Agnes Bluhm

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Agnes Bluhm in 1886

Agnes Bluhm (born January 9, 1862 in Constantinople ; † November 12, 1943 in Beelitz ) was a German specialist in gynecology , racial hygienist , geneticist and women's rights activist. Bluhm was one of the first German doctors and researchers.

Life

Agnes Bluhm's tombstone in the Lichterfelde park cemetery

Agnes Bluhm was born as the daughter of the quay. Osman. Divis. General Julius Bluhm, a former Prussian engineer officer, was born in Istanbul. With her two sisters Helene Maria Anna Olga and Martha Maria she grew up with her mother Agnes Bluhm , nee. Simon , in Berlin; she saw her father only on his long but rare visits. When she met Anna Dahms, a medical student, she became interested in studying medicine . For her father's sake, however, she first trained as a teacher and was examined in this profession in 1880.

Finally, with the support of her mother, she orientated herself in the direction of her dream job and began her studies at the University of Zurich in the winter semester of 1884/1885 , where women were already allowed to study medicine at that time. During her studies in Zurich, she was in close contact with the later gynecologist Clara Willdenow, whom she admired. During her studies, she belonged to a group of medical students who probably knew each other from the Zurich student association. In a contemporary photograph from 1889 that Ricarda Huch had taken, she is shown along with six other fellow students: alongside Ricarda Huch, Clara Neumann, Elsa von Rosenzweig, Anna Eysoldt, Molly Herbig and Emma Rhyner (the only Swiss woman). In 1890 she received her doctorate in gynecology .

Right at the beginning of her studies, in October 1884, she met Friedrich Nietzsche , whom she admired, personally in Zurich . A year later, during an anatomical section in the winter semester of 1885, she met Alfred Ploetz , who fell in love with her. A triangular relationship developed between her, Ploetz and Pauline Rüdin. Despite his decision to marry Pauline (1890), Agnes and Ploetz remained close friends until his death. In Zurich she took part in a group of students and professors in which there was eager discussion. These included Alfred Ploetz, Auguste Forel , Gustav von Bunge , Frank Wedekind , Richard Avenarius , Adolf Fick , Rudolf Pöch as well as Carl and Gerhart Hauptmann . “Hereditary issues were discussed a lot in medicine and beyond. Gerhart Hauptmann described this group under Forels and Ploetzen's leadership .

As recently as 1890 she settled in Berlin as a gynecologist with a Swiss license to practice medicine. In Germany (and also Berlin) she was the third practicing doctor after Emilie Lehmus and Franziska Tiburtius . Your practice quickly became very successful. Agnes Bluhm opened the “ Polyclinic for Women and Female Doctors” in Berlin in 1899, possibly a few years earlier . By founding social help groups, she was particularly committed to the protection of workers, the treatment of destitute women and women's studies . She was also a lecturer in hygiene at the Humboldt Academy and wrote chapters on hygiene and gynecology in scientific manuals. Larger professional associations appointed her as doctors for female members; Bluhm arranged for female factory inspectors to be appointed.

In 1905 she had to give up her practice due to an ear problem and in the same year she co-founded the Society for Racial Hygiene . She also worked on the archive for race and social biology founded by Alfred Ploetz . Up until now she had been particularly concerned with breastfeeding and its importance in her academic papers , but now she has found a focus on racial hygiene. From 1919 to 1942 she worked at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Biology in Berlin in the department for racial hygiene and worked particularly on the effects of alcohol on the genome . To do this, she carried out experiments on 32,000 mice . For this research work, she received the Leibniz Medal in 1932.

Bluhm was also a member of the " Association of German doctors " (1928 honorary member), one of the first women's organizations after the " seizure " of the Nazis excluded its Jewish members 1,933th In 1937 she became co-editor of the Archive for Racial and Social Biology , the press organ of the German Society for Racial Hygiene .

She was buried in the grave of her partner, the painter Adrienne Hacker, one of the sisters of the doctor Agnes Hacker .

Act

Until her death, Agnes Bluhm remained connected to Alfred Ploetz, whom she had met in Zurich. When in November 1936 it was not Ploetz, who was favored and positioned by the racial hygienists in Germany, but Carl von Ossietzky who received the Nobel Peace Prize, Bluhm was indignant about the award to the "treason" and the "cheeky provocation against Germany" . Bluhm exchanged letters with Ploetz in advance about medical cases in her practice, from 1921 mainly on racial hygiene.

Her theses on racial hygiene and the position of women in society - she saw the obligation to motherhood as more important than its realization in work - were made known by her in a large number of publications. Her racial hygiene approaches found their way into legislation under National Socialism , especially the racial hygiene laws of 1937. She revoked some of her theses herself, but was barely heard.

In the German Democratic Republic , her work, The Race Hygiene Tasks of the Female Doctor, was placed on the list of literature to be sorted out.

Publications (selection)

  • The criminal liability of the annihilation of germinating life (§ 218 R.St.GB) from the viewpoint of the medical practitioner , report in: Abolitionist pamphlets , booklet 9. Print: Kupky & Dietze , Dresden 1909.
  • Ability to breastfeed. In: A. Grotjahn, I. Kaup (ed.): Concise dictionary of social hygiene. Leipzig 1912, pp. 555-570.
  • Hygienic care for workers and their children , 2nd edition. Johann Ambrosius Barth Verlag , Leipzig 1914.
  • Commercial women’s work during and after the war . Publishing house society and education, Berlin 1919.
  • On the problem of "alcohol and offspring": an experimental study . JF Lehmanns Verlag, Munich 1930.
  • Is alcohol harm hereditary? from: International magazine against alcoholism, year 1930, issue 6. Neuland Verlag, Berlin 1931.
  • The racial hygiene tasks of the female doctor , in: Schriften zur Herblehre und Rassenhygiene, Berlin, 1934.
  • The law for the prevention of hereditary offspring , in Die Frau Vol. 41, pp. 529-538, 1934.
  • Alfred Ploetz in memory . Die Ärztin 8 (1940), pp. 213-214.

Awards

literature

  • Johanna Bleker and Svenja Ludwig: Emancipation and Eugenics. The letters from the women's rights activist, racial hygienist and geneticist Agnes Bluhm to Alfred Ploetz's college friend from 1901–1938. Matthiesen Verlag, Husum 2008 (Treatises on the History of Medicine and Natural Sciences 100), ISBN 978-3-7868-4100-5 .
  • S. Ludwig: Dr. med. Agnes Bluhm (1862-1943). In: E. Brinkschulte (ed.): Female doctors. Berlin 1993, pp. 84-92.
  • Sigrid Stöckel: Bluhm, Agnes. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin and New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 188.
  • Annette Vogt: From the back entrance to the main portal - female scientists in the Kaiser Wilhelm Society , in: Dahlemer Archive Talks 2/1997 (Ed .: Archive for the History of the Max Planck Society, pp. 115–139, (pp. 122–130 via Bluhm)), ISSN  1431-6641 .
  • Peter Reinicke : Bluhm, Agnes , in: Hugo Maier (Hrsg.): Who is who of social work . Freiburg: Lambertus, 1998 ISBN 3-7841-1036-3 , p. 89

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Clara Willdenow's biography on lesbian history
  2. ^ Christiane Leidinger, No daughter from a good family - Johanna Elberskirchen (1864-1943 ), Konstanz 2008: UVK Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, ISBN 978-3-86764-064-0 , p. 41.
  3. ↑ Peter Emil Becker: To the history of racial hygiene. Ways into the Third Reich , Thieme Verlag, Stuttgart 1988, ISBN 3-13-716901-1 , p. 61
  4. ↑ Gerhart Hauptmann: Complete Works. Centenary issue. Volume VII: Autobiography. , Berlin, Propylaen Verlag 1962, p. 1065
  5. ^ Antonius Lux (ed.): Great women of world history. 1000 biographies in words and pictures . Sebastian Lux Verlag , Munich 1963, p. 70.
  6. ^ Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Second updated edition, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 54.
  7. ↑ Martin Müller: Adler to Wesendonck. Germans and other foreigners in Zurich 1830-1914 . Chronos Verlag, Zurich 2012, p. 45.
  8. ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1953-nslit-b.html
personal data
SURNAME Bluhm, Agnes
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German doctor
DATE OF BIRTH January 9, 1862
PLACE OF BIRTH Constantinople
DATE OF DEATH November 12, 1943
Place of death Beelitz