Bodo Manstein

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Bodo Manstein (born January 4, 1911 in Berlin , † October 18, 1977 in Konstanz (individual sources give October 8, 1977 as the date of death, Detmold as the place of death or as the family name of Manstein )) was a German doctor , non-fiction author and co-founder and first chairman of the BUND . The Bodo-Manstein-Medal was named after him, an undoped award given by the BUND.

Life

In 1930 Bodo Manstein joined the NSDAP . During his work as an assistant doctor in the Air Force from 1935 to 1937, he received his doctorate in medicine from the University of Munich in 1936 .

In 1938 he became a member of the National Socialist German Medical Association and began specialist training in the University Women's Clinic of the Charité in Berlin . He completed his habilitation in 1943 and taught as a lecturer at a Berlin university. He became a British prisoner of war and after his release in 1946 became head of the biological-meteorological institute in Detmold . In 1952 he published the advisory diary of a woman , the first standard work of its kind, which not only explained the biological processes of the female cycle , but also enabled readers to determine fertile and infertile days using tables and graphs that could be filled out. Before the birth of the birth control pill , which fueled the sexual revolution in the 1968 movement, the book was so successful that it was reprinted several times for more than a decade. From 1956 to 1963 Bodo Manstein taught at the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster . He was chief physician for obstetrics in the gynecological department of the Detmold State Hospital and director of the Detmold district hospital.

In his later non-fiction books, Manstein warned of air pollution, the dangers of the nuclear threat and similar topics as early as the 1950s and 1960s, which only entered public consciousness with the beginning of the green and peace movements of the late 1970s and early 1980s. With regard to an overpopulation of the earth, which he saw as a danger, he took the view that in the face of " unleashed technology " the standards had been lost, to which the various " human races " reacted differently. According to his forecast, only 15 percent of the world's population would live in Europe, including the Soviet Union, in 2000 , whereas Muslims in India and Yugoslavia “ consciously ” increased their numbers.

From 1957 Bodo Manstein worked with Nikolaus Koch . Similar to the Viennese cultural critic, writer and philosopher Günther Anders , who planned an “Aktion Arche”, in 1957 Nikolaus Koch and Bodo Manstein called for a volunteer campaign against the US nuclear tests in the Pacific (even before non-violent groups from the USA were their role models protest actions with sailing boats started). Due to intensive reflection, the project was not carried out and resulted in training for "civilian missions" based on the German situation. The results of this course were reflected in the joint publication by Manstein and Koch “The volunteers / training for non-violent self-help and unmilitary defense” (1959). In addition to overcoming the military, it was also about a. the nuclear armament of the Bundeswehr, air raid protection and the reunification of Germany. The key points were a new level of defense and strategies for nonviolent political practice from below.

At the two-day hearing on Risks of Nuclear Energy , which the Interior Committee of the German Bundestag organized in Bonn in 1974 , Manstein represented the question of whether, compared to natural radiation, what would be added through the use of nuclear energy was insignificant because it was downright ridiculously low Position that one does not have comparative data and is therefore unable to estimate the effects of a radiation exposure on humans that is above the statistically calculated average of natural radioactivity. As a scientist and based on his own impressions from the Second World War, he was aware of the political responsibility of science. He therefore participated in the founding of the BUND in 1975 and became its first chairman.

Publications (selection)

  • Woman's diary . Verlag Banzhaf & Berthoud, Gütersloh 1952 (at least 24 editions until 1964).
  • Bodo Manstein and Nikolaus Koch: The volunteers - training for non-violent self-help and non-military defense . Knowledge and Responsibility Publishing House, Gütersloh 1959.
  • In the stranglehold of progress . European publishing house , Frankfurt am Main 1961 (according to German bibliography , Die Zeit No. 27/1962; with 62 graphic illustrations by Wolfgang Dohmen; 600 pages).
  • Love and hunger . The primal instincts in the light of the future; Models for a new world. Kurt Desch, Munich 1967 (according to German bibliography , Die Zeit No. 38/1967; 250 pages).
  • Your hospital - your fate . A chief physician takes stock. Kurt Desch, Munich / Vienna / Basel 1967 (according to German bibliography , Die Zeit No. 15/1972; 264 pages).
  • Rays . Medicine and science in transition. A critical manual. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1977.
  • Atomic dilemma . (edited by Bodo Manstein). Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1977.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Richard Stöss : From nationalism to environmental protection . 1980, ISBN 3-531-11512-X , pp.  251 .
  2. ^ A b Stefan Appelius : Pacifism in West Germany: the German Peace Society 1945–1968 . 1991, ISBN 3-925714-49-9 , pp.  726 .
  3. ↑ Short biography and literature lists from the Lippische Landesbibliothek Detmold . S.  1 ( online [PDF; 6 kB ; accessed on August 5, 2009]).
  4. ↑ Robert Jungk : Living with the machine . In: Die Zeit , No. 16/1962
  5. ^ Jörg Melzer: Whole Foods Nutrition: Dietetics, Naturopathy, National Socialism, Social Claims . 2003, ISBN 978-3-515-08278-5 , pp. 373 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  6. ↑ Helga and Konrad Tempel: Beginnings of nonviolent action in the first 20 years after the war - who knows what really happened? In: Christian Büttner u. a. (Ed.): Politics from below - On the past and present of nonviolent action . 1997, p. 64ff (on US protests see Albert Bigelow, Wikipedia, engl.)
  7. ↑ Thomas von Randow : Risks of nuclear energy: The price of our unreason . In: Die Zeit , No. 51/1974
personal data
SURNAME Manstein, Bodo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German doctor and environmentalist
DATE OF BIRTH January 4, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH October 18, 1977
Place of death Constancy