Johannes Franz Suckow

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Johannes Franz Suckow (born April 3, 1896 in Stargard ; † April 7, 1994 in Dresden ) was a German psychiatrist and neurologist , professor and director of the neurological clinic at the University of Dresden .

Life

Origin and studies

His father, Franz Suckow (1865-1947), was the principal of the aid school in Stargard, his political orientation was rather left-wing liberal and, as chairman of the Pomeranian Association of Aid Schools, advocated broad popular education. His mother Elise, b. Riedel (1874–1952) was a lively and very energetic housewife. Suckow attended high school in Stargard. In September 1914 he volunteered for the military at the beginning of the First World War . He was deployed on the Eastern Front, came back after being wounded in 1915 and was able to take his Abitur as an external student; then he had to return and was promoted to sergeant in 1916.

As early as November 1917, he enrolled at the Berlin University to study medicine , which he could not really begin until 1919. In 1920/21 he studied in Munich , where he could also hear lectures from Emil Kraepelin . When he returned to Berlin, he also heard from Karl Bonhoeffer , who had been director of the Charité Psychiatric and Mental Clinic since 1917 . At the age of 27 he passed the state examination in medicine. From 1923 to 1924 he worked as a medical intern and as a trainee doctor with Friedrich Kraus , the director of the 2nd Medical Clinic at the Charité. On September 20, 1923 he received his license to practice medicine . With the work "Respiratory disorders in encephalitis epidemica" he was awarded a Dr. med. PhD . In 1924 Suckow moved to the Psychiatric and Mental Hospital of the Charité to Bonhoeffer, who was not opposed to eugenic ideas and who made a name for himself as a proponent of forced sterilization during the Nazi era . In 1928 Suckow moved to the Leipzig Neurological-Psychiatric Clinic as an assistant doctor under the direction of Paul Schröder . He represented a strictly scientific interpretation of mental illnesses and on his initiative a brain research institute was founded in 1927. Even before 1933, Schröder was one of the supporters of a eugenic-racial hygiene point of view in psychiatry.

Career in the Nazi era

Suckow joined the NSDAP's ring of sacrifices as a paying member in 1933 , and he also became a member of the Nazi teachers' association . In October 1934 Suckow married the doctor Magdalena Moderau (1897–1987), who had also studied with Bonhoeffer and Schröder. The marriage had a son.

In 1934 Suckow became head of department in the state sanatorium and nursing home in Leipzig-Dosen . In May 1935 he joined the National Socialist People's Welfare and the Reich Association of German Officials , and left the Nazi teachers association that year. From 1936 to 1938 he took part in four military exercises conducted by Saxon medical teams on his own initiative. The attempt to promote him to senior physician, however, failed because he was not a member of the NSDAP . From 1939 Suckow was a member of the National Socialist Medical Association .

From November 1938 to February 1939, Suckow was the deputy head of the State Mental Clinic (“Maria-Anna-Heim”) affiliated with the Pirna-Sonnenstein Sanatorium. At this point in time he came into contact with Hermann Paul Nitsche , the head of the state institute in Pirna-Sonnenstein. In August 1939 Suckow was drafted into the Wehrmacht and took part in the attack on Poland , the France offensive and in 1941/42 in the Russian campaign during the Second World War as a troop doctor or in the field hospital .

After returning from the war, on Nitsche's initiative, he was appointed to a research department at the Wiesloch Healing and Nursing Department, an external department of the Heidelberg Psychiatric Clinic . Here, mentally handicapped patients should be examined in detail in the Eichberg institution before they are killed and, after the killing, their brains should be pathologically examined at the Heidelberg clinic. For this reason, the name Suckow is also on the list of T4 doctors. Carl Schneider was the head of the research department . The Wiesloch research department was closed due to the war on March 31, 1943, so that Suckow could not finish his research work (development of motility in idiots ). However, Nitsche wanted to get a list of all examined patients from Suckow in order to be able to use the autopsy results in the event of their death . On July 6, 1943, Suckow sent Schneider a corresponding list of the patients who were examined in the research department, stating the current institution in which they are housed. However, he was not directly involved in killing operations.

“The fact that his short-term involvement in the work of the Wiesloch research institute did not result in a direct death sentence for any of the patients was due to the further course of the war. Suckow himself was grateful for that later. "

- Marina Lienert: “euthanasia” doctor or researcher with a white vest? - The psychiatrist Johannes Suckow (1986–1994) and his work in the research department at the Wiesloch sanatorium in 1942/43. , Leipzig 2007, p. 62)

From April 1943 to the end of March 1945 Suckow served as a medical officer and department doctor in the brain injured department of the Wiesloch reserve hospital. In March 1945 he was transported to Tübingen on a transport of the wounded and was taken prisoner by the French. From this he was released in August 1945.

Career after World War II

After his return to Leipzig, he resumed his work at the Dösener institute as a department doctor and later as deputy chief doctor. It was checked by the state government of Saxony - health care department - and classified as politically harmless. Suckow also survived a second review of his activities during the Nazi era by the Saxon Ministry for National Education unscathed. In December 1945 he joined the Free German Trade Union Federation , which was seen as a sign of his willingness to participate in the reconstruction.

With effect from October 1, 1947, he was given a teaching position at the Leipzig University Hospital. In 1950 , Suckow completed his habilitation at Leipzig University with a thesis on catatonic symptoms in organic psychoses and their relationship to schizophrenic diseases . The appraisers Richard Arwed Pfeifer (psychiatrist and neurologist) and Max Bürger (internist) gave a positive assessment and the company union management also judged that Suckow had not yet lost contact with the working class. In February 1954 Suckow was appointed professor with a teaching position at the medical faculty of the Karl Marx University in Leipzig . After some quarrels, Suckow was appointed to a chair for neurology and psychiatry and director of the neurological clinic at the University of Dresden on September 1, 1955 . There he became the founder of the Clinic for Psychiatry and Neurology of the Medical Academy Dresden .

His wife remained as a (head) doctor at the Dösen institution until she retired. Suckow first had to set up his clinic in Dresden. He remained there as director until a year after his retirement , which finally took place on June 30, 1963. Suckow died shortly after completing his 98th year in Dresden.

Honors

literature

  • Marina Lienert: German Psychiatry in the 20th Century. The life path of the psychiatrist Johannes Suckow (1896–1994) . In: Sudhoffs Archiv zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte 84 (2000), pp. 1–18.
  • Marina Lienert: “Euthanasia” doctor or researcher with a clean slate? - The psychiatrist Johannes Suckow (1896–1994) and his work in the research department at the Wiesloch sanatorium in 1942/43. In: Boris Böhm & Norbert Haase (eds.), Perpetrators - criminal prosecution - debt relief. Biographies of doctors between Nazi tyranny and German post-war history (pp. 41–62). Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2007, ISBN 978-3-86583-166-8 .
  • Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich . Who was what before and after 1945 . 2nd Edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 615.
personal data
SURNAME Suckow, Johannes Franz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German psychiatrist and neurologist
DATE OF BIRTH April 3, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Stargard (Western Pomerania)
DATE OF DEATH April 7, 1994
Place of death Dresden