Gustav Ortenau

Gustav Ortenau (born May 18, 1864 in Fürth , † 1950 in Florence ) was a German doctor of Jewish descent. He was senior physician general in the First World War .

origin

Ortenau was born in Fürth as the son of Ignaz Ortenau, who holds a doctorate in notary. His father was chairman of the Israelite religious community in Fürth and later in Munich . He advised the Prince Regent Luitpold of Bavaria on legal issues. In 1890 he inherited Heinrich Heine's Paris desk .

Life

Gustav Ortenau graduated from the Wilhelmsgymnasium in Munich in 1882 and then studied medicine at the University of Munich .

From 1890, Ortenau was a lung specialist in Bad Reichenhall . In 1904 he married the painter and sculptor Adele Peiser- Lasker (1870–1970). The couple had children Irma (1905-1956) and Erich (1912-1995).

In the First World War, Ortenau was a war volunteer in the rank of general senior physician. He also owned and managed a lung sanatorium in Nervi near Genoa. Ortenau was very popular in Bad Reichenhall and was therefore able to stay in Bad Reichenhall during the first years of the Nazi regime.

Persecution during the Nazi era

After the license to practice medicine had been withdrawn from the Jewish doctors on October 1, 1938 , he emigrated with his wife to Basel in Switzerland in May 1939 . Son Erich managed to escape to Palestine in 1940 . After the end of the war, the impoverished couple lived with Irma in Rome , who managed to survive there in the underground. The niece Anita Lasker survived Auschwitz as a cellist in the girls' orchestra . Many family members were murdered. From 1950 the couple lived in Florence , where Ortenau died after a short time. After Irma died in 1956, pulled Adele 1960 Erich into Pasinger house of the daughter. She was still painting when she was a hundred years old, despite her visual impairment. The doctor and psychotherapist Irma Ortenau had already returned to Munich in 1947.

Awards and dedications

Ortenau Park in Bad Reichenhall

Ortenau received high awards in the First World War. The Ortenau Park in Bad Reichenhall is dedicated to him.

Foundations of the Ortenau family

Erich Ortenau donated the German Room to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, including Heinrich Heine's desk.

swell

• Josef Wysocki: Life in the Berchtesgadener Land 1800–1990. 1991, pp. 269-271.
• Monika Ebert: Between recognition and ostracism: Doctors at the Ludwig Maximilians University in the first half of the 20th century. VDS, 2003, ISBN 3-87707-619-X , p. 196ff.
• Gudrun Koppers-Weck: The Ortenaus in Pasing. In: Gudrun Azar et al.: Moved into the light - Jewish ways of life in the west of Munich. Utz, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-8316-0787-7 , p. 241 ff.
• Susanna Schrafstetter: Escape and hiding: Jews in hiding in Munich - experience of persecution and everyday life after the war. Wallstein, 2015, ISBN 978-3-8353-1736-9 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Annual report on the K. Wilhelms-Gymnasium in Munich 1881/82.