Elsbeth von Keudell

Elsbeth von Keudell (born May 21, 1857 in Tilsit , † April 4, 1953 in Berlin ) was a German nurse and superior of the Countess Rittberg Sisters Association of the Red Cross . She was awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal for her work as the Red Cross sister in the Messina earthquake in 1908 .

Life

Elsbeth von Keudell was born the youngest daughter of an officer and landowner. She received her training as a nurse at the Berlin Charité . From 1902 to 1903 she was head nurse at the surgical clinic of the hospital in Magdeburg-Altstadt. She then took on as one of the first nurses in Germany to receive further training as a superior at the upper school of the Red Cross founded by Clementine von Wallmenich . She passed the exam in early 1904 and took over the management of the Countess Rittberg Sisters Association of the Red Cross in Berlin-Lichterfelde on May 1 of this year .

Keudell gained public notoriety when the German Red Cross was first asked abroad to help out after a natural disaster . On December 28, 1908, a severe earthquake destroyed the city of Messina in Sicily , only 48 hours later Keudell arrived in Syracuse with five other sisters as the leader of the relief expedition . During the First World War , Keudell, as superior, was responsible for coordinating around 300 sisters of her association in voluntary war nursing. In 1920 she was awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal in recognition of her achievements.

On July 1, 1929, she withdrew from the management of the association, her successor in office was Countess Alexandrine von Üxküll-Gyllenband . In 1930 Keudell published the biography of Clementine von Wallmenich , which had shaped her very much at the beginning of her career as superior. Keudell died on April 4, 1953 in Berlin-Lichterfelde.

literature

• Horst-Peter Wolff: Keudell, Elsbeth von In: Horst-Peter Wolff (Hrsg.): Biographical lexicon for the history of care. "Who was who in nursing history". Urban & Fischer, Munich 2001, Volume 2, ISBN 3-437-26670-5 , p. 121.
• Hedwig - Newsletter of the DRK Sisterhood Berlin: And so everything was different DRK Sisterhood Berlin, Issue 03. Available online at DRK Sisterhood Berlin ( PDF ; 2.3 MB)