Jürgen Peiffer

This article is about the neurologist. For the drummer see Jürgen Peiffer (musician) .

Jürgen Peiffer (born December 1, 1922 in Berlin ; † December 11, 2006 in Tübingen ) was a German neurologist , neuropathologist and brain researcher who, in addition to his scientific work, has also published scientific-historical works on the history of brain research and the history of euthanasia in Germany.

Life

Peiffer graduated from high school at Eberhard Ludwigs-Gymnasium in Stuttgart; Immediately after leaving school he was called up for labor and military service. He experienced the end of the Second World War as a first lieutenant and head of a tank company. Immediately afterwards he studied medicine in Munich. He became a volunteer assistant at the University Psychiatric Clinic in Munich, where his interest in neurology was consolidated. He then moved to the Department of Clinical Neurophysiology at the University of Freiburg for four years and then to the German Research Institute for Psychiatry (today the Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry).

He then went to the University Psychiatric Clinic in Würzburg and in 1959 became a specialist in nervous and mental disorders. In 1961 he qualified as a professor for neurology and psychiatry in Würzburg. Between 1963 and 1964 he was the senior physician at the Neurological University Clinic of the University of Giessen , where he was involved in setting up the first neurological intensive care unit.

In 1964 he accepted a position at the University of Tübingen , where he became a full professor of neuropathology and director of the Institute for Brain Research and remained there until his retirement (1988). His research mainly focused on epilepsy , and his work on it has received several awards.

At the Tübingen Institute for Brain Research, Peiffer worked primarily on the differentiation and early detection of genetically caused brain diseases and with genetically caused metabolic diseases. To deal with these questions, he created a new form of collaboration between theoretical scientists and clinical researchers, which was later often referred to as the "Tübingen Model". To this end, he founded his own neurochemistry section at the institute, headed by Klaus Harzer. This model became groundbreaking for the diagnosis of metabolic diseases throughout Germany.

In 1976, on behalf of the Stuttgart public prosecutor, he examined the brain of Ulrike Meinhof , who had previously committed suicide while in custody. Peiffer came to the conclusion that from a neurologist's point of view (...) brain damage of the extent and corresponding localization demonstrated here undoubtedly gave rise to questions about the sanity in court proceedings , a statement that, according to a report by Spiegel, continued into the year 2002 was not published.

Engagement in academic self-administration

In addition to his academic work, Peiffer was also active in academic self-administration. In the period after 1968 he went down in the history of the University of Tübingen as the “Rector of Compensation”. He was also a member of the Science Council , a member of the Senate of the Max Planck Society and the Scientific Advisory Board of the German Medical Association .

Works on the history of brain research and "euthanasia" in the Nazi regime

After his retirement in 1988, Peiffer devoted himself to the often culpable involvement of medicine and especially brain research during the Nazi regime. His research was partially funded by the German Research Foundation; He was also a visiting scholar at the independent commission “Kaiser Wilhelm Society in National Socialism”, which examined the history of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society during the Nazi era on behalf of the President of the Max Planck Society . Here he published several works, such as the study "Scientific striving for knowledge as a killing motive? - To identify victims on their medical records and to organize and differentiate between child" euthanasia "and T4 action".

In Tübingen, Peiffer was "significantly involved" in having brain preparations from Nazi victims buried in grave field X (= Roman 10) of the Tübingen city cemetery .

Memberships in academies

Since 1973 he was a full member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences .

Awards

Peiffer was u. a. 1963 - as the first prizewinner together with the German neuropediatrist and epileptologist Hermann Doose - awarded the Michael Prize of the Michael Foundation and in 1999 with the honorary membership of the German section of the ILAE (since 2004: German Society for Epileptology ).

Fonts (selection)

• Scientific striving for knowledge as a killing motive? : To identify victims on their medical files and to organize and differentiate between child “euthanasia” and T4 campaign , issue 23 in the series “Results” of the research program “History of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society in National Socialism”, Berlin 2005 Online, PDF, 4MB
• Brain research in Germany 1849 to 1974: Letters on the development of psychiatry and neurosciences as well as the influence of the political environment on scientists , Springer, Berlin etc. 2004 (series: Writings of the Mathematical and Natural Science Class of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences; No. 13), ISBN 3-540-40690-5 .
• (Ed.): Neuropathology: morphological diagnosis of diseases of the nervous system and the skeletal muscles , 3. completely revised. Edition, Berlin etc. Springer 2002, ISBN 3-540-41333-2 .
• Brain Research in Twilight: Examples of Seductive Science from the Nazi Era; Julius Hallervorden - H.-J. Scherer - Berthold Ostertag , Husum: Matthiesen 1997, ISBN 3-7868-4079-2 .
• Past, broken mirror: memories , Tübingen: Klöpfer and Meyer 2000, ISBN 3-931402-61-4 .
• (Ed.): Contempt for human beings and opportunism: on medicine in the Third Reich , Tübingen: Attempto-Verlag 1992, ISBN 3-89308-135-6 .
• The expulsion of German neuropathologists 1933–1939 . In: The neurologist . 69. 2 (1998), pp. 99-109, doi : 10.1007 / s001150050245 .

literature

• Walter Fröscher, Klaus Harzer: On the death of Professor Dr. med. Jürgen Peiffer , in: Zeitschrift für Epileptologie 20: 54–55 (2007), doi : 10.1007 / s10309-007-0242-4
• Richard Meyermann: Prof. Dr. Jürgen Peiffer † . In: Tübinger Universitätsnachrichten. No. 132: February 23, 2007, p. 10f.

Web links

• Literature by and about Jürgen Peiffer in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kürschner's German Scholar Calendar . 18th edition (2001), Vol. 2, p. 2367.
2. ↑ Jürgen Dahlkamp: RAF - The Brain of Terror, Spiegel November 8, 2002
3. ↑ A review of the book by Georg Lilienthal, Mainz, can be found in Reports on the History of Science 22, 1999, page 60f.