Alfred Korach

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Alfred Korach (∗ July 17, 1893 in Königsberg ; † June 4, 1979 in Männedorf ) was a German-American doctor in the public health service .

Live and act

Alfred Korach was born the son of the businessman Max Korach (1854–1922) and his wife Clara (1866–1951) in Königsberg in Prussia. He completed his school education at the Friedrichskollegium in Königsberg. From 1911 to 1919 he studied medicine and economics in Munich, Freiburg im Breisgau, Königsberg, Strasbourg, Rostock and Berlin with interruptions through participation in the medical service during the First World War . In Berlin he attended lectures and seminars on hygiene with Alfred Grotjahn and Adolf Gottstein . In 1920 he was promoted to Dr. med. PhD .

From 1919 to 1921 he was initially a volunteer assistant, then assistant at the Investigation Office for Infectious Diseases in Berlin-Charlottenburg under Walter Oettinger. Here he constructed the "polyagglutinoscope", a serological examination apparatus for serial examinations. After further training at the Academy for State Medicine in Berlin, he worked from 1921 to 1923 on the recommendation of Adolf Gottstein as a research assistant in the medical department of the " Prussian Ministry for People's Welfare ". Here he was involved in communal disease control and disinfection. From August 9, 1922 to August 18, 1933, Alfred Korach was the city doctor of the deputation for housing, health and nutrition in the Prenzlauer Berg district . He organized the 14-day working meetings of the 20 Berlin city doctors and from 1927 to 1933 he chaired the Association of Berlin City Doctors .

Activities in the SPD and public offices (selection)

Persecution - flight - emigration

On March 14, 1933, Alfred Korach was arrested by an SA storm troop on instructions from Hermann Göring and Leonardo Conti and taken to an SA headquarters. Upon intervention of the police headquarters, he was transferred to the police headquarters at Alexanderplatz and released on March 17, 1933 by a judge's order.

On March 22, 1933 he was given leave of absence from his post as a city doctor because of his SPD activities - the final dismissal took place on August 18, 1933. Together with 60 other top SPD employees, he was arrested again on June 23, 1933 and spent two weeks in the Alexanderplatz police prison and held prisoner in Spandau . He was released through the mediation of his future wife, but was placed under police supervision.

On July 17, 1933, he managed to escape across the Curonian Lagoon and through the Memelland to England . On September 1, 1933, he married Käthe Maier (née Jacobson) in Folkestone . From October 23, 1933 to June 13, 1935 he lived in Paris , where he could not find employment. On the mediation of the " Emergency Association of German Scientists Abroad " he worked from July 15, 1935 to December 17, 1936 as a consultant for communal hygiene in the main state sanitary inspection of the USSR in Moscow . In Moscow he mainly devoted himself to questions of urban redevelopment and other questions of public health. On 23 December 1936 he traveled across Finland to Sweden , where he is in Stockholm staying until June 8 1937th

In July 1937 he emigrated to the USA , where he worked from March 1938 to June 1939 as a “Visiting Lecturer in Public Health Administration” at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge . He moved to the University of Cincinnati / Ohio , first as a "Lecturer" and soon afterwards as an "Assistant Professor" for Public Health (Preventive Medicine) .

In 1943 he and his wife acquired American citizenship . After his retirement, the couple moved to Männedorf in Switzerland in 1964 , where they spent their twilight years.

literature

  • Stephan Leibfried and Florian Tennstedt (eds.).
    • Professional bans and social policy 1933. The effects of the National Socialist seizure of power on the health insurance administration and the health insurance doctors. Analysis. Assault and self-help materials. Memories. (Working papers of the research focus on reproductive risks, social movements and social policy. No. 2. University of Bremen.) Research focus on reproductive risks, social movements and social policy University of Bremen, Bremen 1979, p. 229
    • Georg Loewenstein. Municipal health care and socialist medical policy between the German Empire and National Socialism. Autobiographical, Biographical, and Health Policy Notes. (Working reports on buried alternatives in health policy 3) Univ. Bremen, Bremen 1980, pp. 51-53
  • Kristin Etzold. Exodus of social medicine from Berlin to the USA in the 1930s - Alfred Grotjahn's legacy. Diss. Med. Berlin 2007, pp. 66–74: Influence of the Grotjahn students on the development of public health (USA). ... Alfred Korach.
  • Korach, Alfred, Dr. med. In: Alfons Labisch / Florian Tennstedt : The way to the "Law on the Unification of the Health System" of July 3, 1934. Development lines and moments of the state and municipal health system in Germany , Part 2, Academy for Public Health in Düsseldorf 1985, ISSN 0172 -2131, pp. 440-442.
  • Korach, Alfred , in: Joseph Walk (ed.): Short biographies on the history of the Jews 1918–1945 . Munich: Saur, 1988, ISBN 3-598-10477-4 , p. 203
  • Korach, Alfred , in: Werner Röder; Herbert A. Strauss (Ed.): International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés 1933-1945 . Volume 2.1. Munich: Saur, 1983 ISBN 3-598-10089-2 , p. 649

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A new agglutinoscope. In: Klinische Wochenschrift , Vol. 2 (1923), Issue 8, p. 352 doi: 10.1007 / BF01724700
  2. ↑ Alfred Korach. Parental Insurance. In: Arbeiterwohlfahrt. 2 (1927), No. 3, pp. 92-93 digitized
personal data
SURNAME Korach, Alfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American doctor in the public health service
DATE OF BIRTH July 17, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Koenigsberg
DATE OF DEATH 4th June 1979
Place of death Männedorf