Friedrich Hessing
Friedrich Hessing , from 1913 Ritter von Hessing (born June 19, 1838 in Schönbronn near Rothenburg ob der Tauber , † March 16, 1918 in Göggingen near Augsburg ), was an organ builder and a pioneer in the field of orthopedic technology . He was the owner and director of the orthopedic sanatorium in Göggingen , the Wildbad Rothenburg , leaseholder of the baths in Bad Kissingen and Bad Bocklet and owner of several villas in Bad Reichenhall .
Live and act
Friedrich Hessing was the youngest child of Johann Georg Hessing and his wife Maria Barbara, b. Clover. The father was a farmer and stoner , the mother a midwife . The family circumstances were very modest:
- He wasn't tall. On the contrary: the meager life of his early youth - which he brought behind him as the 13th child of poor cottagers ... - made Friedrich Hessing just 1.47 meters tall.
He attended the village school up to the 6th grade. In 1852 he received his school leaving certificate. After completing elementary school, Hessing initially started an apprenticeship as a gardener at the Fürst Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürstschen court gardener. After two years, he broke off his training and switched to the carpentry trade . He completed this in 1857 with the journeyman's examination. As a young carpenter, he started at the age of twenty in the organ building company Georg Friedrich Steinmeyer in Oettingen , where he trained as an organ and harmonium builder. In between he was drafted into the military as an infantryman in 1860. After completing this compulsory service, he returned to the Steinmeyer company by December 2, 1861. He then expanded his knowledge of harmonium construction at a company in Stuttgart . Around the end of 1862 he moved to Augsburg to work with the piano manufacturer Max Schramm.
On November 8, 1866, he appeared at the registration office in Augsburg and applied for a business license for organ building. He received this from the city of Augsburg on November 1st. His business address was Schwallmühle in Augsburg (Litera A 347). A letter dated July of the same year shows that he was also working on the manufacture of an artificial foot for a lower leg amputee at the time. In November 1867 he asked the city of Augsburg in vain for financial support in order to be able to “better cultivate the production of“ orthopedic machines and artificial limbs ”as a“ line of business ”. An application of June 15, 1868 to the city of Augsburg to establish an orthopedic sanatorium was also rejected. On September 12th, however, he held a permit from the government of Swabia and Neuburg in his hands; He announced the opening of such a clinic on October 13 of the same year in the daily newspaper. In it he wrote that he only strived for the healing of ailments such as "curvatures and shortening of extremities or the trunk" in this sanatorium by mechanical means, while "avoiding surgical interventions". The clinic was in Göggingen in the house of the bathing owner J. Eggensberger in front of the Jacobsthor. The rush of patients was great, but the manufacture of medical devices brought in little money. Hessing, soon known as a miracle doctor, treated a total of around 60,000 patients there, including the writer Max Brod , who was treated with the Hessing corset because of a curvature of the spine and who describes his stay in Göggingen in his memories. But there was still a long way to go. He earned the money needed to set up the orthopedic workshops, to look after a large number of patients and other sanatoriums, primarily from the construction and sale of "organs, harmoniums, pianos and pianos". To supplement the sanatorium, Hofrat Friedrich Hessing had a spa house built in 1886 according to plans by the architect Jean Keller , which is the only surviving multifunctional theater in glass and cast iron construction from the early days .
In addition to the Hessing corset, the splint sleeve apparatus , which was mainly used for the victims of polio , was part of Hessing's therapeutic measures. This polio orthosis - of course in a lighter version - is still used almost unchanged today. At the end of the 19th century he built the Wildbad Rothenburg spa complex in Rothenburg ob der Tauber . He experienced the real breakthrough and the public reputation associated with his name in 1899 after the successful treatment of the German Empress Victoria after a broken ankle . As a result, his assistance to the aristocracy and the international public made him respectable, received numerous high honors and in 1904 was honored for his achievements with the title "Königleich-Bavarian Councilor". From October 1, 1900, Hessing was also a bath leaseholder in Bad Kissingen, where the “Hessing Foundation” was registered as the operator of the local bath management company, which has only existed on paper since 1999, until 2011.
On the occasion of his death, Max Kirmsse wrote :
- Hessing's orthopedic sanatoriums, which are cripple hospitals in the truest sense of the word, are for the most part in the village of Göggingen near Augsburg, where they were established in 1868, i.e. 50 years ago, after the city of Augsburg itself refused permission to settle. The founder ran it himself until his death. Like the branches in Bad Reichenhall and Rothenburg ad Tauber, they are furnished in the most splendid and functional way ... Even if Hessing primarily served wealthy personalities in his institutions - he was even allowed to use the German Empress are among his patients - according to his own statements, he has spent around 60,000 marks annually on healing poor crippled children, and he also gave poorly well-off sick people the opportunity to work in his numerous businesses in order to be able to continue treating them.
- Like many extraordinary people, Hessing also tended to be one-sided in thinking and doing, which often led to the fact that he partially rejected the foreign, which in turn gave rise to all kinds of conflicts. Carelessly advancing wherever it was necessary to achieve his set goals, he has always remained a lonely man. He only felt irresistibly drawn to his youngest sick, the children, because he too was a born educator who never lacked success .
His legacy passed into the "Hessing Foundation", which still exists today and operates, among other things, the Hessing Clinic , a geriatric rehabilitation clinic, the private medical Hessingpark Clinic, a rheumatism center and an orthopedic and shoe technology company.
Honors
Hessing received multiple awards for his life's work, such as B. Bavarian, Prussian and Saxon orders.
- 1904: Appointment to the Royal Bavarian Councilor
- 1913: Knight's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Bavarian Crown , connected with the elevation to the Bavarian personal nobility
Hessing became an honorary citizen of Rothenburg, Bad Reichenhall , Bad Kissingen (1917) and Schönbronn.
The community of Göggingen honored Hessing with a memorial based on a design by the Berlin sculptor Eugen Börmel , which was unveiled on September 3rd, 1908. The bronze statue shows Hofrat Hessing sitting in an armchair with a girl in his arms while a second child is sitting at his feet.
In Bad Reichenhall , the Hessingsteig is also named after him.
literature
- Gerhard Grosch: Hessing, Friedrich Ritter von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 9, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1972, ISBN 3-428-00190-7 , p. 25 ( digitized version ).
- Max Kirmsse: Friedrich von Hessing †. In: Journal for Child Research. 1918, pp. 311-315.
- Fritz Müller: Hessing - The novel of a life. Curt Pechstein Verlag, Munich 1922.
- Peter Weidisch: Friedrich Ritter von Hessing. Setting the course for the future of the bathroom. In: Thomas Ahnert, Peter Weidisch (eds.): 1200 years Bad Kissingen, 801–2001, facets of a city's history. (= Festschrift for the anniversary year and volume accompanying the exhibition of the same name. Special publication by the Bad Kissingen City Archives). Verlag TA Schachenmayer, Bad Kissingen 2001, ISBN 3-929278-16-2 .
- History Association Göggingen (Ed.): 1906–2006. 100 years of St. John. Göggingen 2006.
Web links
- Friedrich Hessing . In: Augsburger-Gedenktage.de
- Irene Meichsner: pioneer of modern orthopedics . In: Deutschlandfunk.de , June 19, 2013
Individual evidence
- ↑ Göggingen History Association (ed.): 1906–2006. 100 years of St. John. P. 23.
- ^ Max Kirmsse: Friedrich von Hessing †. P. 314.
- ^ Hessing Foundation - Hessing Group of Companies. Retrieved May 12, 2018 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Hessing, Friedrich |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Hessing, knight of |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Pioneer in the field of orthopedic technology |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 19, 1838 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Schönbronn near Rothenburg ob der Tauber |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 16, 1918 |
| Place of death | augsburg |