Karl Bonhoeffer

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Karl Bonhoeffer, before 1938

Karl Ludwig Bonhoeffer (born March 31, 1868 in Neresheim , Kingdom of Württemberg , † December 4, 1948 in Berlin ) was a German psychiatrist and neurologist , secret medical advisor , professor of psychiatry and neurology at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin , director of the clinic for mental and nervous diseases at the Charité in Berlin.

Karl Bonhoeffer lost his sons Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Klaus Bonhoeffer and his sons-in-law Hans von Dohnanyi and Rüdiger Schleicher to execution on behalf of Hitler's Nazi regime .

family

Karl Bonhoeffer is the son of Friedrich von Bonhoeffer (1828–1907), last president of the royal Württemberg regional court in Ulm, and Julie Bonhoeffer, née Tafel (1842–1936). He is a brother of Gustav-Otto Bonhoeffer (1864–1932), who was a chemist at Bayer-Leverkusen .

Karl Bonhoeffer married Paula von Hase (1876–1951), a granddaughter of the theologian Karl von Hase , in 1898 . Eight children were born in the marriage. Karl Friedrich , Walter, Klaus , Ursula, married Schleicher , Christine, married von Dohnanyi , Dietrich and his twin sister Sabine , married Leibholz-Bonhoeffer , and finally Susanne , married Dreß .

Quotation on Karl Bonhoeffer from the documents of the Commission for Historical Regional Studies in Baden-Württemberg : “The Bonhoeffer family settled in Württemberg since 1513 after they immigrated from Nijmegen in the Netherlands . As councilors, doctors and judges, his ancestors were dignitaries and boasted family ties to the mother of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel , Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart , Ludwig Uhland and David Friedrich Strauss ”.

School and military service

From 1874 to 1878 Karl Bonhoeffer attended elementary school in Heilbronn and Ravensburg and from 1878 to 1886 the grammar school in Tübingen, where he also passed his Abitur. From 1886 to 1887 he did military service in Stuttgart.

Studies and professional career

Bonhoeffer studied medicine from 1887 to 1892 . First at the Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen , where he became a member of the A. V. Igel student association , then at the Friedrich Wilhelms University in Berlin and then at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich .

1892 Karl Bonhoeffer was from the medical High School at the University of Tübingen Dr. med. PhD . His doctoral supervisor was Paul Grützner . After Bonhoeffer received his license to practice medicine, he worked as a substitute in his native Heidenheim . As a licensed doctor with a doctorate, Bonhoeffer was promoted to medical officer after completing his military service .

Head of the Psychiatric Clinic in Wroclaw, habilitation

After a few years, Bonhoeffer became head of the psychiatric clinic and the observation station for "mentally ill criminals" in Breslau . In 1897 he qualified as a professor at the University of Breslau under Carl Wernicke in psychiatry. This is where Bonhoeffer's scientific work on the consequences of alcoholic diseases , the degenerative brain breakdown processes and symptomatic psychoses , which justify his importance as a scientist to this day, was created. From 1903 to 1904 Bonhoeffer worked in Königsberg and Heidelberg . In 1904, Bonhoeffer took over from Carl Wernicke's chair at the University of Breslau.

Full professor of psychiatry and neurology at the Berlin Charité

In 1912 he became the successor of Theodor Draw as full professor of psychiatry and neurology at the Berlin Charité . He held this professorship until his retirement in 1938.

Bonhoeffer's aim was to establish psychiatry as an independent discipline within medicine and to further develop it alongside pure “institutional medicine”. He advocated that “nervous and emotional disorders” should also be treated by resident specialists.

Bonhoeffer was responsible as an expert in all areas of psychiatric diagnostics of his time, including the diagnosis of “reduced sanity ”, a term that was included in the penal code at the time.

Bonhoeffer expanded the system of mental illnesses introduced by Emil Kraepelin and made a distinction between exogenous (e.g. caused by infections or poisoning) and endogenous psychoses. In 1912 Bonhoeffer introduced the term “ acute exogenous reaction type ” into medical terminology. With this Bonhoeffer expanded the differential diagnostic possibilities for differentiating between schizophrenia and paranoia from delirium , an organic psychosyndrome .

Bonhoeffer did research in the field of combating morphinism , cocainism and other addictions. As part of his expert work on accident and war neuroses , he coined the term “ rent neurosis ”. In 1936 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina Scholars' Academy .

Role in the time of National Socialism (1933–1945)

Expert opinion on forced sterilization

In the Reichsgesetzblatt , the official gazette of the German Reich from 1871 to 1945, the law for the prevention of hereditary offspring , in which the state had decided to compulsorily sterilize a number of diseases, was published.

Karl Bonhoeffer was brought in as a professor of psychiatry and neurology at the Berlin Charité during the Nazi era , and also after his retirement in 1936, as an expert on questions of the genetic health of patients. Between 1934 and December 1941, Bonhoeffer is said to have drawn up at least 68 expert reports, almost half of which contained the recommendation "sterilization".

Bonhoeffer was one of the experts who recommended on December 9, 1941 the forced sterilization of Gottfried Hirschberg, who was classified as a “ half-Jew ”. According to information from Bonhoeffer biographers, however, no reports of forced sterilization were made from his office hours, although he would have been legally obliged to do so.

Not only under Adolf Hitler's personal fanatical racial ideology , which brought indescribable suffering to millions of people, but in general, eugenics has been scientifically discussed in medicine since the beginning of the 20th century , as with the discoveries of Gregor Mendel , the Mendelian rules of inheritance named after him discovered a new dimension in medical research.

Retirement

House Marienburger Allee 43, today Bonhoeffer House , built in 1935 as a retirement home for Karl Bonhoeffer

Bonhoeffer was released from his teaching duties at the end of March 1936 at the age of 68, but at the same time he was asked by Minister Rust to continue the office on a substitute basis. The official retirement date in the summer semester of 1938 passed; Bonhoeffer remained connected to the university until Max de Crinis was appointed as his successor in the winter semester of 1938/39. Even after his retirement, he spoke out against remarrying a woman classified as hereditary schizophrenic, although she had already been sterilized years ago. On August 18, 1942, Bonhoeffer was appointed an extraordinary member of the scientific senate of the army medical system.

The Charité Mental Hospital succeeds Karl Bonhoeffer under Max de Crinis

After Karl Bonhoeffer's retirement, Max de Crinis took over the management of the psychiatric department at the Charité in 1938. On November 1, 1938, Max de Crinis took up his post as full professor and director of the Charité Psychiatric and Nervous Clinic in Berlin. The only professional representative who decidedly in favor of de Crinis as the successor to Karl Bonhoeffer was Carl Schneider from Heidelberg , who later played a key role in the National Socialist murders as a T4 expert .

In the years from 1934 to 1942, around two thousand reports were issued at the Charité to assess hereditary health. In 862 cases, the attending physicians at the clinic seemed to have confirmed the diagnosis to the extent that the criteria of the law on hereditary disease were met, so that the recommendation for “forced sterilization” was made.

The overwhelming number of cases concerned the diagnoses “congenital idiocy ” and “ schizophrenia ”, followed at a great distance by “ epilepsy ” and “manic-depressive insanity”.

Bonhoeffer advocated the goal of the 1934 “ Law for the Prevention of Hereditary Diseased Offspring ” to make (supposedly) “hereditary” people sterile. He gave "hereditary health courses" to implement the law. However, he was restrictive of the law and set precedents for careful use of the indication. In his reports, sterilization was spared more often than usual. He certainly made sure that the recommendation was accompanied by a demand for a clear psychiatric diagnosis:

“The decision of the court of inheritance depends on the clinical diagnosis , the certainty of the diagnosis is the first prerequisite for everything else. The task of the doctor, especially the psychiatrist who has to make the diagnosis, is therefore an extremely responsible one. It is not just the differential difficulties in diagnosing the species [...], but perhaps even more so in the quantitative development of the disease. Because where the boundary between a hereditary biologically harmless debility and a nonsense that is sure to be eradicated lies [...] cannot be delimited with the sharpness of a paralysis diagnosis. [...] The law [for the prevention of genetically ill offspring] gave strong impulses for psychiatric research. A further clarification of the knowledge of the boundary and also of the causation of schizophrenia and epilepsy is more than ever necessary. The study of the tendency towards manifestation of pathological predispositions and their ability to be influenced by exogenous factors is gaining in importance. [...] The coupling of pathological and eugenically valuable genetic material in the same individual poses special tasks. "

- Bonhoeffer : in the foreword of a book published in 1934 that became a standard work during the Nazi era

Attitude to the euthanasia program

Bonhoeffer's attitude and actions in connection with the Nazi murders , in which the mentally ill were killed on a large scale, are viewed differently. According to some historians, "he distanced himself from forced sterilization and euthanasia" and resisted this by making contact with both those responsible at the time and with opponents of " Aktion T4 ", for example Friedrich von Bodelschwingh . In a letter, however, he was disappointed about Bonhoeffer's reluctance to answer these questions.

additional

Bonhoeffer wrote the psychiatric report on Marinus van der Lubbe , who was accused of arson by the National Socialist rulers after the Reichstag fire (1933) , in which he attested that he was mentally responsible.

He did not succeed in the administration of the Charité, the discharge of the Jewish doctors Paul Jossmann (1891–1978), Arthur Kronfeld (1886–1941), Franz Kramer (1878–1967), Erwin W. Straus (1891–1975) and others to prevent.

Late years

After 1945

Admission of the Karl Bonhoeffer Psychiatric Clinic , administration building of the psychiatric clinic, built in 1880

In October 1945, at the age of 77, Karl Bonhoeffer turned to the rector-designate of the Berlin University Johannes Stroux for a research assignment in order to contribute to the livelihood of the families of his unsupervised grandchildren who had lost their breadwinners through the execution of their fathers to be able to.

Recognition as a university professor in 1946

On January 29, 1946, Bonhoeffer was also recognized as a university professor by the German Administration for National Education in the Soviet zone of occupation . Karl Bonhoeffer worked as a consultant and expert in the department of psychiatry and neurology for the Heilstätten Wittenau .

His work Fiihrer Personality and Massenwahn, completed in 1947 as a flag withdrawal , was published posthumously in 1968.

Karl Bonhoeffer suffered a stroke in November 1948, at the age of 80 , from the consequences of which he died on December 4, 1948.

Bonhoeffer found his final resting place in the state-owned cemetery Heerstrasse in Berlin-Westend (grave location: II-W-12-286 / 287). His wife Paula, born on February 1, 1951, was born here. buried by hare.

The fate of Bonhoeffer's sons and sons-in-law

Memorial plaque for Karl and Dietrich Bonhoeffer at Wangenheimstrasse 14, Berlin-Grunewald , where the Bonhoeffer family lived from 1916 to 1935.
The date of death of Karl Bonhoeffer is incorrectly indicated on the board.

Karl Bonhoeffer's son Dietrich Bonhoeffer , born in 1906, was arrested as a Protestant theologian and member of the Confessing Church in April 1943 and hanged on April 9, 1945 in the Flossenbürg concentration camp as a resistance fighter shortly before the end of the war . Also on April 9th, his son-in-law Hans von Dohnanyi , daughter Christine's husband, was hanged in Sachsenhausen concentration camp . Another son, Klaus Bonhoeffer , and son-in-law Rüdiger Schleicher , daughter Ursula's husband, were shot dead by the SS on April 23, 1945 near the Lehrter train station.

Karl Bonhoeffer, honorary memberships and honors

Honorary grave of Karl Bonhoeffer in the Heerstrasse cemetery in Berlin-Westend
  • Honorary membership: Society of Doctors in Vienna
  • Honorary membership: Vienna Association for Psychiatry and Neurology
  • Honorary membership: Swiss Society for Psychiatry
  • Honorary membership: Romanian Society for Psychiatry
  • Honorary membership: Royal Society of Medicine (London)
  • Honorary Membership: Interstate Postgraduate Medical Association of North America
  • Honorary membership: Society of German Neurologists and Psychiatrists
  • Honorary membership: Berlin Society for Neurology and Psychiatry
  • Honorary Membership: American Psychiatric Association
  • In 1943 Bonhoeffer was awarded the Goethe Medal for Art and Science .
  • The Berlin Society for Psychiatry and Neurology , which was re-established after 1945 and headed by Karl Bonhoeffer from 1920 to 1934, made him an honorary member in 1948.
  • Since 1956 the former Heilstätten Wittenau have had the name ( Karl-Bonhoeffer-Nervenklinik ).
  • In 1984 the Berlin Senate recognized Karl Bonhoeffer's final resting place in the Heerstraße cemetery in Berlin-Westend as the grave of honor for the State of Berlin . The dedication was extended in 2005 by the usual period of twenty years.
  • In 1986 a Karl Bonhoeffer House was opened in the Hope Valley Institutions in Lobetal ( Bernau ).

Fonts (selection)

  • A contribution to the knowledge of the urban begging and vagabonding. A psychiatric examination. In: Journal for the entire criminal justice system. Volume 21, (Berlin) 1900, pp. 1-65.
  • The acute mental illnesses of the habit drinkers. Jena 1901.
  • The symptomatic psychoses in the wake of acute infections and internal diseases. Deuticke, Leipzig / Vienna 1910. - Full text under Bonhoeffer, Karl (1910) on Wikiversity
  • The psychoses in the wake of acute infections, general illnesses and internal illnesses. In: Handbuch der Psychiatrie. Special part. 3: 1. Deuticke, Leipzig / Vienna 1912, pp. 1–120.
  • The exogenous types of reaction. Archive for Psychiatry and Nervous Diseases 58, Berlin 1917, pp. 50–70.
  • with P. Jossmann (Ed.): Results of stimulus therapy in progressive paralysis. 1932.
  • with K. Albrecht u. a. (Ed.): The psychiatric tasks in the execution of the law for the prevention of genetically ill offspring. With an appendix The Technique of Sterilization. Clinical lectures in the genetic biology course. Karger, Berlin 1934.
  • (Ed.): The hereditary diseases. Clinical lectures in the 2nd genetics course. 1936.
  • The central movement disorders. Acute and chronic choreic diseases and myoclonia. In: SA Kinnier-Wilson: The central movement disorders. 1936.
  • A look back at the impact and handling of the National Socialist Sterilization Act. In: Der Nervenarzt , Volume 20, 1949, pp. 1-5.

See also

literature

  • Heinz David : 275 years of Charité and the responsibility of the medical professional in society. In: Charité-Annalen. New series, Volume 6, 1986, p. 16.
  • Robert Gaupp : For his 70th birthday. In: General journal for psychiatry . Volume 107, 1938, after p. 208.
  • Uwe Gerrens: Medical Ethos and Theological Ethics: Karl and Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the dispute over forced sterilization and "euthanasia" under National Socialism. Oldenbourg, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-486-64573-0 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  • Uwe Gerrens: Karl Bonhoeffer. In: Maria Magdalena Rückert (Ed.): Württembergische biographies including Hohenzollern personalities. Volume I. On behalf of the Commission for Historical Regional Studies in Baden-Württemberg. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-17-018500-4 , pp. 26-29 ( online ).
  • Christof Gestrich: The value of human life: Medical ethics with Karl Bonhoeffer and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Wichern, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-88981-207-4 .
  • Brigitte Kaderas: Karl Abraham's efforts to teach psychoanalysis at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität: Source edition of the "Memorandum of the Berlin Psychoanalytical Association regarding the introduction of psychoanalytic teaching at the Berlin University" and their rejection. In: Yearbook for University History , Volume 1, 1998.
  • Bernd Luther u. a .: On the development of neurology / psychiatry in Berlin, especially at the Charité hospital. In: Charité-Annalen. New series, Volume 2, 1982, pp. 284 ff.
  • Dag Moskopp et al. (Ed.): Karl Bonhoeffer - a neurologist: lectures on the 60th anniversary of death. Wichern, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-88981-275-9 .
  • Klaus-Jürgen Neumärker: The exodus of 1933 and Berlin neurology and psychiatry. Academic commemorative event of the Medical Faculty of the Scientific Council of the Humboldt University in Berlin on November 2, 1988 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the fascist pogrom night. In: Charité-Annalen. New Series, Volume 8, 1988, p. 226 (in it extracts from Bonhoeffer's letter to Ministerialrat Achelis about the dismissal of the Jewish professor Franz Kramer of November 29, 1933 are quoted).
  • Klaus-Jürgen Neumärker: Karl Bonhoeffer. Life and work of a German psychiatrist and neurologist in his time. Springer, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-540-50454-0 .
  • Heinz AF Schulze: Karl Bonhoeffer, his personality, his work, his impact. In: Psychiatry, Neurology and Medical Psychology. Volume 33, 1981, pp. 321-326.
  • Manfred Vasold: Bonhoeffer, Karl. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 199. ( Google Books )
  • Jürg Zutt, Erwin W. Straus , Heinrich Scheller : Karl Bonhoeffer for the hundredth birthday on March 31, 1968. Springer, Berlin 1969 ( limited preview in the Google book search).

Web links

Commons : Karl Bonhoeffer  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Manfred Vasold: Bonhoeffer, Karl. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, p. 199.
  2. ^ Henry Friedlander: The way to the Nazi genocide. Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-8270-0265-6 , p. 212.
  3. ↑ Thomas Beddies: University Psychiatry in the Third Reich. The Charité mental hospital under Karl Bonhoeffer and Maximinian de Crinis . charite.de (PDF)  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. S. 8. Christel Roggenbau: About the sick movement at the Berlin University Psychiatric Clinic in the years 1933–1945. In: Psychiatrie, Neurologie und Medizinische Psychologie , 1 (1949), pp. 129–132.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.charite.de  
  4. ↑ Bonhoeffer's position on the sterilization of the mentally ill. H. Helmchen, Der Nervenarzt 1 2015, pp. 77, Springer-Verlag
  5. ↑ with K. Albrecht u. a. (Ed.): The psychiatric tasks in the execution of the law for the prevention of genetically ill offspring - With an appendix: The technique of sterility. Clinical lectures in the genetic biology course. Karger, Berlin 1934.
  6. ↑ Manfred Vasold: Bonhoeffer, Karl. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, p. 199.
  7. ↑ T. Nefeklus (Prague). On the Bonhoeffer report in the Lubbe case. In: Internationales Ärztliches Bulletin , Prague, 1st year (1934), issue 2 (February), pp. 21-23; Text archive - Internet Archive
  8. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende : Lexicon of Berlin burial places . Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1 . P. 484.
  9. ↑ Source: Lexicon: Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf from A to Z: Memorial plaque for Karl and Dietrich Bonhoeffer , website of the city of Berlin, accessed on April 1, 2014.
  10. ↑ Source of all new honorary memberships: "Commission for historical regional studies in Baden-Württemberg"
  11. ↑ Hartmut Heyck: Goethe - Hindenburg - Hitler. The history of the creation and award of the Goethe Medal for Art and Science (1932–1944) with the names of 600 recipients. Self-published, Gloucester 2009, p. 36.
  12. ↑ Honorary graves of the State of Berlin (as of November 2018) . (PDF, 413 kB), p. 9. Accessed on November 19, 2019. Template - for information - Honorary graves of the State of Berlin . (PDF) Berlin House of Representatives, printed matter 15/4601 of December 27, 2005, p. 1. Accessed on November 19, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Bonhoeffer, Karl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bonhoeffer, Karl Ludwig (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German psychiatrist and neurologist
DATE OF BIRTH March 31, 1868
PLACE OF BIRTH Neresheim , Kingdom of Württemberg
DATE OF DEATH 4th December 1948
Place of death Berlin