Georg Friedrich Nicolai

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Georg Friedrich Nicolai (1918)

Georg Friedrich Nicolai , until 1897 Georg (Friedrich) Lewinstein (born February 6, 1874 in Berlin ; † October 8, 1964 in Santiago de Chile ) was a German doctor, internist , physiologist , pacifist and sociologist .

Life

The son of the chemist Gustav Lewinstein and great-great-nephew of the composer Otto Nicolai studied medicine and natural sciences at the Universities of Königsberg , Berlin , Paris and Heidelberg from 1894 . In 1897 he took the surname Nicolai after his great-great-uncle . He successfully completed his doctorate in 1901 at the Leipzig University Hospital . In 1907, after working as a ship's doctor and in Halle, Leiden, Berlin and St. Petersburg, he received his habilitation at the Medical Faculty in Berlin.

From 1909 Nicolai worked in the rank of senior physician at the 2nd Medical Clinic of the Berlin Charité . There he worked a. a. with the head of the Friedrich Kraus Clinic and published a basic book on electrocardiography with him in 1910 . At the same time, Nicolai became the medical advisor to Auguste Victoria , the wife of Kaiser Wilhelm II . In addition to the occupation with electrophysiology, sports medicine was another specialty of Georg Friedrich Nicolai. In 1912 he was one of the initiators of the first alliance of German sports doctors.

When World War I began in August 1914 , Nicolai was not enthusiastic about the war of the masses and the mass enthusiasm sparked by the press, and he began to look behind the scenes of the war propaganda . In October 1914, German intellectuals published their Ninety-Three Manifesto, accusing the world of lying about German warfare. A few days later Nicolai wrote his " Appeal to the Europeans ", in which he saw this war as the source of future wars. The appeal was only co-signed by Albert Einstein , Otto Buek and Wilhelm Foerster, and it was not published abroad until 1917.

Nicolai started a series of lectures on "War as a biological factor in human development" with a focus on warfare and the reality of war, the loss of life, energy and money for society. The content of this series of lectures has not remained hidden. Nicolai was called up for military service, but initially refused to serve in uniform. That is why he was transferred to the Graudenz fortress in the epidemic hospital in the summer of 1915 .

In Graudenz and later in the fortress hospital in Gdansk he continued his series of lectures as a military doctor, and the first manuscript of The Biology of War was written . The Nicolai case was then discussed in the 41st session of the German Reichstag (under Johannes Kaempf ) in April 1916. After a medical examination, he was transferred to the status of a nurse in June 1916. In 1917 a court martial was initiated against Nicolai for an offense against the press law. The manuscript of The Biology of War was then smuggled into Switzerland. In 1917, the first unauthorized edition of The Biology of War was published in Zurich . Even during the First World War, the book, which advocates a lasting peace between nations, was suddenly known and discussed in Europe.
The composer Viktor Ullmann read the book during his military service in February 1918 in the Trieste suburb of Barcola . Ullmann's opera Der Kaiser von Atlantis was significantly influenced by Nicolai's book and the lectures by Wilhelm Jerusalem at the University of Vienna in 1918. The top German Army Command now tried to bring Nicolai to a military court. In the spring of 1918 Nicolai organized a spectacular escape on a German military aircraft. In August 1918 Nicolai wrote: “Now I know the war; now I know what terrible power the demons of the past have over us modern people and now I hate the war - at least the war of the twentieth century ”. After the end of the war, he returned to Germany on December 25, 1918. In 1919 “The Biology of War” was published in an edition authorized by Nicolai by the Swiss publisher Orell Füssli in Zurich. In the same year the English edition was published in New York, and in 1926 a Russian edition.

In 1920 Nicolai tried to resume his medical lectures at the Charité, but this failed due to violent resistance from nationalist students, who saw Nicolai as a traitor to Germany. The rector, Reinhold Seeberg , and the academic senate of the university also got involved in the conflict , so that Nicolai's venia legendi was revoked. He then led a lawsuit against the Rector and Senate, which he lost in 1921. In 1922 he accepted an offer from the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba in Argentina to become a professor of physiology. The expulsion of the spiritual from Germany had begun. From 1928 to 1929 he worked as a professor of sociology at the University of Rosario . Until 1931 he held lectures at the Colegio Libre d Estudios Superiores in Buenos Aires .

In 1933 he went to Santiago de Chile. In 1936 he became professor of physiology at the University of Chile Veterinary College in Santiago. In 1938 he went on a cultural mission to Bolivia, in 1939 he founded the Institute for Psychogenesis and traveled to the USA. He spent the time of the Second World War in Chile. In 1954 Nicolai was invited to Hamburg for the Congress for Cultural Freedom , in 1960 he was the guest of honor at the International Sociological Congress in Mexico. He died on October 9, 1964 in Santiago de Chile.

Nicolai was a voice in the fight against social Darwinism ; his position can be compared to Oscar Hertwig's On the Departure of Ethical, Social, and Political Darwinism (1921).

Fonts

  • with Friedrich Kraus : The electrocardiogram of healthy and sick people. Berlin 1910.
  • Call to Europeans. First published in The Biology of War. Zurich 1917.
  • The biology of war. Considerations by a German naturalist. Zurich 1917. British reprint 2012, Nabu Press Lightning Source, 238 pp., ISBN 978-1275916159
  • Six facts as a basis for judging today's power politics. Bern 1918.
  • An appeal to the Europeans. In: Europe becoming. Zurich 1918.
  • La Base biológica. Cordoba 1925.
  • Homenaje de Despedida. Cordoba 1927.
  • The Natzenbuch. A natural history of the National Socialist Movement and of nationalism in general. Unpublished manuscript from the mid-1930s.
  • Miseria de la Dialectica. Santiago de Chile 1940.
  • Eugenesia. Santiago de Chile 1957.
  • The biology of war. Considerations of a naturalist brought the Germans to their senses. 2 volumes. Darmstädter Blätter, Darmstadt 1983.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Wolfgang U. Eckart : Creating an organic unity out of Europe: Georg Friedrich Nicolai (1874–1964) and his “Appeal to Europeans” in October 1914 , in: Wolfgang U. Eckart and Rainer Godel (ed.): “ War of the Learned "and the world of academies 1914–1924 , Acta Historica Leopoldina No. 68, Halle (Saale), Wissenschaftliche Verlagsgesellschaft Stuttgart 2016, pp. 33 + 36.
  2. ↑ University of Bern 1999: Nicolais “Appeal to the Europeans” in the version from 1914 with later English annotations pdf archive link ( memento of the original from October 29, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 172 kB) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.philoscience.unibe.ch

literature

Essays
Monographs
  • Herbert Gantschacher: Witness and Victim of the Apocalypse . Arbos, Society for Music and Theater, Vienna 2007/08 (exhibition project).
  • Friedrich Herneck , Willi Göber (ed.): Research and work. Festschrift for the 150th anniversary of the Humboldt University in Berlin. 1810-1960 . German Science Publishing House, Berlin 1960.
  • Wolf William Zuelzer : The Nicolai Case . Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt / M. 1981, ISBN 3-7973-0384-X .

Movie

  • Famous doctors at the Charité, DISC 3 “Doctor in Uniform” ( Theodor Brugsch , 1878 to 1963 and Georg Friedrich Nicolai, 1874 to 1964) , German television / television of the GDR 1981–1983, GDR TV archive.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Nicolai, Georg Friedrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lewinstein, Georg Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German doctor, physiologist, pacifist, and emigrant
DATE OF BIRTH February 6, 1874
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH October 8, 1964
Place of death Santiago de Chile