Christian Adolph Overbeck

Christian Adolph Overbeck (21 August 1755 in Lübeck – 9 March 1821 in Lübeck) was a German poet, and the Burgomaster of Lübeck.

Overbeck was the son of the lawyer (and consultant to Schonenfahrer Company) Georg Christian Overbeck (1713-1786) and his wife Eleonora Maria Jauch (1732-1797), and also grandson of the superintendent Caspar Nikolaus Overbeck (1670-1752). He was the nephew of the rector of the Katharineum, Johann Daniel Overbeck (1715-1802). Overbeck's son was the painter Friedrich Overbeck (1789-1869), and his grandson was the archeologist Johannes Adolph Overbeck (1826-1895). In 1781 Overbeck married Elisabeth Lang (1753–1820), whose family was originally from Nürtingen and shared ancestors with Friedrich Hölderlin and Ludwig Uhland.

He studied at the Katharineum of Lübeck, of which the rector was his uncle Johann Daniel Overbeck (1715-1802), and then from 1773 to 1776 studied law at the University of Göttingen, meanwhile attending lectures on philosophical, mathematical, scientific and historical subjects. Overbeck had many friends in the Göttinger Hainbund, but was never a member. In 1788 he acquired his doctorate and from then on prefixed his name with "Dr.iur.utr."

Overbeck's career began with a failed attempt in 1776 to found a school, the Erziehungsanstalt für Knaben, in Bremen, after the example of Joachim Heinrich Campes. In the same year he began his legal career as a barrister in Lübeck, and in 1779 he was appointed Supreme Court procurator. In 1792 he became assistant general counsel of the cathedral chapter of Lübeck, and in 1799 a consultant to the Schonenfahrer Company, the so-called Schütting, just as his father had been. In 1800 this was followed by his appointment to the Senate of Lübeck. In 1804 he was a representative of Lübeck in St Petersburg, and in 1808-9, 1810 and 1811 a representative of Lübeck in Paris, when he attended the wedding of Napoleon I of France with Marie-Louise of Austria. During Lübeck's occupation by France he filled the office of Receveur de la caisse communale. In 1814 he finally became Burgomaster of Lübeck.

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