Friedrich Schmieder

Friedrich Georg Schmieder , also Fritz Schmieder , (born July 24, 1911 in Cologne , † February 2, 1988 in Bad Krozingen ) was a German neurologist , psychiatrist and entrepreneur. In 1950 he founded the Schmieder Clinics , today a group of neurological rehabilitation clinics .

Life

The son of a senior auditor and department head in the Association of Rhenish Agricultural Cooperatives, grew up as the oldest of three brothers in Cologne; Schmieder's family came from Kuhbach near Lahr in the Black Forest. After attending the Dreikönigsgymnasium in Cologne, he studied medicine at the Universities of Innsbruck and Cologne . He became a member of the Catholic student associations of the KV , in Innsbruck the Rhenania , in Cologne the Alsatia. In 1936 he finished his studies with a license to practice medicine and a doctorate . The topic of the dissertation was the birth trauma in the question of the genetic health court Cologne . Schmieder had joined the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) in May 1933 and was also a member of the NS Student Union , the NS Lecturer Association , the NS Medical Association and the National Socialist People's Welfare (NSV). Schmieder initially worked as a country doctor and as a ship doctor in the liner service from Hamburg to South America before he accepted an assistant position at Heidelberg University Hospital in 1938 to complete his psychiatric specialist training in the psychiatric-neurological department under Carl Schneider . Schmieder married Marianne Hitzler in October 1940, and the marriage resulted in three daughters.

After the start of World War II Schmieder built as a medical officer of the Wehrmacht a department for the treatment of neuropsychiatric long-term damage to the military hospital at the University Hospital Heidelberg spotted fever and encephalitis on. From July 1942 he was released from the Wehrmacht for research purposes; In October 1942, Hermann Paul Nitsche from the T4 central office wrote to Werner Blankenburg from the Führer’s office for a further exemption . Schmieder took part in a research program led by Carl Schneider, which was supposed to produce criteria by which a distinction could be made between treatable and non-treatable patients. From December 1942 Schmieder carried out research temporarily at the Wiesloch sanatorium and from summer 1943 again at the Heidelberg University Clinic. He received a special allowance of 150  RM , which was financed by the T4 central office. In Heidelberg, 52 children and young adults were examined, of which 21 were later murdered by overdosing medication in the “ children's department ” of the Eichberg sanatorium and nursing home . It is still unclear whether Schmieder found out about these murders. As part of the research project, Schmieder dealt with anthropometric studies and took photographs of patients, which he published in a specialist journal.

In 1944 Schmieder completed his habilitation with a thesis on the long-term damage after typhus. From November 1944 Schmieder was on the front line with the 11th Panzer Division in France. In January 1945 he was awarded the Iron Cross for rescuing the wounded . After that, at the end of the war, he became an American prisoner of war, from which he was released in June 1945. Schmieder then returned to Heidelberg and took up his employment at the Heidelberg University Hospital. Schmieder presented the research results of his habilitation thesis on nervous complaints after typhus to the German Congress for Neurology and Psychiatry in 1947.

After his recognition as a specialist in nervous and mental disorders in June 1946, he opened a neurological specialist practice in Kirchheim unter Teck in April 1948 , which existed until March 1951. In addition to his practical work, Schmieder continued to devote himself to scientific work. The focus of his interest at this time were addiction problems, occupational health issues and prevention options. Schmieder published several specialist articles on these topics between 1949 and 1951,

In November 1950 Schmieder founded the "Sanatorium Schloss Rheinburg" in Gailingen on the Upper Rhine, initially with 20 beds for private patients with neurological and psychiatric diseases. After signing a contract with the Federal Ministry of Labor and the State Supply Agency, Schmieder's sanatorium became a “contractual health resort for brain injured, nerve-damaged and addicts war injured” in spring 1956 , with beds increasing to 150 by 1956. Due to changes in the patient structure and the legal right to rehabilitation that had existed since 1957, the sanatorium was transformed into a neurological specialist clinic from 1960 onwards . Together with a second facility in Allensbach , which existed from 1974, the Schmieder Clinics developed into the largest and best-known neurological rehabilitation center in Germany, according to Deutsches Ärzteblatt ; In 1988 the number of beds and employees was 620 with around 5000 patient admissions per year. Schmieder was one of the first to develop concepts for brain training in his clinic. The holistic treatment of neurophysiological (ie “physical”) and neurocognitive (“mental”) symptoms, including intensive psychotherapeutic care, seemed to Schmieder to be an important prerequisite for optimally promoting the quality of life and social participation of patients;

In 1956 Schmieder had explained his holistic treatment approach in a memorandum to the Federal Minister of Labor:

"Are the physical and mental powers z. Sometimes restored or practiced, that does not mean that what needs to be the focus of rehabilitation has simply been achieved. We mean the knowledge of the remaining skills and development opportunities, the regaining of courage and hope for life, the clarification of the future social and professional path and especially the willingness to integrate into the social world and to take on a certain life risk. "

Friedrich Schmieder is considered to be the pioneer of neurological rehabilitation in Germany. He developed a variety of treatment concepts on which the medical-therapeutic rehabilitation of neurological patients is still based today. He attached particular importance to rehabilitation education and occupational therapy. For a symbolic annual salary of DM 1  , Schmieder developed a concept for a specialist center for the treatment of neurological patients in children and adolescents in addition to working in his own clinics, and then he volunteered to help set up the specialist and rehabilitation center. The resulting Gailinger Jugendwerk still exists today as a facility of the HBH-Klinikverbund in the vicinity of the Schmieder Gailingen clinics.

At the end of the 1940s Schmieder was one of the founders of the Hartmannbund ; At times he was its managing director for Baden-Württemberg. In 1970 he was appointed chairman of the German Society for Brain Traumatology . In 1971 Schmieder was made an honorary citizen of Gailingen; In 1974 he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon . In 1979 he was also honored with the Federal Cross of Merit, 1st Class . Prime Minister Lothar Späth described Schmieder in November 1980 on the occasion of being awarded the title of professor as "pioneering in the care of brain injured people".

In August 1983 the journalist and writer Ernst Klee drew attention to Schmieder's activities during the Nazi era in the weekly newspaper Die Zeit . Schmieder pointed out the secrecy of the National Socialist murders and explained that he only found out about the funding of the research by the Berlin central office T4 after the end of the war. In addition, he saw the need to make him “due to his year and profession - the scapegoat for inhuman thinking and acting 40 years ago”.

On March 20, 1984, the Heidelberg public prosecutor initiated an investigation against Schmieder and the two doctors Wendt and Rauch from Carl Schneider's former research group. Schmieder denied having knowledge of the National Socialist murders before the end of the war, and explained the special allowance of 150 RM that he had received from the Berlin “euthanasia” headquarters as a replacement for other unusual sideline activities. On May 16, 1986, the public prosecutor closed the preliminary investigation against all three accused because their statements could not be substantiated. According to witnesses, doctors and nurses in Heidelberg knew that patients had been killed on the Eichberg. The public prosecutor's office did not consider this to be established knowledge, but rather rumors. Willi Dreßen , the head of the Ludwigsburg Central Office , thought it was “difficult to understand that under these circumstances the three doctors missed what their work in the research department was about” and it was unbelievable that the accused had nothing should have heard the National Socialist murders of the sick.

literature

• Friedrich Schmieder: Theses on brain training. 1972.
• Friedrich Schmieder: Rehabilitation of brain-damaged people. 1974.
• Prof. Dr. med. habil. Friedrich Schmieder. In: Deutsches Ärzteblatt. 27/1988 (85), pp. B-1382. (Obituary)
• Ernst Klee : What they did - what they became. Doctors, lawyers and others involved in the murder of the sick or Jews. Fischer-Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-596-24364-5 .
• Christoph Mundt, Gerrit Hohendorf, Maike Rotzoll: Psychiatric research and Nazi “euthanasia”. Contribution to a memorial event at the Psychiatric University Clinic Heidelberg. Das Wunderhorn, Heidelberg 2001, ISBN 3-88423-165-0 .
• Herbert Berner: Professor Dr. Friedrich Georg Schmieder. In: Franz Götz (Ed.): Gailingen. History of a community in the Upper Rhine. Gailingen community, Gailingen 2004, ISBN 3-921413-93-1 , pp. 633-638.

Web links

• Literature by and about Friedrich Schmieder in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ^ Siegfried Koß, Wolfgang Löhr (Hrsg.): Biographisches Lexikon des KV. 7th part (= Revocatio historiae. Volume 9). Akadpress, Essen 2010, ISBN 978-3-939413-12-7 , pp. 129ff.
2. ↑ Referring to the Heidelberg investigation against Schmieder: Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Updated edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-596-16048-0 , p. 548.
3. ↑ Klee: What They Did. P. 177f.
4. ↑ Roelcke: Research Department , pp. 51–55.
5. ↑ Dr. Fritz Schmieder: Photography in psychiatry. In: Journal for the whole of neurology and psychiatry. Issue 1/2 1942. See Klee: What they did. Pp. 179, 323.
6. ^ Friedrich Schmieder: About late damage of typhus. Clinical investigations into nervous late states after typhus , Heidelberg 1944
7. ^ Friedrich Schmieder: About late typhus damage. Report for the Congress of Neurology and Psychiatry. Tübingen 1947.
8. ↑ Friedrich Schmieder: Struggle of addiction. In: Medical communications. Issue 2, 1951.
9. ^ Friedrich Schmieder: Tasks of a work psychopathology. In: Zentralblatt Arbeit und Wissenschaft. 3, 152, 1949.
10. ↑ Friedrich Schmieder: Health and illness in senior executives . In: Works Medical Association, 1951
11. ↑ Friedrich Schmieder: The mental hygiene in the context of preventive medicine. In: Medical communications. Volume 40, Issue 5, pp. 133-135, 1951.
12. ↑ Heike Schmieder-Wasmuth: The Schmieder clinics. In: Götz: Gailingen. Pp. 639-674, here pp. 641ff.
13. ↑ Prof. Dr. med. habil. Friedrich Schmieder. Obituary in Deutsches Ärzteblatt, 27/1988 (85), p. B-1382.
14. ^ Friedrich Schmieder: Theses on brain training. 1972.
15. ^ Friedrich Schmieder: Treatment and Rehabilitation for Brain Injured People , 1967
16. ↑ Friedrich Schmieder: movement therapy and brain training. 1972.
17. ^ Memorandum, quoted in Schmieder-Wasmuth: Kliniken. P. 644f.
18. ^ Friedrich Schmieder: Thoughts on vocational rehabilitation in the Gailingen youth center. 1972.
19. ↑ Friedrich Schmieder: Rehabilitation of brain-damaged people , 1974
20. ↑ Herbert Berner: Professor Dr. Friedrich Georg Schmieder. In: Franz Götz (Ed.): Gailingen. History of a community in the Upper Rhine. Gailingen community, Gailingen 2004, ISBN 3-921413-93-1 , pp. 633-638.
21. ↑ Späth's speech published in Südkurier on November 3, 1980, quoted in Klee: What they did. P. 183f.
22. ↑ Ernst Klee: The urn filled with other ashes . In: Die Zeit , No. 35/1983.
23. ↑ Schmieder's declaration, published in Südkurier on August 30, 1984, quoted in Klee, What they did. P. 180.
24. ^ Willi Dreßen: The Heidelberg case against Rauch u. a. - attempt a legal evaluation. In: Mundt: Research. Pp. 91–96, here p. 93.