Ludwig Osthelder

Ludwig Osthelder was a Bavarian jurist, civil servant and entomologist.

Biography

Born in the Bavarian Palatinate, Ludwig Osthelder studied law in Munich and was a member of the student fraternity Akademischer Gesangverein München within the Sondershäuser Verband.
He entered the Bavarian civil service in 1905. In 1914–1915 he served in the First World War. In 1920 he was promoted to Oberregierungsrat, and in 1923 appointed as Ministerialrat responsible for legal affairs concerning public and vocational schools. In 1932 he became President of the Government of the Palatinate. With the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, he was placed into provisional retirement and returned to Munich. From 1943 he lived in Kochel.
On 23 May 1945 he was appointed by Munich’s Lord Mayor Karl Scharnagl as President of the Government of Upper Bavaria, and this appointment was confirmed by the Allied Military Government on 24 May. He retired on 31 December 1948. Osthelder died in 1954 in Kochel am See.
Between 1919/20 and 1922 Osthelder was a member of the Bavarian People's Party. From 1949 to 1951 he served as chairman of the Munich Entomological Society and also chaired the Association of Palatines in Right-Bank Bavaria, founded in Munich in 1949.
Osthelder was the great-grandfather of, an investment manager and ambassador of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.