After many years of effort and persuasion by various interested parties, in 1909 Germany's first sinology department was finally set up in Hamburg at the recently established Kolonialinstitut (Colonial Institute), with a professorial chair in East Asian languages and history. A decade later the institute became one of the founding institutions of the University of Hamburg.
經相關有心人士大聲疾呼，多年奮鬥、催生之後，一九○九年，德國第一所漢學系終於在漢堡大學成立。