Hans Rudolf Gestewitz

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Hans-Rudolf Gestewitz (born December 12, 1921 in Satow , † December 1, 1998 in Bad Saarow-Pieskow ) was a German ENT doctor and leading military doctor in the GDR .

Life

Gestewitz was born the son of the doctor Kurt Gestewitz and his wife Ilse. The father, Kurt Gestewitz, was a local group leader of the NSDAP. After the Red Army marched in , the father was taken prisoner by the Soviets and was interned in special camp No. 9 Fünfeichen , where he died.

From 1928 to 1932 Hans-Rudolf Gestewitz attended the elementary school in Satow and from 1933 the humanistic grammar school in Rostock. In 1939 he graduated from the Oberprimareife and after one year of compulsory work he became a soldier in the 9th Infantry Regiment Potsdam .

During the Second World War Gestewitz took part in the Western campaign against France, the Balkan campaign and the war against the Soviet Union . After he was seriously wounded for the third time, he was given leave of absence in the spring of 1943 to study medicine, which he began at the University of Rostock in the winter semester of 1943/1944 . Towards the end of the war he had to interrupt his studies in order to serve as a field doctor .

Gestewitz was captured by the British in Ronsdorf-Wuppertal. He continued his studies in human medicine in Erlangen and after it reopened he moved to the University of Hamburg . In 1948 he passed the state examination there.

In January 1949 Gestewitz became a Doctor medicinae at the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine and Ship Diseases in Hamburg with a dissertation on the topic: "Investigations into the influence of weather changes on the initial malaria incident and relapse ".

Gestewitz began his medical career with the mandatory assistantship in the hospital in Bad Wildungen. He then began training as a specialist in ear, nose and throat medicine in the ear clinic in the same facility. This was continued in the GDR, in the hospital in Auerbach in Vogtland, and from 1952 in the Pavlov Clinic in Magdeburg. On October 15, 1952, he was awarded the title "Specialist in ear, nose and throat diseases".

During his internship, Gestewitz married Sibylle von Arnim (1923–2015) in the spring of 1950, who gave birth to two children in 1950 and 1953.

In September 1952, the Central Committee of the SED asked Gestewitz to take over the ear, nose and throat clinic of the People's Police in Bad Saarow. He agreed to this, on condition that he would be able to take on a scientific assistant doctor position offered by Alfred Schulz van Treeck at the Charité University Hospital . This was granted and on October 15, 1952 Gestewitz joined the East German People's Police . Initially with the rank of major in the medical service, he took an active part in setting up the central hospital of the barracked people's police in Bad Saarow. Until 1956 he was chief physician of the clinic for ear, nose and throat diseases of the central hospital. After the National People's Army was founded in January 1956, and the structures of the barracked People's Police were incorporated into it, he took over the function of department head of the ENT department of the NVA's central hospital in Bad Saarow until 1960 . In 1959 Hans-Rudolf Gestewitz became a member of the SED . From 1960 until his retirement he was also in charge of the entire central hospital.

In 1961 Gestewitz completed his habilitation at the Charité of the Humboldt University in Berlin on sound pressure measurement in the ear canal. The facility increasingly distinguished itself as a research and training facility. The link to the Ernst Moritz Arndt University of Greifswald and its military medical section , whose dean Hans-Rudolf Gestewitz was Ludwig Mecklinger's successor from 1964 , played an extremely important role, as many of the hospital doctors had been trained here. On March 1, 1966, he was appointed major general by the chairman of the GDR's National Defense Council , Walter Ulbricht , and was promoted to lieutenant general on February 18, 1974 by Ulbricht's successor, Erich Honecker .

On February 15, 1971 he was elected President of the newly founded Society for Military Medicine of the GDR.

On December 8, 1981, the Military Medical Academy in Bad Saarow was founded from the Central Hospital , a university institution with the right to award doctorates and the right to award the facultas docendi . Gestewitz was their first appointed rector.

On November 30, 1988, Hans-Rudolf Gestewitz was released from active military service and retired. Günter Werner was appointed as his successor as head of the Military Medical Academy . In 1996, on the occasion of his 75th birthday, in honor of his life's work, a scientific symposium was held by the Humaine Klinikum Bad Saarow, the new operator of the hospital at the time. He had acquired all the facilities in 1991 from the Bundeswehr.

Gestewitz last lived in Bad Saarow. He died at the age of 77 and was buried in the Bad Saarow forest cemetery.

Academic degrees, titles and professions

  • January 18, 1949 - Doctor of Medicine (Medical Faculty of the University of Hamburg)
  • Oct. 15, 1952 - Specialist in ear, nose and throat diseases
  • Mar. 01, 1962 - Title Senior Medical Councilor (by: Minister of Health)
  • Mar. 21, 1962 - Dr. med. habil. (Medical Faculty of the Humboldt University in Berlin)
  • Apr. 01, 1969 - Honorary Professor
  • Sept. 21, 1971 - Doctor of Science / doctoris scientiae medicinae (Scientific Council of the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University of Greifswald)
  • December 1, 1981 - Full Professor
  • December 26, 1988 - Doctoris - honoris - causa (Summis Auspicus serenissmiae rei publcae Poloniae) of the Medical Faculty of the University of Łódź in Poland
  • October 31, 1988 - Professor em.

Awards and honors

Foreign awards

  • Nov. 14, 1978 - Medal of Honor of the Soviet Armed Forces
  • 1971 - Brotherhood of Arms Medal of the Mongolian People's Army
  • September 25, 1983 - “Medal Pamiatkowy” Poland
  • 197X - Order of Merit of the People's Republic of Korea 2nd Class in silver
  • 1977 - Medal of Merit of the Republic of Syria (Order of Collar with Large Breast Star)
  • 1978 - Order of Merit for Military Heroism of the People's Republic of Vietnam
  • 1978 - Medal of the Brotherhood of Arms of the Romanian People's Army, 3rd class

literature

  • Hans Bentzien (ed.): Magical Saarow. A reader. From then and now, from well-known people, from their work and from the lovely place. Westkreuz-Verlag, Berlin et al. 1999, ISBN 3-929592-44-4 .
  • Hans Ehlert, Armin Wagner (Ed.): Comrade General! The military elite of the GDR in biographical sketches (= military history of the GDR. 7). Links, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-86153-312-X .
  • Klaus Froh, Rüdiger Wenzke : The generals and admirals of the NVA. A biographical manual. 5th revised edition. Links, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-86153-438-9 .
  • Reinhard Kiesewetter: Bad Saarow-Pieskow. At the Brandenburg Sea. 2nd Edition. Spa and tourism GmbH, Bad Saarow-Pieskow 1996, ISBN 3-00-000838-1 .
  • NVA (Ed.): The central hospital of the NVA.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Registration of Hans Rudolf Gestewitz in the Rostock matriculation portal .
  2. ↑ Obituary notice. In: Märkische Oderzeitung . March 7, 2015.
  3. ↑ New Germany . July 18, 1964, supplement, p. 4.
  4. ↑ New Germany. February 19, 1974, p. 1.
  5. ↑ Berliner Zeitung . February 16, 1971, p. 2.
  6. ↑ New Germany. December 1, 1988, p. 2.
  7. ↑ On the trail of celebrities. In: Märkische Oderzeitung. February 23, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Gestewitz, Hans Rudolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gestewitz, Hans-Rudolf (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German ENT doctor and military doctor
DATE OF BIRTH December 12, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Satow
DATE OF DEATH December 1, 1998
Place of death Bad Saarow