Dr. Senckenberg Foundation
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The Dr. Senckenbergische Stiftung is a foundation in Frankfurt am Main . It was built in 1763 by the doctor Johann Christian Senckenberg . According to the original donor's will, the community hospital and a medical institute were initially financed from their funds . Other institutions that emerged from the Dr. Senckenberg Foundation, the Botanical Garden , the Senckenberg Anatomy, the Institute for the History of Medicine and the Senckenberg Library, which are now part of the Goethe University in Frankfurt and the Johann Christian Senckenberg University Library .
The founder Johann Christian Senckenberg
Johann Christian Senckenberg 1707 was born as the son of the city physician Johann Hartmann Senckenberg . Due to the difficult financial situation of his parents, Senckenberg could not start studying medicine until 1730. As early as 1732 he was working as a doctor in Frankfurt. From 1755 Senckenberg was a city physician. In the private medical practice he practiced little and if only for wealthy patients, he was, for example, personal physician of the Landgrave of Hessen-Kassel .
Senckenberg married a total of three times. His first wife in 1743, who died shortly after the birth of a daughter. His daughter died in 1745. By this time he had married for the second time. This marriage also ended with the death of the wife in 1747. Their son also died that year. The third marriage was childless.
It is not entirely clear where Senckenberg got the assets of 100,000 guilders that he brought into the foundation. After his father's death in 1730, he initially left his inheritance to his mother, who ran the housekeeping for him. From the division of the estate with his brothers, he then took over the house in Hasengasse 3 in 1743. Senckenberg inherited 30,000 guilders from his first marriage, and his second wife also bequeathed an unknown amount to him after disputes over inheritance. After the death of his third wife, he waived an estate. It is also reported that apart from his passion for books, he was thrifty. From 1743 he kept precise housekeeping records of his standard of living.
History of the foundation
Prehistory and foundation in 1763
The idea for a foundation is documented for the first time in a diary entry from November 10th, 1746 (presumably dated later), and according to his own statements he put it down in a will of October 15th of the same year. Accordingly, the medical college ( Collegium medicum ) of the city was established as the main inheritance . His home - which was also to house his library and collections - he planned for meetings of doctors. A part of the foundation should also be used for poor sick people and doctor widows. One difficulty in the will: a Collegium Medicum did not even exist in Frankfurt at the time - so the main inheritance was indefinite.
Because of the Seven Years' War , Senckenberg waited until 1763 before finally establishing the foundation. In the foundation letter of August 18, 1763, supplemented by an additional file of December 16, 1795, he defined the goals of the foundation: all of his assets should be “ pro bono publico in the absence of more physical heirs” and in love “for [s] a fatherland” patriae are made available. The purpose of the foundation should be "better health care for local residents and care for the poor sick".
Two thirds of the interest from his property should be used for the maintenance of his house as a medical institute and for building the library, one third should be distributed to poor sick people and any surplus should go to doctor widows and orphans and doctors in need (§7) . In § 10 he left the executors free to sell the house and build an anatomical theater , a chemistry laboratory and a medicinal garden in a more suitable place . Should a surplus remain from the funds for this medical institute, it should be used for scholarships.
The foundation was confirmed by the city council two days later. Of all people, the lawyer and councilor Johannes Siegner, who had advised him on the drafting of the will, made a statement in a restaurant that was brought to the founder; in Senckenberg's own words: “When the first part of my foundation was just finished by myself, Dr. Stiegner in the Creuzgen because he had been drinking, from me: We want to give him his joy until he dies, after that it should be different (nothing from my foundation, and the money should be withheld and lost.) ” Also tried in the following Year Senckenberg's younger brother Johann Erasmus had him declared insane during a serious illness and had the foundation declared invalid.
Johann Christian Senckenberg responded on December 16, 1765 with an addition ("encore") to the foundation letter, in which he rigorously excluded all influence of the city of Frankfurt. He appointed his older brother Heinrich Christian Senckenberg or his male descendants as executor. Should the family die out in the male line - which actually happened later - the deans of the law and medical faculty of the University of Giessen were appointed as executives. They filled the office until the University of Giessen was dissolved in 1946. The decision to choose the University of Giessen can be seen as a provocative step; In Senckenberg's time, Giessen was “abroad” from a Frankfurt perspective. In the addition, the idea of a “citizen and beysass hospital” appears for the first time . It was only here that the foundation received its name “Dr. Senckenberg Foundation ”. In that year Senckenberg rounded up the fortune to 100,000 guilders. Senckenberg chose the coat of arms of the Senckenberg family, a burning bush, with the inscription Fundatio Senckenbergiana amore Patriae : Senckenberg Foundation out of love for the hometown as the seal of the foundation .
Establishment of the institutes and the foundation site
The most important consequence of the incidents of 1763/64 was that Senckenberg decided to tackle his idea of the foundation while he was still alive. In 1766 he purchased a 3 hectare property on Eschenheimer Gasse at Eschenheimer Tor for 23,000 guilders . Senckenberg enlarged the area in 1797 through acquisitions for 36,000 guilders. Until his death in 1772, the foundation's assets increased to 134,500 guilders through interest income. In addition, donations of 450,000 guilders came in the first fifty years, for example from Simon Moritz Bethmann .
Senckenberg had extensive construction work carried out on the site. Within the first two years a library hall, a meeting room, a gardener's apartment, a chemical laboratory and his own crypt had already been completed. Anatomy followed in 1768, which eliminated a long-standing grievance in Frankfurt: Until then, corpses had been dissected in the side room of a restaurant. He also had a medicinal garden ( Hortus medicus ) laid out.
Senckenberg personally laid the foundation stone for the “ Bürgerhospital ” on July 9, 1771. Until then there was only the Medieval Hospital for the Holy Spirit in Frankfurt , which only treated strangers. On Sunday, November 15, 1772, the donor personally checked the progress of the construction work on the bell tower of the hospital. Due to an accident, he fell off the scaffolding and was fatally injured. Although Senckenberg had refused to be autopsied on his own, his body was the first to be examined in the newly built anatomy because it had suffered a violent death.
One year after Senckenberg's death, the Bürgerhospital was in the shell, but the interior was extended for another five years due to lack of funds. The administrators had to realize that the foundation had taken over financially. In 1779 the hospital was able to open with six beds, but by 1783 the capacity had been increased to thirty beds thanks to donations from Frankfurt citizens. In 1812 it was also possible to set up a private beneficiary foundation from a bequest from Senator Johann Carl Brönner; Back then, beneficiary referred to the inmates of an old people's home .
During the coalition wars, the foundation came to a standstill. She had to contribute 35,000 guilders to war contributions. Under Karl Theodor von Dalberg , a Grand Ducal Medical and Surgical School was set up in Frankfurt in 1812 , which provided the foundation. Anton Crevé and Karl Wenzel taught at the school . The school was closed again on January 30, 1813 for financial reasons.
After a visit to Frankfurt in 1814, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe described the state of the theoretical part of the foundation, i.e. the Bürgerhospital excluded, as follows:
“[The Foundation] sank more and more into dust and secrecy and fell ill with external and internal evils. A medical school that was supposed to revive the study came and went. The burdens of war were and will be borne, as well as many other calamities that accumulated; enough the institute is currently so poor that it cannot meet the slightest need from its own resources "
Further settlements on the foundation site
The Senckenberg Natural Research Society (SNG) (today: Senckenberg Society for Natural Research ) was founded in 1817 - 45 years after Senckenberg's death. The driving force behind this was the anatomy teacher from the Senckenberg Foundation, Philipp Jakob Cretzschmar , and numerous other founders worked in the foundation or the community hospital. In a contract in 1819, the foundation approved the company to bear his name and to adopt the foundation's coat of arms in memory of Johann Christian Senckenberg. The foundation also provided the site on which the Senckenberg Museum was built from 1904 to 1907 . Until 1967, a doctor from the community hospital was always director of the Senckenberg Natural Research Society, and the museum is still on the ground that the Dr. Senckenberg Foundation belongs.
In 1824 the Physikalische Verein split off from the Naturforschende Gesellschaft . The founders of the association, especially Christian Ernst Neeff , also wanted to deal with physics and chemistry and did not see their interests adequately represented in the foundation.
In the course of the 19th century, other scientific societies settled on the foundation's premises, such as the Geography and Statistics Association (1836), the Medical Association (1845) and a Microscopic Association (1855). So around the crystallization point of Dr. Senckenberg Foundation something like a scientific and medical campus.
Demolition of the foundation site
In 1902, Mayor Franz Adickes suggested that the foundation change the site. The institutions that had found their place on the foundation site at Eschenheimer Tor were distributed around the city center like a wreath. The Bürgerhospital came to Nibelungenallee, where a new hospital with 130 beds and a beneficiary house for 30 beneficiaries was opened in 1907. The botanical institute was relocated near the Palmengarten Frankfurt , the pathological-anatomical institute near the municipal hospital in Sachsenhausen . The Senckenbergische Bibliothek, the Senckenberg-Museum and the Physikalische Verein received new buildings on Viktoria-Allee from 1906.
Foundation of the university
One of the eleven founders of the University of Frankfurt in 1914 was Dr. Senckenberg Foundation, which brought in an institute for anatomy and committed to expanding the botanical institute. After the First World War , Dr. Senckenberg Foundation in financial difficulties with the operation of the community hospital and library. In 1923 she reached an agreement with the university that it would cover the operating costs of the Senckenberg Institute (anatomy, botanical garden and library) without affecting the property rights of the foundation. At the 175th anniversary celebration in 1938, the financial situation had improved so much that the Senckenberg Institute for the History of Medicine could be donated to the university. During the Second World War, the Senckenberg anatomy was destroyed and the library building was badly damaged. The book holdings were relocated in good time.
Senckenberg Library
When Senckenberg died, he had left 10,000 volumes with an emphasis on scientific and medical subjects. 6,000 volumes with non-medical content were auctioned off in the course of the financial emergency in the 1770s. The money raised was used on the one hand to pay off the accumulated debts and on the other to buy additional medical literature. The Senckenberg Society for Nature Research and the Physical Association, which settled on the foundation's premises in the course of the 19th century, expanded the shared library. In 1867 the library received a new building.
In 1907, the Senckenbergische Bibliothek, with around 75,000 volumes, moved into its own building on Victoria-Allee (today Senckenberganlage ). The library, like the Freiherrlich Carl von Rothschild'sche public library, formed the basis of the Johann Christian Senckenberg university library after the foundation university in Frankfurt was founded in 1914 . In 1964, the Senckenberg library moved into a joint building with the city and university library on Bockenheimer Landstrasse. Due to Senckenberg's addition to the main foundation letter, according to which the city of Frankfurt should not have any influence on his foundation, the libraries had to be managed separately until 2005. Only when the sponsorship was transferred to the State of Hesse as a result of the cultural agreement could a uniform university library be created that bears the name Senckenberg.
The foundation today
The Dr. Senckenberg Foundation has been managing four doctors and four merchants since Senckenberg's death. The foundation administration is also the administration of today's community hospital. It will continue to be supported by the foundation. For the 300th birthday of the founder Johann Christian Senckenberg, she donated the Dr. Senckenberg Institute for Neuro-Oncology (Cancer Diseases of the Nervous System) as a department in the Center for Neurology and Neurosurgery .
The foundation also collects portraits of Frankfurt personalities, including the Senckenberg family.
The foundation awards the Senckenberg Prize and the Senckenberg Sponsorship Prize and looks after the extensive collection of Senckenberg's diaries.
literature
- August de Bary : Johann Christian Senckenberg . Kramer, Frankfurt 1947, without ISBN.
- Horst Naujoks and Gert Preiser (eds.): 225 years of Dr. Senckenberg Foundation 1763–1988 . Olms-Weidmann, Hildesheim 1991, ISBN 3-487-09441-X .
- Thomas Bauer: With open arms: The history of the Frankfurt community hospital . Bürgerhospital Frankfurt am Main eV, Frankfurt 2004, ISBN 3-00-015247-4 .
- Ludwig Heilbrunn: The foundation of the University of Frankfurt a. M . Josef Baer & Co., Frankfurt am Main June 1915 ( online in the Internet archive archive.org [accessed on September 2, 2015]).
Web links
- Website of the Dr. Senckenberg Foundation
- Celebrating diversity: The Dr. Senckenberg Foundation. Five-part radio series with audios and manuscripts
Individual evidence
- ^ A b c Ludwig Heilbrunn: The foundation of the University of Frankfurt a. M . Josef Baer & Co., Frankfurt am Main June 1915, p. 3 ff . ( Online in the internet archive archive.org [accessed on September 2, 2015]).
- ↑ a b c d e Thomas Bauer: Johann Christian Senckenberg and his foundation. In: ub.uni-frankfurt.de. January 1, 2005, accessed June 4, 2016 .
- ↑ quoted from: de Bary, p. 247.
- ↑ exact text in de Bary, pp. 250–258.
- ^ Ludwig Heilbrunn: The foundation of the University of Frankfurt a. M . Josef Baer & Co., Frankfurt am Main June 1915, p. 9 f . ( Online in the internet archive archive.org [accessed on September 2, 2015]).
- ^ Paul Kluke: The Foundation University Frankfurt am Main 1914-1932 . Waldemar Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 1972, ISBN 3-7829-0128-2 , The foundation of the University of Frankfurt - To the prehistory. previous academic institutions and university plans.
- ↑ The portrait collection - Dr. Senckenberg Foundation. In: senckenbergische-portraitsammlung.de. Retrieved February 14, 2017 .
- ↑ Sebastian Krupp: The Diaries - Dr. Senckenberg Foundation. In: senckenbergische-stiftung.de. Retrieved February 14, 2017 .