Friedrich Jahn (doctor, 1888)

Friedrich Jahn

Friedrich Jahn (born July 30, 1888 in Treuen im Vogtland ; † February 14, 1984 in Schmalkalden ) was a German doctor and scientist. With his courage and lived humanism, in his function as chief physician of the Schmalkalder Clinic, he resisted the orders of the Wehrmacht towards the end of the Second World War and thus saved the lives of countless Schmalkalden citizens and war wounded in the hospital.

Life

Friedrich Karl Jahn was born on July 30th, 1888 in Treuen in the Vogtland region, the scion of an established family of dyers. As early as 1590, his ancestor Balthasar Jahn had received an electoral privilege for a black dye works in Oelsnitz.

Friedrich's father Louis Jahn (1850–1890) lived in America between 1869 and 1873 and settled in Treuen in 1879 to set up his own dye works here. In 1882 he married Magdalena Lohse (1860-1917), whose parents had leased a manor in Treuen. Louis Jahn died at the age of 40, so that Friedrich and his two older sisters became half-orphans at an early age. His mother married the city councilor and manufacturer August Fischer and continued to run her late husband's business.

Even in his childhood, Friedrich Jahn was particularly interested in physics, chemistry and biology. He studied medicine in Leipzig and received his doctorate in 1914 with his doctoral thesis “About iodosobenzoic acid”. On February 22, 1919, he married the teacher's daughter Martha Schönfeld (1892–1970) in Zwickau. The couple moved to Schmalkalden, where Jahn got a job at the district hospital. On January 8, 1920, their son Herbert was born, who later worked as a physicist at the Jülich nuclear research facility .

On November 1, 1928, Jahn took over the newly opened internal department of the hospital as a specialist in internal diseases and set up the surgery. From 1949 to 1958 he headed the X-ray department as chief physician and promoted the use of the latest equipment. As a passionate researcher, he also used a spectrometer that he developed himself to examine the blood of his patients in his spare time. His research on dust lung contributed to the fact that this disease - from which many Schmalkalder tool grinders, miners and workers in iron ore and spar mining suffered - was recognized as an occupational disease .

In 1965, in a medical report, Jahn demonstrated the healing properties of the Schmalkalde mineral water springs, which gush near the hospital on the edge of the Schmalkalde river. Together with other doctors, he suggested using the springs and building a spa. Due to a lack of money, this project was not implemented.

On June 30, 1966, after 50 years as a doctor, Jahn was retired from the health service at the age of 78 . On February 14, 1984, Dr. Jahn in Schmalkalden at the age of 95.

Special merit

In the spring of 1945, Jahn was the chief physician of the district hospital in Schmalkalden. The city was declared a hospital focus by the National Socialist regime and thereby received the international status of an open city protected by the Geneva Convention . The hospital and other objects in the city were set up as a military hospital. The number of wounded soldiers transported here from the front increased daily.

At Easter, Friedrich Jahn received an order by radio from Weimar to vacate the hospital infirmary, to immediately set off all patients who could march to the east and to use all available means of transport. The chief physician should also join in with his staff. The seriously ill should be left behind and only given as much staff as was absolutely necessary for care.

The local NSDAP and Wehrmacht leadership had decided to offer resistance to the allied troops who had already reached the Werragrund and were advancing from the west. The city should be defended all around, anti-tank trenches and trenches should be built and the " Volkssturm " should be used.

The city had been bombed twice before it was appointed as a hospital base. Jahn knew that the current order would mean the end of the entire region and the death of thousands of people. He defied the order to evacuate his hospital because he knew that the injured would not survive the transport either. He was the first to hoist the white flag on the roof of the hospital and visited the district and city tour in person several times to dissuade them from their decision. His personality, his influence and his threat to publicly hold the commanders responsible for all the dead resulted in a handover to the advancing 3rd US Army on April 3, 1945 after lengthy disputes with the Nazi mayor and thus the preservation of the medieval town of Schmalkalden and the survival of its citizens.

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personal data
SURNAME	Jahn, Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German doctor and scientist
DATE OF BIRTH	July 30, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH	Treuen , Vogtland
DATE OF DEATH	February 14, 1984
Place of death	Schmalkalden