Erwin Heinz Ackerknecht

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Erwin H. Ackerknecht 1987

Erwin Heinz Ackerknecht (born June 1, 1906 in Stettin , † November 18, 1988 in Zurich ), pseudonym Eugen Bauer , was a German-American doctor, ethnologist and medical historian . In the 1930s he had been one of the leaders of the German Trotskyists . As an internationally known and leading medical historian, he looked at medical history in a socio-cultural and ethnological context. Ackerknecht, who had been stripped of his German citizenship by the National Socialists, became a citizen of the United States of America in 1948.

Life

The son of the literary historian and librarian Erwin Ackerknecht (1880–1960, from Baiersbronn) and his wife Clara, b. Pfitzer (1879–1958, from Stuttgart) and nephew of the veterinary anatomist Eberhard Ackerknecht studied medicine in Freiburg, Kiel, Berlin, Vienna and Leipzig from 1924. During his time in Berlin in 1926 he became a member of the Communist Youth Association . In 1929 he passed the state examination and finished his studies in 1931 with a dissertation with the medical historian Henry E. Sigerist on the German medical reform of 1848 in Leipzig. There he joined the KPD and in 1928 (with Roman Well and Otto Schüssler ) founded the group "Bolshevik Unity". In 1929 he became a member of the Leninbund , in 1930 co-founder of the United Left Opposition of the KPD (later: Left Opposition of the KPD (Bolshevik-Leninists) ). Called to Berlin by Trotsky's son Lev Sedov , Ackerknecht, who worked as an assistant doctor in neurology and psychiatry in 1932/33 , was a member of the Reich leadership of the Left Opposition and the International Secretariat (IS) of the International Left Opposition (ILO).

Erwin H. Ackerknecht 1931

After the National Socialist seizure of power, initially active illegally, he left Germany at the beginning of June 1933 by decision of IS; he went to Czechoslovakia, visited Trotsky on Prinkipo and then settled in Paris, where he lived as a translator of medical literature.

Ackerknecht headed the Foreign Committee of the International Communists of Germany (IKD) and was editor of Unser Wort ; u. a. he was responsible for contacts with the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (SAPD) (especially Jacob Walcher ). At first he rejected the orientation towards the building of new communist parties; He also opposed Trotsky’s proposal for Ruth Fischer and Arkadi Maslow to join the IKD. In the autumn of 1934, the "French turn", the entry of the Ligue communiste into the (French social democratic) SFIO , which was controversial among the supporters of Trotsky , came to a break. Ackerknecht left the IKD; in March 1935 he became a member of the SAPD, in which he later (together with Walter Fabian and Peter Blachstein ) formed a left opposition movement that opposed the SAPD's participation in the German (exile) popular front . Excluded from the SAPD in February 1937, he and his followers formed an organizationally independent group around the magazine Neuer Weg , which joined the London office (or its successor organizations).

In 1938 Ackerknecht gave up political work entirely and studied ethnology at the Musée de l'Homme in Paris , with a specialist diploma in 1939. Before the German invasion, he managed to escape from France to the USA. After initially working there as a packer and nurse, he was appointed to the Institute of Medical History, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore in 1941 as an assistant to his doctoral supervisor, Henry E. Sigerist , who had also emigrated . In 1945 he found employment with the American Museum of Natural History in New York. After two years he got a professorship in the history of medicine at the University of Wisconsin at Madison . It was here that two of his most important works were created, the biography of Rudolf Virchow: Doctor, Statesman and Anthropologist (1953) and the Short History of Medicine (1955).

Until 1957 he taught at the University of Wisconsin, after which he worked, as the successor to the late Bernhard Milt , until his retirement in 1971 at the University of Zurich as full professor and director of the Medical History Institute and Museum. His successor at the chair in Zurich was Huldrych M. Koelbing .

In 1964, with his objection to the habilitation of Alexander Berg (a former SS member) at the University of Göttingen, supported by Gernot Rath , he sparked an affair among German science historians.

Services

Under Ackerknecht's direction, the Zurich institute gained a worldwide reputation through lively publication activities. As a productive researcher as well as a humorous and witty teacher, Ackerknecht recorded diseases, medicine and medical professionals depending on social, cultural, ethnological or political factors. Under his aegis, Hans H. Walser qualified as a professor in 1968 and Esther Fischer-Homberger in 1972 in the field of the history of medicine. In addition, Ackerknecht designed and supplemented an existing collection of medical history objects according to didactic aspects and expanded it into the Medical History Museum , making it permanently accessible to the public. Standard works written by him include: a. a biography of Rudolf Virchow and the brief history of medicine . He founded the Zurich medical history treatises. His scientific work includes 300 publications; in Zurich alone he supervised 155 dissertations, including those of Charles E. Rosenberg .

Awards

Ackerknecht received the William H. Welch Medal (1953), the Order of the Palmes académiques of the Republic of France (1965), the Great Cross of Merit of the FRG (1983) and the Dr. med. hc from the Universities of Bern (1976) and Geneva (1978). He was a member and honorary member of numerous scientific societies.

According to the burial and cemetery office of the city of Zurich, his grave is listed among the graves of celebrities ( cemetery Zurich-Manegg ).

Fonts

  • Contributions to the history of the medical reform of 1848 . Leipzig 1931 (dissertation)
  • Austria, a lesson for everyone . Prague 1934 (under the pseudonym Eugen Bauer )
  • Malaria in the Upper Mississippi Valley 1760-1900. Supplements to the Bulletin of the History of Medicine No. 4. Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore 1945
  • Rudolf Virchow: Doctor, Statesman, Anthropologist . Madison 1953 (German 1957 Stuttgart)
  • Brief history of psychiatry . Stuttgart 1957, 2/1967, 3/1985 (English 1959)
  • Brief history of medicine . Stuttgart 1959, 7/1992 (English 1955: A short history of medicine. New York, 3/1982 Baltimore)
  • History and geography of major diseases . Stuttgart 1963 (English 1965 New York)
  • The kingdom of Asclepius. A history of medicine in objects . (German, English) Bern / Stuttgart 1963, 2nd edition 1966
  • Medicine at the Paris Hospital 1794-1848. Baltimore 1967 (French 1986)
  • Therapy from the primitives to the 20th century . Stuttgart 1970 (English 1973, Hafner Press New York)
  • Medicine and Ethnology: Selected Essays (edited by HH Walser and HM Koelbing). Bern 1971
  • Brief history of the great Swiss doctors . Bern / Stuttgart / Vienna 1975 (together with Heinrich Buess )
  • as Edit .: Jean Etienne Dominique Esquirol , from the mental illness. Bern / Stuttgart 1968.

literature

  • Konrad Akert: Erwin H. Ackerknecht. For the 60th birthday . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . June 1, 1966, p. 6
  • Erna Lesky : Medicine and Ethnology . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . July 5, 1971, p. 2
  • Esther Fischer-Homberger : Erwin H. Ackerknecht. For the 70th birthday of the Zurich medical historian. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . June 1, 1976, p. 31
  • Outspoken Ethnologist / Medical Historians: 9; Distinguished career of Dr. Erwin Ackerknecht . In: MD . Volume 22, No. Oct. 10, 1978, pp. 131-136
  • Erna Lesky. Erwin H. Ackerknecht on his 80th birthday . In: Gesnerus. Swiss Journal of the History of Medicine and Sciences . Volume 43 (1986), pp. 3–5 (digitized version)
  • Hans H. Walser : On the passing of Erwin H. Ackerknecht . In: Gesnerus . Volume 45, 1988, pp. 309-310 (digitized version ) , NZZ , November 22, 1988, p. 54
  • Christoph Mörgeli : A doctor with a worldwide reputation. On the passing of Prof. Dr. med. Dr. hc mult. Erwin H. Ackerknecht . In: Zürichsee-Zeitung . No. 275, November 24, 1988, p. 6
  • Margret Curti: List of publications . In: Gesnerus . Volume 23, 1966 (digitized version) ; Volume 33, 1976 (digitized version) ; Volume 43, 1986 (digitized version) ; Volume 45, 1988 e-periodica.ch
  • S., P .: Obituary Erwin Ackerknecht . In: The Lancet . January 14, 1989, 112-113
  • Paul F. Cranefield: Erwin H. Ackerknecht, 1906–1988, Some Memories . In: Journal of History of Medicine and Allied Sciences . Volume 45, No. 2, April 1990, pp. 145-149
  • Swiss Lexicon in 6 volumes, 1991, Volume 1, p. 47
  • Hans H. Walser: On the 10th anniversary of Erwin H. Ackerknecht's death (1906–1988) . In: Gesnerus . Vol. 55, 1998, pp. 175-182.
  • Huldrych M. Koelbing : Erwin Heinz Ackerknecht. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . (2001)
  • In Remembrance of Erwin H. Ackerknecht, Medical Historian, 1906–1988 . Biographical Notes etc., manuscripts, Zurich 2002
  • Eckhard Wendt: Ackerknecht, Erwin Heinz (1906–1988) . In: Eckhard Wendt: Stettiner Lebensbilder (= publications of the Historical Commission for Pomerania . Series V, Volume 40). Böhlau, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-412-09404-8 , pp. 26-28.
  • Susanne Hochwälder-Schreiner: Anecdote about EH Ackerknecht . Zurich 2004, pp. 70–72. In: Werner Morlang: Canetti in Zurich . Verlag Nagel & Kimche, Carl Hanser, Munich / Vienna 2005
  • Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst : German communists . Biographisches Handbuch 1918 to 1945. 2nd, revised and greatly expanded edition. Dietz, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 ( bundesstiftung-aufendung.de ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Wolfgang U. Eckart , Christoph Gradmann (Ed.): Doctors' Lexicon. From antiquity to the present . 3. Edition. Springer, Heidelberg 2006, ISBN 3-540-29584-4 , pp. 2 .
  2. ↑ Christoph Mörgeli, Anke Jobmann: Erwin H. Ackerknecht and the Berg / Rath affair of 1964 - on German medical historians coming to terms with the past . In: Robet Jütte (Ed.): Medicine, Society and History , 16 (for 1997), yearbook of the Institute for the History of Medicine of the Robert Bosch Foundation. Franz Steiner 1998, pp. 63-124
  3. ↑ Welch Medal Winners
personal data
SURNAME Ackerknecht, Erwin Heinz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bauer, Eugen (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American doctor, ethnologist and medical historian
DATE OF BIRTH June 1, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Szczecin
DATE OF DEATH November 18, 1988
Place of death Zurich