Gustav Hirschfeld

Gustav Hirschfeld
Gustav Hirschfeld
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Gustav Hirschfeld (4 November 1847, Pyritz – 10 April 1895, Wiesbaden) was a German classical archaeologist. He was the great-uncle of Walter Benjamin.

Born into "a Jewish merchant family", he studied in Tübingen, Leipzig and Berlin and from 1870 stayed in Greece, Italy and Asia Minor as a stipendary of the German Archaeological Institute. From 1875 to 1877 he led the German excavations at Olympia, for which he was appointed extraordinary professor (1878) then ordinary professor (1880) at the University of Königsberg.