Arnold Mendelssohn (medical doctor)

Arnold Mendelssohn (born November 19, 1817 in Neisse , Silesia , † April or May 1854 near Beyazid , Turkey ) was a German doctor .

origin

Arnold Mendelssohn's father was the son of the successful mechanic and instrument maker Nathan Mendelssohn (1781–1852), the youngest child of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn . His mother was the daughter of the leather manufacturer Henriette Hitzig, formerly Itzig (1781–1845), a granddaughter of Daniel Itzig . Shortly after he was born, his parents had him evangelically baptized in December 1817. His father converted from Judaism to Christianity at the age of 27 . His siblings were Ernst Carl Hugo Mendelssohn (1811-before 1819), Ottilie Ernestine Franziska Mendelssohn (1819–1848) married to Ernst Eduard Kummer , August Joseph Elias Wilhelm Mendelssohn (1821–1866), mechanical engineer married to Aimée Cauer and six others, early dead children. Arnold Mendelssohn remained single and childless.

Career

Arnold Mendelssohn spent his childhood and youth in Prussian Silesia , first in Neisse, then from around 1822 to 1829 in Bad Reinerz , later in the district town of Glatz and from around 1834 to 1836 in Liegnitz .

In 1836 his father returned with his family to Berlin , the city of his birth , where Arnold Mendelssohn passed his Abitur in 1837 at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Gymnasium .

From 1838 he studied medicine , first in Bonn , then in Berlin , where he received his doctorate on November 16, 1841 with a dissertation “De Porrigine Lupinosa”. His uncle, the banker Joseph Mendelssohn , had provided financial support for his studies.

The Rosenthaler Vorstadt 1831–1920, in the 19th century "The Vogtland" or New Voigtland

After completing his studies, he worked as a deputy doctor for the poor in the so-called “Vogtland” , the weavers' settlement in the north of Berlin, near Rosenthaler Platz . Mendelssohn dealt intensively with social issues and "Neu-Vo (i) gtland" was a synonym for the growing social misery in Berlin in the time of early industrialization. At that time, Arnold Mendelssohn was considered to be one of the “most intelligent and hopeful students” of the physiologist Johannes Müller .

Mendelssohn also studied philosophy . In 1844 he met Ferdinand Lassalle , who was ten years his junior . This introduced Mendelssohn to the teachings of Hegel . The young assessor Alexander Oppenheim , who was Mendelssohn's friend and relative , also belonged to the circle of like-minded people of the twenty-year-old philosopher Lassalle . The relationship with Oppenheim and Lassalle changed his life, embroiled him in the notorious cassette affair in 1846 and destroyed his future.

Cassette theft

Alexander Oppenheim, brother-in-law of a cousin of Arnold Mendelssohn, was legal counsel for Countess Sophie von Hatzfeld , who was involved in disputes with her husband von Hatzfeldt-Wildenburg zu Trachenberg (1796–1874). Oppenheim interested his friend Ferdinand Lassalle in the matter, who in turn induced Arnold Mendelssohn to get involved in this case. Ferdinand Lassalle had accepted the Countess von Hatzfeld and represented her for nine years, from 1846 to 1854, in courts.

In the spring of 1846 Lassalle prepared a prodigality suit against Edmund Fürst von Hatzfeldt-Wildenburg. In the summer of 1846, Mendelssohn and Oppenheim observed the mistress of Countess Sophie von Hatzfeldt's husband Edmund, Baroness Meyendorf, and stayed with her at the Mainzer Hof inn in Aachen . When the baroness left, Alexander Oppenheim discovered a cassette in the hall of the inn , in which he suspected important papers for the Hatzfeld trial. He took the cassette and took it to Arnold Mendelssohn's room. Since the theft was discovered quickly, the friends fled. It turned out that the contents of the cassette were quite insignificant.

Oppenheim and Mendelssohn were now a warrant searched. The former surrendered to the police and was acquitted on November 24, 1846 by the Cologne jury of the charge of theft . The millionaire's son was believed to have the noble motive for his deed. Mendelssohn had fled to Paris , learned of Oppenheim's acquittal, and, expecting to receive a mild sentence, returned in June 1847 and voluntarily went to Cologne prison. Although he could only have been accused of complicity or complicity in the act of Oppenheim, he was sentenced on February 11, 1848 by the assists in Cologne of theft and stolen goods to a prison sentence of five years. The authority of the independent trade of a doctor was declared to be forfeited and, after serving a sentence, he was placed under police supervision for life. Thus, a lawsuit against Lassalle for inducement to theft could be initiated, which on August 11, 1848, as with Alexander Oppenheim, ended with an acquittal. Arnold Mendelssohn's harsh court verdict was not expected by his family and was confirmed again in the appeal hearing on May 11, 1848. In June 1849, after the mediation of Alexander von Humboldt , a friend of the Mendelssohn family, the pardon was granted on the condition that he left Europe.

Exile and doctor in the Orient

Arnold Mendelssohn led an erratic wandering life as a doctor in the Middle East . Via Austria , where he applied as a senior physician in the Austro-Hungarian Army in Vienna , he came to Pressburg , where he was imprisoned on suspicion of revolutionary activities, then Hungary , there contact with Hungarian revolutionaries in Sumla , Bulgaria , and finally Constantinople , today Istanbul. From there, Mendelssohn was sent out by the Turkish authorities as a quarantine doctor for Syria and with Hungarian refugees and the English Count Richard Guyon he got on the steamer Sultan via Smyrna and Rhodes to the Syrian Alexandretta . Arnold cured eye infections free of charge in the villages. A sheikh invited him to settle down, then he would get milk, butter, poultry, grapes and a wife. He dreamed of living in Europe with his wife and child ten years from now: “I have atone for my earlier follies or errors or crimes. repent, but hope wisely and to be better… ”He spoke French, English, Italian, Spanish, some Turkish and Arabic. In October 1850 a letter from the Stambul administration announced his dismissal, and he combined that Prussia and Austria had effected his dismissal due to the meeting in Sumla. He managed to travel on as a subject of the Queen. In Aleppo he wanted to apply to be a doctor when the Turkish guards revolted.

St. Louis Hospital, Jerusalem

In May 1851 Mendelssohn reached Jerusalem , where he earned a reputation as the best private doctor. In October 1851 he founded a 22-bed hospital with an Italian missionary and the French consulate chancellor Lequeux, the origin of what is now the oldest hospital in the city, the “St. Ludwig's Hospital ”. The hospital began its work in a private house in the old town and then moved to a wing of the Latin Patriarchate , because there was an acute shortage of space there from the beginning. He proudly reported to his father about the successes of treatment among Turks, Armenians, Greeks and Catholics. The Muslims allowed him everything: "The Christians call me Abu [n] a (Our Father) and call me cataracts of blessings on my head in an Arabic manner." On December 8, 1851, he converted to Catholicism and settled in the chapel baptize the Patriarch. Arnold Mendelssohn: “In this country, religion is politics.” However, he turned down a position offered by the patriarch. He did not want to "rot in the Orient".

Kars, around 1854

At the beginning of 1852 he crossed the desert to Damascus with two French, dressed as Bedouin . "We stayed 16 days in the beautiful Sham, the pearl of the desert, the only city in Syria that has retained its oriental character." In July 1852 he was in Rome and became engaged to a Neapolitan. In Tripoli at the end of 1852 . In the early summer of 1853 he arranged to meet his brother for a wedding in Beirut. Wilhelm was supposed to bring Arnold's bride with him via Naples. But on October 3, 1853 declared Ottoman Empire Russia the war (1853-1856). Arnold Mendelssohn became a Turkish military doctor and secret secretary to the chief of staff of the Caucasian army Richard Guyon , who, although not converting to Islam, exercised supreme command of the local army corps. Guyon, however, could not achieve success in the siege of Kars and was recalled.

A last letter from the Turkish camp to "Madame" was dated January 23, 1854, after he had corresponded from there with the Kölnische Zeitung and the Times about the battles of Gyumri and Subatan near Kars .

Arnold Mendelssohn died of typhus in April or May 1854 near Beyazid, in the extreme east of Turkey / South Caucasus , on the Turkish-Persian border with Iran , the Gürbulak-Bazergan border crossing.

literature

• Wilhelm Erman: Directory of the Berlin University Writings 1810–1885, Medical Dissertation 1841, Arnold Mendelssohn, p. 235
• Dorothea Schlegel: The other Mendelssohns - Dorothea Schlegel, Arnold Mendelssohn , Reprodukt, 2004, ISBN 3-931377-96-2
• Thomas Lackmann: The luck of the Mendelssohns: history of a German family , construction paperback, 2007, ISBN 3-7466-2390-1
• Britta Stein: The divorce process Hatzfeldt: (1846-1851) , Lit Verlag, Münster, 1999, ISBN 3-8258-4262-2

Web links

• Sebastian Panwitz: Arnold Mendelssohn
• Walther G. Oschilewski: Lassalle in Berlin , from: Association for the history of Berlin. Yearbook 195 , edited by Ernst Kaeber, Berlin 1951, pp. 65–79.
• Thomas Lackmann: Poor doctor in the Orient. The black sheep of a Berlin citizen dynasty: in the footsteps of Arnold Mendelssohn , on Tagesspiegel.de, accessed July 20, 2015

Individual evidence

1. ^ Wilhelm Erman: Directory of the Berlin University Writings 1810–1885, Medical Dissertation 1841, Arnold Mendelssohn, p. 235
2. ^ Sebastian Panwitz: The cassette affair
3. ↑ Abuna former name of the leading bishop of the Ethiopian Church in Arabic; "our father"
4. ↑ Thomas Lackmann: “Occasionally in the life of the homeless bachelor, participating women appear:“ a lady who likes me ”in Beirut, then a German pen pal“ Madame ”, behind whom the Cologne relatives Elisabeth Caroline Itzig née. Nobiling hides. "