Institute for Forensic Medicine Berlin
Today's Institute for Forensic Medicine Berlin emerged in 2003 from the merger of the corresponding chairs at the Humboldt University Berlin (after Gunther Geserick's retirement ) and the Free University of Berlin . The predecessor institute of the Humboldt University is the oldest forensic medicine institute in Germany. In the German-speaking world, only the Department of Forensic Medicine at the Medical University of Vienna can look back on a longer tradition.
history
Creation of a separate subject
The beginnings of forensic medical practice in Berlin can be traced back to the 17th century. At the end of the 17th century the city physician was founded. Forensic- medical lectures have been given at the Collegium medico-chirurgicum since 1724 . For many years, cadaveric openings and lessons took place in rooms of other institutions such as pathology and anatomy. From 1839 the rooms of the newly built morgue and section house of the Charité were available for this purpose.
After founded in 1805 Vienna Institute (in Prague a similar institute in 1807 was established) opened on 11 February 1833 the practical teaching institute for the State Pharmacology (the merger of the Inquisition medicine and Medizinalpolizei) which was founded in 1810 in Berlin Friedrich-Wilhelms-University of the second center for forensic medicine teaching and research in the German-speaking area.
The establishment of this chair went back to Stadtphysicus Karl Wilhelm Ulrich Wagner (1793–1846), who established state medicine as an academic subject and also became the first full professor. His successors Johann Ludwig Casper , Carl Liman and Carl Skreczka (1833–1902) continued the institute in his spirit.
The subject was particularly shaped by Fritz Straßmann , the first President of the German Society for Forensic Medicine . After Straßmann, after provisional management by Paul Fraenckel , Victor Müller-Heß , who headed the Institute for Forensic Medicine - as it was now called - from 1930 onwards.
The division of the city in 1948 also affected university forensic medicine. In 1949 Müller-Heß left the institute on Hannoversche Strasse and became a professor of forensic and social medicine at the newly founded Free University of Berlin. The institute was provided with premises in a Dahlem villa at Hittorfstrasse 18. Walter Krauland (1912–1988), who held the chair until 1983, followed Müller-Heß .
In East Berlin , the institute was temporarily headed after Müller-Heß left and until the chair was filled in 1957: initially very briefly by Curt Goroncy (1896–1952), then until 1950 by Hans Heinrich Thiele (1888–1969) , until 1953 by Hans Anders (1886–1953), until 1956 by Paul Oesterle (1900–1971) and most recently by Gerhard Hansen (1910–1978). After this lengthy phase without an occupied chair, the Austrian Otto Prokop finally took over the chair of forensic medicine and the directorate of the institute in Hannoversche Straße in 1957 . Prokop led the institute to great national and international recognition over the next three decades.
Morgue and forensic medicine buildings
In 1811 the first Berlin morgue was built for the Charité . Carl Liman managed to get a new building for forensic medicine in Berlin. For this purpose, part of the former Charité cemetery was converted into building land. The three-story building at Hannoversche Strasse 6 (today Berlin-Mitte ) was built from 1884 and was ready for occupancy in spring 1886. It is a building with yellow facing bricks with a single-storey central wing over a high base. Large arched windows, console cornices on the side wings and gabled portals create an unmistakable sight. In addition to the Institute for State Medicine, the Berlin police morgue and the morgue were also housed in this building.
Mergers in the 20th century
In 1935, the municipal forensic medical service was transferred from the responsibility of the respective police chief to the health authorities throughout Germany. On April 1, 1937, the Forensic Medical Institute of the City Health Office (today's State Institute for Forensic and Social Medicine Berlin ) was founded on the grounds of the Robert Koch Hospital in Moabit on Turmstrasse . Sections were carried out both in the morgue on Hannoversche Strasse and in the pathological institute in Moabit. Waldemar Weimann (1893–1965) was the first director of the municipal institute . He was followed by Gerhard Rommeney (1907–1974) and Heinz Spengler (1917–2004). After the division of Berlin in 1948, the West Berlin authorities initially used the Pathological Institute of the Municipal Hospital in Moabit as a morgue, until a new morgue was built at Invalidenstrasse 59 in 1965 . The state institute's doctors carried out their autopsies there until 2006.
In 1982 Volkmar Schneider took over the management of the State Institute for Forensic and Social Medicine . In order to end the decades-long disputes over competence between the state institute and the chair, he was appointed to the chair of forensic medicine at the Free University the following year. Since then, both institutions have been headed in personal union.
Reunification and amalgamations
In 1987 Gunther Geserick took over the East Berlin chair from his academic teacher Prokop, which Geserick held until 2003. Even after the reunification of the two German states in 1990, there were still two university institutes for forensic medicine in Berlin.
After Geserick's retirement, forensic medicine in Berlin was merged in 2003 in connection with the reorganization of university medicine (merging of the corresponding FU and HU institutes under the name Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin ). The FU-Ordinarius Schneider took over the management of the merged university institutes for forensic medicine with the two locations Campus Mitte and Campus Benjamin Franklin and also kept the management of the state institute .
In 2004 the decision was made to merge the various university forensic medicine locations on Campus Benjamin Franklin . In October 2004, the forensic pathology department was relocated from Hannoversche Strasse to Berlin-Dahlem . The Department of Forensic Toxicology followed in 2005, while the Department of Forensic Genetics remained at the Mitte location due to the lack of suitable laboratory rooms.
The construction work for Berlin Central Station led to the abandonment of the morgue on Invalidenstrasse / Hannoversche Strasse. The listed building wing fell back to the Humboldt University and was converted into offices and classrooms for the Topoi Cluster of Excellence . In 2006, the company moved into new premises on the site of the former Moabit hospital at Turmstrasse 21. On January 1, 2007, Michael Tsokos was appointed to the chair of forensic medicine at the Charité. At the same time he took over the management of the State Institute for Forensic and Social Medicine - as has been customary since Schneider . The core areas of the Charité Institute are now in Moabit. The FU dean's office moved into the building in Dahlem. By 2011, the further measures for the construction of our own section, laboratory and classrooms on Turmstrasse had been completed. Until then, the forensic doctors at the Charité used the section rooms of the state institute.
literature
- Hansjürg Strauch, Ingo Wirth, Ernst Klug: About forensic medicine in Berlin , Berlin 1992.
- Gunther Geserick, Volkmar Schneider: Lectures at the opening event of the 71st annual conference of the German Society for Forensic Medicine , Berlin 1992
- Ingo Wirth, Gunther Geserick, Klaus Vendura, Schmidt-Römhild: The University Institute for Forensic Medicine of the Charité 1833–2008 , Lübeck 2008.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Institute for Monument Preservation (Ed.): The architectural and art monuments of the GDR. Capital Berlin-I . Henschelverlag, Berlin 1984, p. 342 .