Georg Merzbach

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Georg Merzbach (born July 21, 1868 in Magdeburg , † October 31, 1939 in Berlin ) was a German doctor and author .

Life

Merzbach, who came from a Jewish family and attended the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gymnasium in his hometown , studied art and literary history and, after moving to the University of Würzburg, medicine . He continued his medical studies in Berlin. In those years Merzbach converted to the Protestant faith . In 1897 he obtained his license to practice medicine . Merzbach opened its own medical practice in the Berlin district of Wedding . For a time he was the editor of the small journal for hygiene . He founded the Merzbach Foundation , which took care of victims of stage accidents. Before the First World War at the time of the German Empire, he was committed to the rights of homosexual people in Berlin in the vicinity of Magnus Hirschfeld . In the 1900s, Merzbach became Hirschfeld's deputy in the Scientific and Humanitarian Committee (WhK).

As a medical specialist, Merzbach appeared in various court cases, where he wrote expert opinions in favor of homosexual people. In 1907, for example, he appeared as an expert witness in the Moltke versus Harden trial and also in the trial against Magnus Hirschfeld , which was conducted in 1904 because of a sexual survey among Berlin students for insulting Hirschfeld. In addition, Merzbach was an appraiser in the court proceedings against the writer Karl M. Baer for the official recognition of male gender determination. In 1913 Merzbach was not admitted by the judge to a court case against the journal Anthropophytheia by Friedrich Salomon Krauss .

After the First World War, Merzbach returned to his medical practice, which he moved to Schöneberg . Here he practiced as a doctor until 1932. As a writer, Merzbach wrote several works. He wrote several articles under the pseudonym G. vd Elbe and Gust vd Elbe and was a member of the Berlin Press Association . Merzbach was married to the actress Meta Illing .

Works (selection)

  • About commercial eczema. Promotion. Print: by B. Paul, Berlin 1896.
  • Homosexuality and profession. In: Yearbook for Sexual Intermediate Levels . 4, 1902, pp. 187-198.
  • The doctrine of homosexuality as a common property of scientific knowledge. In: Monthly for Urinary Diseases and Sexual Hygiene 1, 1904, pp. 16–22.
  • The fertility . Marhold, Halle 1905.
  • On the psychology of the Moltke case . Hölder, Leipzig / Vienna 1907/08
  • Morbid phenomena of the sexual sense . Hölder, Vienna 1909.
  • Sexual aberration of man and nature . Large illustrated compilation of the pathological manifestations of the sexual instinct, the real and the pseudo-hermaphrodite, and other puzzling phenomena in the sexual field, 2 parts. Standard-Verlag John Pohl, Berlin o. J., 1911/1912. (under the pseudonym Georg Back )
  • The beauty book. A gift for women . P. Langenscheidt, Berlin 1913.

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