German playwright Frank Wedekind.

[9] Der Pessimismus in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart was influential on Friedrich Nietzsche, whose personal copy he annotated throughout.

His intense interest in the book led him to heavily annotate it throughout and add in blank pages for additional notes.

[12] Rolf Kieser, a professor of German at the State University of New York, published a biography of Plümacher in 1990, Olga Plümacher-Hünerwadel, eine gelehrte Frau des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts.