Heinz Funke

Heinz Funke (born May 6, 1911 in Waldenburg ; † April 4, 1993 in Görlitz ) was a German doctor who made outstanding contributions to the establishment of the Görlitz district hospital from 1955 . In addition, Funke was a member of the German People's Council and the People's Chamber .

Life

Funke grew up in modest circumstances. At the age of 12 he lost his mother. After elementary school he attended the Glauchau secondary school from 1921 to 1930 , after which he began studying medicine. This desire to study was shaped not least by the early loss of his mother. Funke studied at the universities in Vienna, Breslau and Würzburg, where he interrupted his studies twice due to financial difficulties. Finally he was admitted to the state examination in Würzburg in 1937 , which he successfully passed. At the same time he was with the thesis About the disinfecting effect of the solvents methylglycol, dioxane and perchlorethylene Dr. med. PhD. At that time, Funke was already working at the city hospital of the city of Osterburg in the Altmark , where he worked for the surgeon Walter Pommrich first as a medical intern and then as a first assistant.

At the beginning of the war in 1939, Funke was drafted into the Wehrmacht in the medical service, which subsequently also took him to field hospitals on the Eastern Front. He served as the medical officer of the 186th Infantry Division's field hospital . It seems reasonable to think that during this time Funke's short operating times and the precise interventions developed for which Funke later became known. In March 1945 Funke was seriously wounded during an operation in a Danzig military hospital and was then transferred to his hometown of Waldenburg, where the local castle had meanwhile been converted into a hospital. After the occupation of the city on the Zwickauer Mulde by American troops, who moved far beyond the planned demarcation line on the Zwickauer Mulde to the gates of Chemnitz , Funke was released from the hospital.

When Waldenburg was occupied by Soviet troops from July 1, 1945, they commissioned him to fill a position as a general practitioner in Niederwinkel . Shortly thereafter, however, Funke was able to work as a surgeon at the Lichtenstein District Hospital, where he worked for the next 10 years. During this creative phase, Funke was appointed head of surgery in 1947, chief physician in 1951 and medical director of the district hospital in 1952. In the same year he was awarded the honorary title of Honored Doctor of the People . Especially during his time in Lichtenstein, Funke was also the most politically active. Shortly after the founding of the KPD , Funke became a member of the KPD in 1945 and subsequently remained a member of the SED . As a delegate of the Third German People's Congress , Funke was elected as a member of the SED in the 2nd German People's Council. Funke also belonged to the successor parliament, the Provisional People's Chamber, from October 7, 1949 to October 1950. Funke ran again for the first Volkskammer elections on October 19, 1950 and was re-elected as a member of the Volkskammer. From 1954 to 1958 he sat again for the SED in the People's Chamber.

In 1955, the doctor, who is now well known throughout the whole of the country, moved to Görlitz , where he was commissioned to rebuild the Görlitz district hospital. Funke himself took over the surgical clinic as chief physician and headed the house as medical director until 1980. As a result, the house was steadily enlarged and, for example, received the fifth dialysis center in the GDR in 1966 . In 1972 a children's clinic was inaugurated, and in 1979 a pacemaker center. As early as 1956, Funke was working with intubation anesthesia, which was still considered critical in continental Europe at the time, and subsequently initiated an interdisciplinary ward for life-threatening conditions, which later became one of the first German clinics for anesthesiology and emergency medicine . Funkes work has been honored several times. In 1957 he was appointed senior medical officer and in 1960 professor. In 1971, in the year of his 60th birthday, he received the Hufeland Gold Medal . In 1974 Funke was awarded the title Hero of Labor . On May 21, 1987, the city of Görlitz awarded Heinz Funke honorary citizenship.

On April 4, 1993, Heinz Funke died in Görlitz after a long illness. He was buried in the forest cemetery of his hometown Waldenburg.

Honors

• 1952: Honored Doctor of the People
• 1971: Hufeland medal in gold
• 1974: hero of work
• 1987: Honorary citizen of the city of Görlitz

Web links

• Heinz Funke on the website of the city of Görlitz
• Martina Schattkowsky: Funke, Heinz . In: Institute for Saxon History and Folklore (Ed.): Saxon Biography .