Agathon Wunderlich

Who was Agathon Wunderlich?

Gottlob Friedrich Walter Agathon Wunderlich was a German jurist and member of the Oberappellationsgerichtsrat. He was the son of philologist Ernst Karl Friedrich Wunderlich.

Although he was not a Prussian citizen, he was awarded a scholarship to study at the prestigious Landesschule Pforta. Afterwards he studied at the University of Göttingen, obtaining his law degree in 1832. In 1833 he received his habilitation and began serving as an Hanoverian civil servant. Due to the repeal of the Hanoverian state constitution by King Ernest Augustus and associated dismissal of the Göttingen Seven, Wunderlich moved to Berlin to acquire "Prussian habilitation".

Through assistance from Johann Jakob Bachofen, he attained the chair of Roman law at the University of Basel in 1838. In Basel he published works on medieval Verfahrensrechtler. In 1842 he became a professor at the University of Rostock, followed by a professorship at the University of Halle. In 1850 he was appointed judge at the Oberappellationsgericht of the four Freien Städte in Lübeck.