Helmut Coper

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Helmut Coper (born December 30, 1925 in Frankfurt am Main ; † August 30, 2013 in Berlin ) was a German physician , founding student and first AStA chairman of the Free University of Berlin and director of the first institute for neuropharmacology in Germany .

Life

Coper attended elementary school in Berlin-Moabit from 1931 and from 1935 the Luisen-Gymnasium . In 1938 he was expelled from school as a half-Jew . From 1944 to 1945 he did forced labor in a camp of the Todt Organization . On January 6, 1946, he obtained his first Abitur after the war in Berlin (examiner: Paul Wandel ) together with Horst Hartwich , Elisabeth Brandt (Zapfe) , Gerhard Löwenthal and Herbert Kundler .

In 1946 he was preferred to study with Stanislaw Karol Kubicki as a victim of fascism (OdF) . On May 1, he was one of the signatories of a list of signatures against the affixing of the SED emblem at the Friedrich-Wilhelms -Universität in Berlin ( the traditional university only received the name Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin in 1949). The students were summoned to the Central Administration for Public Education in Wilhelmstrasse, where the well-known physicist Robert Rompe gave them a "lecture" and then sent them home.

In 1947 Coper completed his pre-physics course . In 1948 he worked for the student magazine Colloquium ( Student and Cultural Life , The Way of the Open Word , ...), which was published under an American license . After the student protest meeting in the Esplanade , the American military government supported the establishment of the Free University of Berlin (FU). Hans Freiherr Kress von Kressenstein and Helmut Coper were in charge of the admission test .

Coper advocated the participation of the student body in academic self-government , which - for the first time in German university history - was included in the statutes approved by the city ​​council of Greater Berlin on November 4 : the student body received a seat and vote in all University organs. On November 5, Coper was thrown a coin as the second enrolled student at the Free University (before him: Karol Kubicki).

Regarding the conditions of the first semester: “We students all helped: We dragged tables and chairs into the seminar rooms, which were later still empty, we received money and furniture donations from West Berlin citizens who supported the start-up, and we stood in front of a row of logistical tasks. Most of the medical lectures and seminars took place in the Westend hospital , but our dermatology lecture was in Neukölln - so we organized our 'own' tram that drove from Westend to Neukölln Omnibus available.

On February 17, 1949, Coper became the first elected chairman of the General Student Committee (AStA) of the Free University of Berlin (FU), his predecessor Rögner-Francke was provisionally appointed. After the Physikum , the state examination , then a year and a half compulsory assistant at Bantelheimer in Moabit, followed in 1952 the doctorate with Hans Herken in pharmacology ; afterwards Coper was his research assistant . During a 6-week stay in Geneva near Monier , he carried out experiments with α, β and γ isomers there.

In 1962 his habilitation on hexachlorocyclohexane followed , and his work on γ-hexachlorocyclohexane, laudan, later led to the ban on insecticides.

In 1967 he was appointed professor at the FU and became director of the first institute for neuropsychopharmacology in Germany at the Free University, initiated by Selbach and Herken, and the first ever to hold a chair in neuropsychopharmacology in Germany (which he remained until his retirement in 1994 ). In 1968 he began working with May , the director of the Academy of Sciences in Cracow . For his contribution to the reconciliation between Germany and Poland , Helmut Coper was honored with the Copernicus Medal by the Polish Academy of Sciences in Krakow .

During the student unrest in 1969, Coper did not become a member of the emergency community for a Free University , which was too one-sidedly aggressive for him. Although he also considered the 68 revolt to be a disaster, he was against polarization and instead took a mediating position.

From 1970 to 1980 he was a member of the board of trustees of the FU with a short interruption , from 1971 to 1973 chairman of the Department of Mental Clinical Medicine and later dean of the Department of Charlottenburg University Hospital .

Grave in the Nikolassee cemetery

Coper's grave is in the Nikolassee cemetery .

Scientific activity

The focus of his scientific activities were gerontology and addiction research . The focus of his scientific work was on long-term changes in the central nervous system that arise in the course of aging and the development of dependency. In 1979, Der Spiegel wrote (No. 23): “To this day, as Helmut Coper, neuropharmacologist at the Free University of Berlin, summed up, no drug has been able to stop the natural aging process. The supposed effect turns out to be a temporary sham effect. In some cases geriatrics were even harmful because they discouraged sick old people from necessary therapy. "

Helmut Coper was extensively involved in the development of addiction research in Germany. After German reunification, he tried to set up an all -Berlin addiction research network together with the East Berlin pharmacologist Peter Oehme . This should bring together the clinical, biomedical, epidemiological and preventive addiction research in Berlin on an interdisciplinary basis - while expanding international cooperation to Eastern and Western Europe. This approach met with widespread support but could not be successfully completed.

In 1998 he was awarded the Order of Merit of the State of Berlin.

Publications

Coper published over 100 articles on various medical topics.

Monographs (selection)

  • Helmut Coper; Hans Rommelspacher: Benzodiazepines. Positioning and perspectives. Urban and Fischer, Munich 1988.
  • Dieter Bente; Helmut Coper; Siegfried Kanowski: Organic Brain Psychosyndromes in Old Age. Springer , 1987.
  • Dieter Bente; Helmut Coper; Siegfried Kanowski: Organic brain psychosyndromes in age II. Methods for objectifying pharmacotherapeutic effects. Springer, 1988.
  • Helmut Coper; H. Heimann; Siegfried Kanowski: Organic Brain Psychosyndromes in Age III. Springer, 1988.
  • Helmut Coper; Gert Schulze: Pharmacotherapy in old age. Urban and Fischer, Munich 1982.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Obituary notice of the family, Tagesspiegel, September 8, 2013
  2. ^ Helmut Coper and Peter Oehme : New opportunities for a Berlin addiction research association. In: Materials on Health Research. Series of publications on the Federal Government's program for research and development in the service of health. 19, pp. 175-182, 1991.
  3. ↑ Peter Oehme : Five decades of research and teaching in pharmacology. Experienced and lived in science. trafo Verlag Dr. Wolfgang Weist, Berlin 2006, p. 122, ISBN 3-89626-582-2 .
personal data
SURNAME Coper, Helmut
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German pharmacologist
DATE OF BIRTH December 30, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt am Main
DATE OF DEATH August 30, 2013
Place of death Berlin