Felix Boenheim

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Felix Boenheim (born January 17, 1890 in Berlin , † January 31 or February 1, 1960 in Leipzig ; pseudonym: Fidelis ) was a German doctor and politician. He came from a wealthy merchant family, studied medicine in Munich, Freiburg and Berlin and was politically strongly influenced by his uncle Hugo Haase .

Childhood and youth

Felix Boenheim was born the son of a Jewish businessman and attended the Goethe-Realgymnasium in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, where he graduated from high school in 1909. In 1909 he began to study medicine in Munich, Freiburg and Berlin. In 1914 he passed his medical examination in Berlin and worked as a medical intern at the Moabit City Hospital. In 1914 he received his license to practice medicine and received his doctorate. He then became a doctor at the fortress hospital in Graudenz.

Opponent of the First World War

During the First World War , Boenheim refused to participate in the war. Shortly after the beginning of the war, as a doctor under military obligation in the East Prussian Graudenz, he openly expressed his rejection of war. He became friends with the then famous Berlin cardiologist Georg Friedrich Nicolai , who from 1917 onwards was the most internationally known German war opponent ("Biology of War"). Boenheim was brought before a court martial in 1915, charged with “negligent spreading of rumors” and “insulting” Minister of War Erich von Falkenhayn . Without waiting for the verdict, he was demoted. As a doctor, he therefore had to begin military service as a simple soldier; an unprecedented process at the time. After his illness he was released. The court case was closed in 1917.

Participation in the November Revolution

His scientific career began in 1916 at the Rostock University Clinic , where he initially became an assistant at the Medical University Polyclinic. Boenheim's habilitation was prevented after he became involved with the USPD . In 1918 he moved to the municipal hospital in Nuremberg. During the November Revolution, he held a leading position there as the workers 'and soldiers' council of the USPD. In view of the restoration led by the SPD , he took radical left positions. At the age of 29 he was a "libertarian communist" on the leadership of the Nuremberg Spartacists . Erich Mühsam proposed him for the office of the Bavarian Minister of Justice when the Second Bavarian Council Republic was proclaimed in Munich in April 1919 . Felix Boenheim declined to participate in the revolutionary upheaval, having no in his eyes grassroots had sufficient legitimacy and popular support. After the failure of the revolution he worked as an assistant at the Katharinenhospital in Stuttgart , after which he settled in Berlin in 1921 as an internist. - Boenheim published as an internist articles in medical journals as well as time-critical articles under the pseudonym Fidelis : As his colleague Karl Eskuchen , triggered by the violent reactions to psychiatric critical passages of the novel The arms of Heinrich Mann especially in the affected expert circles, is had expressed criticism of conditions in contemporary psychiatry, Fidelis , with a view to the fate of writers in the Munich Soviet Republic and also with reference to the impact of Heinrich Mann's criticism of psychiatry , had emphatically opposed it in a paper published in 1920 on Germany's psychiatrists the inhumane methods of Emil Kraepelin, who is known to be emphatically völkisch and who advocate the “rendering harmless psychopathically degenerate”, and his colleague Eugen Kahn at the Munich German Research Institute for Psychiatry ( Kaiser Wilhelm Institute ) and the subsequent defamation “mode rner “writers and artists as“ insane people, psychopaths, Jews ”. - Boenheim's uncle, the lawyer and politician Hugo Haase, who was murdered in October 1919 , proposed the poet Ernst Toller , who took over the chairmanship of the Central Revolutionary Council after April 7, 1919 and thus became the formally most powerful man in Bavaria for a short time , after the defeat of the Munich Soviet Republic can still successfully defend the court martial. While Boenheim had written a specialist article “About the occurrence of surplus nipples and the combination of these with other signs of degeneration ”, Fidelis wrote in his above-mentioned 1920 paper about Toller (quote):

“ To see in him the prototype of“ the intellectual hysterical Dégénérés ”is silly and stupid. I too believe that Ernst Toller is a psychopath. But what does that mean? (...) Yes, there is even a higher value that has its roots in psychopathy. Such psychopathic persons can represent peaks in cultural and spiritual development. I remember Kleist and Schopenhauer. "

- FIDELIS (1920)

Doctor and social politician

The focus of Boenheim's commitment as a doctor was the social situation of the workers in Berlin, the interests of the German and international workers' movement, health education for the broadest classes and a socialization of the health system. His basic political stance was based on the KPD, although he never became a party member. He belonged to the circle around Willi Munzenberg , whom he had met in Stuttgart as chairman of the Württemberg communists. F. Boenheim was a member of the German League for Human Rights , was involved in a non-partisan association of socialist doctors and in the medical section of the International Workers Aid (IAH), was a co-initiator of the Society of Friends of the New Russia (1923) and a consultant doctor of the Soviet trade representation in Berlin. In 1927 he joined the League against Imperialism and for National Independence , which one year later became the World League against Imperialism and Colonial Oppression, for National Freedom . He published popular scientific writings in Wieland Herzfeldes Malik-Verlag and Munzenberg's New German Verlag , associated with Ernst Thälmann and Wilhelm Pieck, and cultivated friendships with Ernst Toller and the pacifist writer Leonhard Frank .

Doctors in Berlin

Professionally, F. Boenheim was very successful despite a broken academic career. He worked scientifically in the laboratories of the Charité , published at home and abroad and gained an excellent reputation as an endocrinologist (in the field of thyroid diseases). In 1931 - meanwhile (since 1929) chief physician of the internal department at the Berlin Hufeland Hospital - he lost his health insurance license due to his exclusion from the Hartmannbund .

Doctor against war and fascism

At the request of Henri Barbusse , he began to prepare for the Amsterdam World Congress against War . Boenheim founded its own initiative committee. Members were Käthe Kollwitz , Bertolt Brecht , Bernard von Brentano , Ricarda Huch , Anna Seghers , Ernst Toller , Max Hodann and Wilhelm Reich . At the same time, he also set up an international medical committee, including the renowned university professors: Ludwig Pick from Königsberg , Artur Biedl , endocrinologist from Prague , Alfred Kantorowicz , dentist from Bonn , Georg Ludwig Zülzer, internist from Berlin, and Fritz Brupbacher, worker doctor and anarcho-syndicalist from Zurich . They were also the first to sign the following appeal to doctors of all countries, which F. Boenheim, chief physician of the internal department of the Berlin Hufeland Hospital, sent to colleagues all over the world in the spring of 1932. Over 200 doctors signed it. "Despite the ongoing destruction of cultural values ​​through war and succession, although the horrors of the world war have not been forgotten, forces are already at work who want to see the way out of the economic crisis in a new war. ... Soviet Russia is primarily threatened Attacking this country, which seeks peaceful reconstruction, means a new world war. That is why we call on undersigned doctors from all countries to fight against the war ... As guardians of public health, we raise our warning voices against a new international bloodbath into which the peoples are driven in according to plan and the consequences of which will be unforeseeable "

The Amsterdam Congress developed into the largest anti-war rally that had ever taken place. On August 27, 1932, over 4,000 participants gathered, including 2,200 delegates from 35 different countries. The main lecture was given by Felix Boenheim: The health consequences of the last war and the threatening consequences of the next war, especially the gas war. On August 28, 1932, the second special medical conference, at the initiative of F. Boenheim, decided to found the International Society of Doctors Against War and Fascism and elected him President.

In autumn 1932, 11 national sections of the International Society of Doctors against War and Fascism were established in Europe . After his return from Amsterdam, Boenheim also founded a German Combat Committee against the Imperialist War . He wanted to bring the previously hostile currents within the anti-militarist-pacifist camp back together for joint action at the last minute. The 60 members included workers from armaments factories, Albert Einstein , the feminist Helene Stöcker , Heinrich Mann , Otto Lehmann-Rußbüldt and General a. D. Paul Freiherr von Schönaich . In addition to numerous events against war preparations throughout Germany, it initiated the establishment of internal committees in armaments factories to prevent arms production and, if possible, paralyze it through strikes. After the National Socialists came to power , the German section was smashed. Boenheim's arrest took place on February 28, 1933, on the night of the Reichstag fire . No German representative was able to attend the company's first follow-up conference in London.

Commitment in exile

Fortunately, Boenheim was released from prison in Spandau after six months. He immediately emigrated to France . His escape route went via Great Britain , Palestine , Paris to New York . In these places he was one of the leading actors of political exile, he signed the popular front appeal of the Lutetia district as an independent. From 1944 he worked in the Council for a Democratic Germany , for which he worked on a health program for destroyed Germany.

return

Felix Boenheim returned to Germany in 1949 and became a full professor of internal medicine and director of the medical faculty at Leipzig University . Despite poor health, he remained politically active and founded the Peace Community of German Doctors in the GDR together with the social hygienist Wolfgang Oerter - based on the Amsterdam Congress - as a part of the world peace movement. After his retirement he headed the Karl Sudhoff Institute for the History of Medicine and the Natural Sciences (Medical Faculty at the University of Leipzig) from 1955 to 1959 after being appointed Professor of the History of Medicine . In 1957 he was awarded the Patriotic Order of Merit (VVO) in bronze. On the occasion of his 70th birthday, he was awarded the VVO in silver in January 1960.

Main features of his political work

Boenheim formulated a clear job-specific, ultimately medically ethical, obligation of those working in the health service to become aware of their role in the war machine and to radically refuse to cooperate - as an advocate for all actually and potentially injured parties.

Publications (selection)

  • On the influence of some quinoline derivatives on uric acid and allantoin excretion in dogs , Berlin (1914).
  • On voluntary servitude (= Le contr'un ou de la servitude volontaire ) by Étienne de La Boétie , translation and introduction, Berlin 1924 (reprint: 1981, ISBN 3-7610-8111-1 ).
  • Miracle of the gland: 15 chapters of d. Unit d. Lebens , Stuttgart 1927.
  • Water and mineral metabolism and internal secretion , Halle a. P. 1927.
  • Structure and life of the human body , Stuttgart 1930.
  • Opotherapy , Leipzig 1930.
  • Treatment of endocrine disorders through opotherapy: From d. Inn. Dept. 2. d. Hufeland-Hospitals d. City of Berlin , Halle 1932.
  • Internal Secretion , Berlin 1954.
  • From Huang-ti to Harvey: To the story of d. Discovery d. Blood circulation , Jena 1957

Journal articles (selection)

In: The Socialist Doctor .

  • The college clique needs the emergency community. Volume VI (1930) Issue 3 (July), pp. 132-134 digitized
  • Doctor and quack. Volume VI (1930) Issue 4 (October), pp. 161-164 digitized

literature

  • Ruprecht, Thomas Michael: Felix Boenheim. Doctor, politician, historian. A biography of Hildesheim u. a .: Olms, 1992 ISBN 3487095386 (udT: FB ( 1890-1960 ): Endocrinologist, politician, medical historian. A biography plus Univ. Freiburg (Br.) Diss. (Med.) 1990, publ. 1991).
  • the same: loner and outsider. Tradition and example of early engagement by doctors for peace in: Beck, Winfried / Elsner, Gine / Mausbach, Hans (eds.): Pax Medica. Stations of medical peace engagements and aberrations in medical militarism Hamburg, 1986.
  • Bleker, Johanna & Schmiedebach, Heinz-Peter (Ed.) (1987): Medicine and War. From the dilemma of the health professions 1865 to 1985 Frankfurt / M.
  • Brocke, Bernhard vom: Science versus Materialism: Nicolai, Einstein and the "Biology of War" With documentation from the Rector and Senate of the University of Berlin ("Science and Militarism" II) in: Annali dell'Instituto storico italo-germanico in Trento X. , 1984, pp. 405-508.
  • Röder, Werner & Strauss, Herbert A. (Ed.) Biographisches Handbuch der Deutschensprachigen Emigration nach 1933 / International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés 1933-1945 Vol. 1: Politics, Economy, Public Life, Munich 1980. Vol. 2: The Arts, Sciences, and Literature, Munich 1983. Vol. 3: Gesamtregister, Munich 1983.
  • Georg Friedrich Nicolai: The biology of war, considerations of a German natural scientist Orell Füssli, Zurich, 1917.
  • Association médicale internationale contre la Guerre (ed.): Actes et manifestations diverses (1905-1910) Paris, 1910.
  • Roorda, J. (Ed.): Medical Opinions on War Published on behalf of the Netherlands Medical Association (Committee for war-prophylaxis) Amsterdam undated <1939>
  • Ralf Schenk , Bernd-Rainer Barth :  Boenheim, Felix . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Andreas Mettenleiter : Testimonials, memories, diaries and letters from German-speaking doctors. Supplements and supplements II (A – H). In: Würzburg medical history reports. 21, 2002, pp. 490-518, here p. 495.
  2. ↑ . See, for example Felix Boenheim, over disturbances of convergence and divergence in syphilis nervosa ; in: Journal for the entire neurology and psychiatry (1918) and contribution to the knowledge of pseudosclerosis and related diseases with special consideration of the relationship between the diseases of the brain and the liver ; in: Journal for the whole of neurology and psychiatry (1920).
  3. ↑ cf. B. Leipzig Lexicon : Fidelis, pseudonym for F. Boenheim as well as DBE : Boenheim, Felix, pseud. Fidelis, physician, medical historian .
  4. ^ See, for example, Hermann Haymann, Irrenärztliche Comments zu Heinrich Mann's new book ; in: Journal for the whole of neurology and psychiatry , 39 (1918), pp. 225-228.
  5. ↑ Karl Eskuchen, reply to the work by W. Mayer: "Comments by a psychiatrist on the attacks on psychiatry in recent literature" ; in: Journal for the whole of neurology and psychiatry (1919), pp. 155–159.
  6. ^ FIDELIS, Germany's psychiatrists in their position on the revolutionaries ; in: Das Forum (year 1920, no. 5, p. 397 f).
  7. ↑ See Kurt Kolle, Große Nervenärzte (1956/1970)
  8. ↑ See also Emil Kraepelin, On the Degenerate Question (1908) and the same, Sexual aberrations and population increase (1918)
  9. ↑ Also: 70 years of coercion in German psychiatry - experienced and witnessed. Main lecture from June 7, 2007 by Dorothea Buck at the congress “Coercive Treatment in Psychiatry: A Comprehensive Review” , hosted by the World Psychiatric Organization in Dresden from June 6 to 8, 2007
  10. ↑ Cf. Eugen Kahn, Psychopathen als Revolutionführer ; in: Journal for the entire Neurology and Psychiatry , Vol. 52 (1919), pp. 90-106. As well as other, psychopathy and revolution ; in: Münchner Medizinische Wochenschrift, No. 34, August 22, 1919
  11. ↑ In: Anatomische Hefte (1919).
  12. ↑ See on this FIDELIS, Germany's psychiatrists in their position on the revolutionaries ; in: Das Forum (year 1920, no. 5, p. 397 f).
  13. ^ Biographical handbook of German-speaking emigration after 1933–1945, Lemma Felix Boenheim
  14. ^ New Germany , October 7, 1957, p. 4
  15. ↑ Felix Boenheim , In: Neues Deutschland, February 2, 1960, p. 4

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personal data
SURNAME Boenheim, Felix
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German doctor and politician
DATE OF BIRTH January 17, 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH February 1, 1960
Place of death Leipzig