Alfred Grotjahn

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Alfred Grotjahn, 1929
Alfred Grotjahn's grave in the Baumschulenweg cemetery in Berlin-Baumschulenweg .

Alfred Grotjahn (born November 25, 1869 in Schladen in the Harz foreland ; † September 4, 1931 in Berlin ) was a German doctor, social hygienist, eugenicist , publicist and member of the Reichstag for the SPD. He is considered the founder and first full professor of social hygiene in Germany.

biography

Alfred Grotjahn studied medicine in Greifswald , Leipzig , Kiel and Berlin and was active in socialist student circles during his studies, influenced by his school friend Albert Südekum . His grandfather Heinrich Grotjahn , the co-initiator of the Grotjahn Foundation in Schladen, his father Robert Grotjahn (1841–1908) and his cousin Carl Grotjahn were doctors. In 1894 he was awarded a Dr. med. PhD . In 1896 he opened his own medical practice in Berlin-Kreuzberg . Soon Grotjahn dealt scientifically with social issues such as alcoholism , with the conditions of the health system and housing. From 1901 to 1902 he attended the political science seminar of Gustav Schmoller . In 1905 he was the initiator and subsequently a board member of the Association for Social Medicine, Hygiene and Medical Statistics.

In 1912, Alfred Grotjahn was the first in Germany to complete his habilitation in social hygiene. He was then a private lecturer at Berlin University at the Charité . In 1915 he gave up his own practice and took over the management of the social hygiene department at the Berlin Medical Office. From 1919 Grotjahn was the medical director of the Berlin homestead office. In 1920 Grotjahn was appointed full professor of social hygiene at the University of Berlin by the social democratic minister of education, Konrad Haenisch, against the will of the medical faculty. For the 1927/28 term of office he was appointed Dean of the Charité.

Grotjahn was a member of the SPD and from 1921 to 1924 a member of the Reichstag . He was also the author of the health policy section of the SPD's 1922 Görlitz program .

Alfred Grotjahn was married to Charlotte nee Hartz. Together they had the children Gertrud, Martin and Peter. In addition to their son Martin, his grandchildren Eva , Marianne and Michael carried on the family's medical tradition.

Grotjahn's diary is an important source for the conditions in Berlin during the First World War .

Writings on social hygiene and eugenics

From 1900 Grotjahn and F. Kriegel published the annual report on progress and achievements in the field of social hygiene and demography . In 1902 he developed his theory of social hygiene, which he summarized ten years later in what is probably his most important work, Social Pathology . According to his theory, the patient's social environment influences the course of illnesses as well as their healing. This theory did not attract particular attention in his time, however, because social conditions did not play an important role for the strictly scientific medicine of his time. Also in 1912 he published the basic, two-volume concise dictionary of social hygiene (FCW Vogel, Leipzig) together with the Munich professor of hygiene Ignaz Kaup .

Initially attacked by eugenicists because of his theory, Grotjahn himself continued to move in the eugenic direction. He was a member of the Society for Racial Hygiene . In the Hygiene of Human Reproduction published in 1926 , he advocated the “systematic extermination through custody and forced sterility” of genetically contaminated people. With his demands he was one of the most radical eugenicists of the Weimar Republic. As a means of rationalizing human reproduction in “quantitative and qualitative terms”, he called for a “cleansing of human society from the sick, ugly and inferior”, which he estimated to be a third of the population. He also spoke out in favor of the forced sterilization of mentally ill people, epileptics, alcoholics and cripples and a "permanent asylation" of around 1% of the population.

Example of Grotjahn's ideas of practical eugenics

In his 1926 published work The Hygiene of Human Reproduction: An Attempt at Practical Eugenics. Grotjahn calls for the transition from purely scientific eugenics to its practical application. He described their implementation using various population groups, for example:

“Despite the fact that the entire population is riddled with weaklings or asthenics , as they are called by the more recent constitutional pathology, it is not very easy to differentiate them from the average population. This could only happen with some degree of certainty through an anthropometric survey of the entire population. […] All in all, this group of asthenics, stigmatized by the lungs of tuberculosis, will extend to a million people, most of whom are still marrying and reproducing. These million people don't need to exist. It is not only an economic burden that would have to be endured, but a source of inferiority that continues through inheritance. As much compassion we have for the sick and as much as we have to try to stop their suffering through care, nursing and specific treatment: in return we can demand that they renounce starting a family and procreation [...]. The opposite pole to the asthenics, the physically inferior and the weakling, are the muscular, broad-shouldered, organically healthy, strong and armed people, whose above-average reproduction is not only desirable from a reproductive hygiene point of view. This group of people cannot at present be delimited in a way that would allow special measures to increase their population. […] [At least in the area of ​​civil servants] it should be ensured that the human material, screened out by medical examination as being particularly vigorous , arrives at an early stage for marriage with similar partners and is stimulated to have many children through a noticeable consideration of the number of children in the salary. "

In the book The Hygiene of Human Reproduction , Grotjahn propagated a "three-child minimum system". Every parent couple has the duty to raise at least three children over the age of five. Rainer Fetscher wrote that there was "nothing conclusive in reply to the correctness of this rule ."

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Grüttner et al.: The Berlin University between the World Wars 1918–1945 (= History of the University of Unter den Linden. Vol. 2). Berlin 2012, p. 108 and 121 f.
  2. ↑ Andreas Conrad: Christmas 1916: Turnips in the morning, at noon, in the evening ... and in between a hooded crow. In: tagesspiegel.de . December 25, 2016, accessed November 25, 2019 .
  3. ^ Walter Artelt : Ernst Georg Short 1859-1937. [ Lecture given on October 1, 1963 at the annual meeting of the German Society for the History of Medicine, Science and Technology e. V. in Schaffhausen and dedicated to my teacher Paul Diepgen on his upcoming 85th birthday on November 24, 1963. ] Senckenberg Institute for the History of Medicine at the University, Frankfurt am Main 1963, p. 7 f.
  4. ^ Alfred Grotjahn: The hygiene of human reproduction: attempt at a practical eugenics. Urban & Schwarzenberg, Berlin / Vienna 1926, p. 330.
  5. ^ Matthias Willing: The Preservation Law (1918-1967). Mohr Siebeck Verlag 2003, p. 64.
  6. ^ Gerhard A. Ritter : The welfare state: Origin and development in international comparison. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag 1991, p. 134.
  7. ^ Alfred Grotjahn: The hygiene of human reproduction. Attempt at practical eugenics. Urban & Schwarzenberg, Berlin and Vienna 1926, pp. 185–192.
  8. ↑ R. Fetscher: Review by A. Grotjahn, Die Hygiene der Menschen Propanzung, in: Archiv für Soziale Hygiene und Demographie 2 (1926/27) 167-169.

literature

Web links

Commons : Alfred Grotjahn  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Grotjahn, Alfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German doctors and politicians (SPD), MdR
DATE OF BIRTH November 25, 1869
PLACE OF BIRTH Schladen
DATE OF DEATH September 4, 1931
Place of death Berlin