Andreas Knack

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Andreas Valentin Knack (born September 12, 1886 in Aachen , † May 3, 1956 in Hamburg ) was a German hospital director and member of the Hamburg parliament .

Portrait from a group shot

Live and act

Andreas Knack grew up in Aachen, where he attended the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gymnasium , which he left with the Abitur in March 1905. He then studied medicine at the University of Berlin and the University of Munich . After the medical state examination on December 13, 1911, he published his dissertation in 1912, in which he treated birth and uterine cancer: a contribution to aetiology, prognosis and prophylaxis . He then went to Mannheim , where he worked as an assistant doctor at the pathological institute of the city hospitals. The institute was subordinate to Theodor Fahr , who had been head of the prosecution of AK Barmbek in Hamburg since October 1, 1913 . Knack followed Fahr to Hamburg, where he worked as an assistant doctor in the pathological institute until March 1, 1914. He then worked until April 1919 in the first medical department that Theodor Rumpel was subordinate to.

In May 1919, Knack took over the management of the prosecution at the Hamburg harbor hospital . From 1919 to the end of 1922 he worked as a medical officer for the employment office, the AOK and as a school doctor for the medical college. Knack belonged to the Association of School Doctors in Germany, the Association for Public Health Care and the German Society for Combating Venereal Diseases. In these bodies he tried to improve community health care. On June 4, 1921, he passed the physics test. To this end, he wrote the research paper on Greater Hamburg in the fight against venereal diseases and brothels . The work was published as a brochure in 1921. Knack called for a legal end to police surveillance of prostitution. On April 21, 1920, the Hamburg citizenship set up a constituent committee that was supposed to reorganize the Hamburg prostitution system and to which Knack also belonged. On June 17, 1921, the citizenry also closed the brothels after his efforts.

Knack actively participated in the health policy of the SPD. He took part in the party congresses in Kassel in 1920, in Görlitz in 1921, in Augsburg in 1922, in Berlin in 1924, in Heidelberg in 1925, in Kiel in 1927 and in Magdeburg in 1929. From 1922 he was a member of the Health Policy Program Commission together with Max Quarck . When the Reich Law to Combat Venereal Diseases came into effect on October 1, 19267 , Knack and Quark wrote a critical commentary for the SPD. Knack was involved in the working group of social democratic doctors and in the association of socialist doctors . On May 31, 1931, the first and only Social Democratic Doctors' Conference took place in Leipzig. As the main speaker, Knack dealt with the subject of “The bourgeois and the social democratic doctor”.

In 1924, 1928 and 1930 the physician traveled to England , Hungary and France to study . He examined institutions that acted against venereal diseases and prostitution. On October 3, 1923, the Hamburg health authority appointed him director of the AK Barmbek under the direction of Louis Grünwaldt . All of the facility's chief physicians, most of whom belonged to the DVP or DNVP , had previously filed a petition against this decision without consequences. As hospital director, Knack supported efforts by hospital carers to gather background information on the social environment of their patients. In the book Illness and Social Situation he summarized his findings about possible connections. At the beginning of 1925 he set up an information center for social legislation, which was supposed to give hospital doctors and carers information in the field of social medicine.

Knack, who had been a member of the board of the German Association for Welfare Service in Hospitals since its constitution in the summer of 1927, called in this position for the cooperation of doctors - a demand that was partially criticized by the chief physician colleagues in Barmbek. On 27./28. On January 1st, 1933, Knack led the 17th conference of the Northwest German Society for Internal Medicine, which took place in the lecture building of the Barmbeck hospital. On April 7 of the same year, the National Socialists suspended Knack as a "nationally unreliable" hospital director in accordance with Section 4 of the Law to Restore the Civil Service .

Knack, who had been married to Olga Brandt-Knack since 1920 , settled in Hamburg on September 20, 1913. On February 2, 1934, he left Hamburg with his second wife, the Jew and former member of the Bundestag Edith Hommes (1891–1935). The couple traveled to the Republic of China via Geneva , where Andreas Knack, mediated by the League of Nations , worked from April 1934 to March 1935 as the deputy director of the central hospital in Nanking . He then worked for a short time as a doctor in the hospital of the Belgian Mission in Hohhot . From 1935 to 1937 he had a doctor's practice in Beijing and from 1938 to 1948 in Mukden in Manchuria .

The International Refugee Organization made it possible for Knack to return from Shanghai to Hamburg on December 28, 1948 , where he was President of the Health Authority from April 14, 1949 to April 1, 1952.

Knack belonged to the Hamburg parliament as a parliamentary group member of the SPD from 1919 to 1933.

Journal articles (selection)

In: The Socialist Doctor

  • The fight against sexually transmitted diseases and prostitution. Volume 3 (1927), Issue 3 (December), pp. 10-18 digitized
  • Hospital and public. 7th year (1931), No. 4 (April), pp. 105-109 digitized

Honor

Today the Andreas-Knack-Ring in Barmbek-Nord commemorates the former director of the nearby hospital building.

literature

personal data
SURNAME Knack, Andreas
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Knack, Andreas Valentin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German hospital director and member of the Hamburg parliament
DATE OF BIRTH September 12, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH Aachen
DATE OF DEATH May 3, 1956
Place of death Hamburg