Felix von Mendelssohn

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Felix von Mendelssohn (born August 19, 1918 in Hellerau ; † June 23, 2008 in Munich ) was a German-American psychiatrist and psychotherapist . He belongs to the Mendelssohn family of German-Jewish merchants, scholars and artists from Jever , which goes back to Moses Mendelssohn (not identical to the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn ).

Life

Felix von Mendelssohn was born in Hellerau near Dresden as the son of the artist Georg Mendelssohn (1886–1955) and the artist Gerta Clason and went to school there. His oldest brother is the publicist and essayist Peter de Mendelssohn . From September 1928 to July 1932 he was a student of Paul Geheeb at the Odenwald School in Ober-Hambach , where he was a school friend and roommate of the German-Jewish writer and painter Wolfgang Hildesheimer . Before he obtained his Abitur, however, he had to leave the Odenwald School for financial reasons. He moved to Nonnenhorn on Lake Constance to live with his mother, who had remarried to the journalist Walter von Cube , and completed his Abitur in nearby Friedrichshafen . As a quarter Jew, the dean advised him against studying at Munich University. Mendelssohn therefore began studying in Graz , then moved to Switzerland after the annexation of Austria in March 1938. There he studied medicine at the University of Lausanne and did his practical training from 1944 to 1949. He ignored a draft notice to join the Wehrmacht and lost his German citizenship as a result. In Switzerland he met his wife Hildegard and immigrated with her to the USA, given the lack of professional prospects as a non-Swiss. There he first had to repeat his training and was drafted into the army at the age of 30, where he worked as a psychiatrist and psychotherapist. He had three children: Constance (* 1952), Thomas (* 1954) and Bettina (* 1962).

For a few years he returned to Munich , where he became head of psychiatry in the US armed forces hospital . In 1972 he finally returned to Germany from the USA with his wife and son Thomas, where he practiced as a psychiatrist and psychotherapist in Munich until his death.

Works (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wolfgang Hildesheimer: Letter of November 12, 1956
  2. ↑ Felix de Mendelssohn : Psychiatrie am Scheideweg , 1974, p. 11f.
personal data
SURNAME Mendelssohn, Felix von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American psychiatrist and psychotherapist
DATE OF BIRTH August 19, 1918
PLACE OF BIRTH Hellerau
DATE OF DEATH June 23, 2008
Place of death Munich