Early life Otto Kern was born near
Naumburg an der Saale. His father Franz Kern was a senior teacher at the Pforta State School at the time, and later became the school's headmaster. Otto's mother was the 14 years younger Clara Kern, born Runge. His father introduced him at an early age to the Greeks and to German literature, especially
Goethe. In Stettin, Otto Kern attended grammar school, where his religion teacher Anton Jonas introduced him to the
history of religion. From 1883 to 1887 he studied
classical philology and
archaeology at the
universities of Berlin and
Göttingen. His lecturers there were renowned scientists such as
Ernst Curtius,
Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff as well as
Hermann Diels and
Carl Robert, whose lives he later examined in a biography. Kern received his doctorate on 21 January 1888 in Berlin with his dissertation
De Orphei Epimenidis Pherecydis theogoniis quaestiones criticae. After his doctorate he worked in Berlin as assistant to Carl Robert until 1889.
Career In the following years (from 1889) he worked as an
archaeologist in
Italy,
Greece and
Asia Minor. From 1889 to 1891 he was a scholarship holder of the
German Archaeological Institute (DAI) and was able to travel the
Mediterranean region. From 1891 he dug together with
Carl Humann in the ancient city of Magnesia at the Mäander. He also dealt with this city in his postdoctoral thesis on the history of the foundation of
Magnesia on the Maeander from 1894. In 1894 he qualified as a private lecturer for classical philology in Berlin, where he also worked as an assistant in the sculpture department of the
Royal Museums. In 1897 Kern was appointed
associate professor at the
University of Rostock. from 1900 he was full professor there. In 1907 he moved to the
University of Halle-Wittenberg, where he was elected
Rector in 1915/16. In 1922 he refused a call to the
University of Hamburg. Before his retirement in 1931 he travelled 1925-1926 again to
Thessaly. He received two
honorary doctorates from the University of Halle: • 1929 from the Faculty of Law and Political Science, • 1930 from the Faculty of Theology.
Later life and death In 1937 he was elected a corresponding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences. Kern became a member of the right-wing radical
German Fatherland Party and then of the
German National People's Party (DNVP). Otto Kern died on 31 January 1942 at the age of 78. Parts of his estate are in the possession of the Göttingen University Library (Wilamowitz biography), the Central Archive of the National Museums in Berlin (materials on the Pozzo drawings) and the Archive of the German Archaeological Institute (a letter). == Works ==