Eduard Schott (physician)

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Stumbling block in Solingen for Eduard Schott

Eduard Franz Schott (born May 6, 1886 in Hagenau , Reichsland Alsace-Lorraine , † July 6, 1952 ) was a German physician of Jewish origin. In 1935 he was relieved of his post as medical director of the Solingen municipal hospitals . In 1939 he was able to emigrate to the USA , where he died in 1952.

biography

Education and career

Eduard Schott was born to Jewish parents. When he was ten months old, his father died and the mother moved with him and his older sister Rosa to their hometown of Worms . There Schott graduated from high school in 1904 and then studied medicine in Heidelberg , Munich , Kiel and Strasbourg . During his studies in Strasbourg he met Albert Schweitzer know and was so deeply impressed by him that he for Protestant faith converted . In 1909 he passed his state examination there with "very good" and received his doctorate with " summa cum laude " on the subject of morphological and experimental studies on the importance and origin of the cells of the serous cavities and the so-called macrophages . The following year he received his license to practice medicine . In 1911 Schott went to the Medical Clinic of the Lindenburg Municipal Hospital in Cologne as an assistant doctor .

During the First World War , Schott served as a senior physician in Flanders , Champagne and on the Eastern Front . In the process he met the nurse Ilse Gumprecht; the couple married in 1917 and had four children, Ilse (* 1920), Alexander (* 1923), Hellmut (* 1926) and Brigitte (* 1927). After the end of the war, Schott became first senior physician at the Lindenburg , habilitated as a private lecturer in 1919 on the occasion of the re-establishment of the University of Cologne , and was appointed associate professor in 1921.

On October 1, 1927, Eduard Schott became chief physician for internal medicine and medical director of the Solingen municipal hospitals. His application was evidence of his numerous medical publications, including his first description of the precordial punch .

Dismissed after 1933 and left the country

On December 4, 1933, Schott was relieved of his post in the clinic by Solingen's Mayor Helmut Otto due to the Professional Civil Service Act of April 1933 and demoted to senior physician . Until 1935 he still enjoyed the front-line fighter privilege , then he was forced to retire due to the Nuremberg Race Laws .

On April 6, 1935, a poster with red letters was emblazoned at the entrance of the hospital with the inscription "Jud Schott out"; the same slogan was smeared on the garden wall of his private apartment. While the administrative director of the clinic indignantly had the poster removed, the hospital administration remained inactive; Lord Mayor Otto noted in the files: “There is nothing to be done.” Schott himself made a request to Hitler asking for continued employment, in which he pointed out his patriotic attitude. Friends and patients of Schott wanted to submit an application and asked the mayor which office was responsible. The historian Ralf Stremmel writes: "Behind the formally correct procedure [...] the belief in the functioning of a non-partisan bureaucracy can still be felt - a mere illusion."

After losing his job, Eduard Schott and his family had to leave their previous official apartment and move into an apartment where Schott ran a small private medical practice. On July 29, 1938, his sister Rosa and her husband Fritz Gernsheim, a highly respected pediatrician, committed suicide in Worms. On the night of November 9-10, 1938, the Schotts' apartment was also devastated by SA people in the course of the November pogroms . The men threw a cello out of the window, destroyed the grand piano , cut up pictures of Emil Nolde , Paul Klee and Albrecht Dürer and smashed the china.

Eduard Schott was taken into so-called “ protective custody ” the next day . He succeeded in obtaining a visa for the USA with the guarantee of an American unknown to him; Since he was born in Alsace, he was able to leave Germany on May 10, 1939 within the framework of the French entry quota.

In the USA

Schott settled in East Lynn , a small town in Massachusetts near Boston , and called himself Edward Francis Schott . His wife Ilse, who was getting a pro forma divorce, moved with their four children to the hometown of their parents in Weimar . The eldest daughter Ilse followed her father to the USA in 1940, the rest of the family in the years after the war . In 1944, Schott suffered a stroke , which is why, after the end of the war, he turned down the Solingen hospital's offer to take over its management again. He died on July 6, 1952 after a second stroke at the age of 66.

In 1988 the son Francis H. Schott (Hellmut), who had witnessed the November pogroms when he was twelve, wrote in an article for the New York Times : “The orderly world in which only the police can fetch you and which only comes when you are a criminal - this world no longer exists. By pouring fuel on the fire of prejudice, a government can turn it into hatred and turn a population into thugs. As painful as it is, we always have to remember it. ”In 1998 he published the book From Holocaust to freedom: a life .

Commemoration

On the initiative of the regional group of the IPPNW (International Doctors for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Doctors in Social Responsibility) , the exhibition “Sweep All Away - Withdrawal of Medical Licenses from Jewish Doctors 1938 ”on display. In the presence of three grandchildren of Schott, a memorial plaque for Professor Eduard Schott was unveiled.

On October 27, 2018, a stumbling block was laid for Eduard Schott in Solingen in front of his last home, Birkenweiher 43 .

Web links

literature

  • Heinz Voigt: Memories of Prof. Dr. Eduard Schott. Lecture on the unveiling of the memorial plaque at the Solingen Municipal Hospital (November 10, 2017) . In: Beate Battenfeld, Ralf Rogge and Horst Sassing on behalf of the Bergisches Geschichtsverein Dept. Solingen (ed.): The home. Contributions to the history of Solingen and the Bergisches Land . No. 33 , 2018, ISBN 978-3-925626-46-3 , pp. 66-73 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Voigt, Memories of Prof. Dr. Eduard Schott , pp. 67-68.
  2. ↑ a b Voigt, Memories of Prof. Dr. Eduard Schott , pp. 68-69.
  3. ↑ E. Schott: About ventricular arrest (Adams-Stokes attacks) together with remarks about other types of arrhythmias of a temporary nature . In: German Archive for Clinical Medicine . tape 131 , 1920, pp. 211-229 .
  4. ↑ Precordial punch: more harm than good. In: aerztezeitung.de. December 23, 2013, accessed September 11, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Ralf Stremmel: "Health - our only wealth"? Local health and environmental policy 1800-1945 using the example of Solingen . Solingen 1993. quoted from Voigt, memories of Prof. Dr. Eduard Schott , p. 70.
  6. ^ Fritz Gernsheim: A pediatrician seeks suicide. In: swr.de. July 12, 2019, accessed September 11, 2019 .
  7. ↑ Gernsheim I. In: wormserjuden.de. July 4, 1900. Retrieved September 11, 2019 .
  8. ↑ See list of stumbling blocks in Worms
  9. ↑ a b c City tour to the crime scenes of November 9, 1938. In: stolpersteine-solingen.de. November 9, 1938, accessed September 11, 2019 .
  10. ↑ a b Voigt, Memories of Prof. Dr. Eduard Schott , pp. 72-73.
  11. ↑ From Holocaust to freedom: a life / by Francis H. Schott. In: collections.ushmm.org. Retrieved September 11, 2019 .
  12. ↑ a b Stolperstein am Birkenweiher reminds of the physician Eduard Schott. In: stolpersteine-solingen.de. October 28, 2018, accessed September 11, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Schott, Eduard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schott, Eduard Franz (full name); Schott, Edward Francis (English name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German medic
DATE OF BIRTH May 6, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH Hagenau , Reichsland Alsace-Lorraine
DATE OF DEATH July 6, 1952