Karl Kötschau

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Karl Kötschau (born January 19, 1892 in Apolda , † June 14, 1982 in Stephanskirchen ) was a German doctor , homeopath and leader of the National Socialist Reich Working Group for a New German Medicine .

Life and work until 1934

First World War - training

Karl Kötschau was the son of master butcher Louis Kötschau. After passing the school leaving examination at the Realgymnasium Lichterfelde he studied medicine at the universities of Berlin , Freiburg im Breisgau and Kiel from 1911 - interrupted by the First World War . From August 1914 until the end of the war he worked in various war hospitals , was promoted to field medical officer and was awarded both Iron Crosses . In January 1920 he completed his medical studies in Berlin and was approved a few weeks later . With the medical company of the Reichswehr Brigade von Dassel he then came to the "Border Guard to East Prussia" , where he soon settled in Szillen as a general practitioner. Here he wrote his inaugural dissertation in 1921 with the title "About typhus vaccination" , which he presented to the Albertus University of Königsberg . His "old friend" Kurt Gutzeit recommended him to his father-in-law Roderich Stinzing (1854–1933) in 1923, in whose Jena Medical University Clinic he completed his internist specialist training.

homeopathy

At the beginning of the 1920s, Kötschau was introduced to homeopathy by the head of the Leipzig homeopathic polyclinic, Hans Wapler, and by the Greifswald pharmacologist Hugo Schulz . In 1927 he went to Alfons Stiegele (1871–1957) at the Stuttgart Homeopathic Hospital for a few months . Stiegele was a representative of scientifically-oriented homeopathy and endeavored to produce scientifically sound evidence for the effectiveness of this healing method.

Since the 1920s, the internist Otto Guttentag was connected to Kötschau through a shared interest in homeopathy.

In the autumn of 1927, Kötschau became an assistant in the 1st Medical Clinic of the Charité in Berlin, headed by Wilhelm His . A scholarship from the German Research Foundation and a subsequent private lecturer degree enabled him to do research at the Homeopathic Hospital in Stuttgart and at the Pharmacological and Radiological Institute of the University of Berlin on the "scientific justification of homeopathy". Kötschau expanded the Arndt-Schulz rule in the sense of an “effect type rule ”, through which the reaction processes described by the Arndt-Schulz rule should be typified.

In 1928 Kötschau applied in vain to head the first German professorship for homeopathy in Berlin. Ernst Bastanier (1870–1953), a representative of classical homeopathy , was preferred to him. According to his own information, Kötschau resigned from the German Central Association of Homeopathic Doctors forever in 1929 .

From 1929 he worked as an assistant at a homeopathic clinic in Berlin. Kötschau belonged to the NSDAP from the beginning of April 1932 (membership number 1.068.407). He also joined the SA and the National Socialist Medical Association . At the beginning of 1933, Kötschau worked in the Berlin-Beelitz sanatorium . For a short time he was the local group leader of Beelitz. In the summer / autumn of 1933, after completing his habilitation , he took over the management of the internal department of the Berlin-Reinickendorf hospital .

Successor to Emil Klein in Jena (1934–1937) - "Biological Medicine"

Title page and list of sources from: K. Kötschau. On the National Socialist upheaval in medicine

Emil Klein held the first "Chair for Naturopathy" in Jena since 1923 . In 1933 he was released on anti-Semitic grounds . In 1934 Kötschau took over the Jena chair and called it "Ordinariate for Biological Medicine" . Kötschau's inaugural lecture was entitled: The National Socialist Idea in Biological Medicine .

From 1933 to 1936 Kötschau wrote numerous articles on "biological medicine" . These articles were mainly published in the following journals:

In 1936 a large part of these articles was printed in an anthology under the title “On the National Socialist Upheaval in Medicine” . Kötschau called naturopathy "biological medicine" and described this as "an outspoken child of the National Socialist worldview":

"The heroic man of National Socialism and the biologically full racial man, they are one and the same."

- Karl Kötschau : Inaugural address for the newly established chair for "Biological Medicine" at the University of Jena. Held on June 2, 1934

Kötschau represented a "biological medicine" that primarily wanted to regulate the patient's lifestyle. So he advocated performance-oriented preventive medicine with social Darwinian and racial hygiene elements, which should take the place of "uneconomical welfare medicine":

"A social insurance whose benefits are limited only to care in the advanced stage throws its money out of the window just like the welfare that is aimed at preserving the inferior."

- Karl Kötschau : hospital and health center. In: Deutsches Ärzteblatt 66, 1936, p. 809

Reich Working Group for a New German Medicine (1935–1937)

On May 25, 1935, Reichsärzteführer Gerhard Wagner Kötschau appointed leader of the newly established Reich Working Group for a New German Medicine . The director of the "Reich Association of Natural Doctors" , Oskar Väth (1881–1952) , became the managing director . This Reich working group was dissolved again in January 1937.

holism

In 1936, together with Adolf Meyer , Kötschau published a treatise on theoretical foundations for the structure of biological medicine. In it he founded his "biological medicine" in the sense of Meyer's holistic philosophy . According to his own admission (1977), he wanted to make “Jena a combat university for holistic thinking”. He succeeded in calling Meyer to Jena. However, this appointment was canceled on the initiative of Karl Astel .

From mid-1937, the NSDAP leadership - in particular its chief ideologist Alfred Rosenberg - classified holism as incompatible with the idea of ​​National Socialism for the following reasons:

  1. In place of the “race doctrine”, holism puts the “doctrine of the wholeness of the individual”.
  2. In place of the "selection", the "symbiosis".
  3. In place of the “hereditary differences” the “environmental theory of Lamarckism ”.
  4. In place of "factual research", "speculation."

Successor to Konrad Bingold in Nuremberg (1937–1945)

"Clinic for Internal Diseases and Naturopathic Treatment"

In early 1937 moved Kötschau from Jena to Nuremberg in the district of Julius Streicher . At the "I. Medical Clinic ”, the position of chief physician had been vacant since December 1936 after Konrad Bingold , who was married to a Jew, was forced out of this position. The clinic was renamed “II. Clinic for Internal Diseases and Naturopathic Treatment ”and Kötschau was appointed its director. He ran this clinic until the collapse of the National Socialist system in 1945.

In addition, he was the head of the district headquarters of the Central Office for Public Health of the NSDAP in Franconia and the City Medical Council. On January 30, 1944, he received the War Merit Cross 2nd Class.

Streicher's "folk medicine"

From 1933 Julius Streicher published the magazine "Deutsche Volksgesundheit aus Blut und Boden" ( German public health from blood and soil ), which was repeatedly the subject of controversy. The main point of attack was the radical opposition to vaccination represented therein , which u. a. was violently attacked by Reichsärzteführer Gerhard Wagner .

In May 1935 Streicher sponsored an exhibition in Nuremberg with the title “The Power of Blood” and a “Reich Conference of the German People's Healing Movement .” This conference was organized by the German Association of Natural Doctors with the participation of the German Association of Alternative Practitioners and the major healing associations. It led to the establishment of the “Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft der Associations für Lebens- und Heilreform” , which was later renamed the “Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft für Natur- und Heilweise” . The organizers of the exhibition "The Power of Blood" founded an "Association of German Folk Healing eV" in May 1935. This association in turn founded a "Paracelsus Institute" on November 12, 1935 in Nuremberg .

In 1937, Kötschau was appointed head of both the “Verein Deutsche Volksheilkunde eV” and the “Paracelsus Institute” in Nuremberg . Together with Ernst Günther Schenck , he founded the Society for Natural Living and Healing, which only existed for a few months in June 1939 .

Post-war period - "holistic medicine"

In 1945, Kötschau was taken prisoner by the Americans. Otto Guttentag contacted Kötschau again in 1947 while he was an advisor to the US military government and campaigned for him to be released from an internment camp for NSDAP members. They shared a common criticism of "conventional medicine" and an interest in homeopathy. Otto Guttentag did not share Kötschau's social Darwinist and racist views. In 1948 Kötschau was released from captivity.

Advertising sheet 1954. Hippokrates-Verlag. Front and back side

He became head of a sanatorium in Bad Harzburg and lecturer at the 1956 by Reinhard Höhn founded " Academy of business leaders " in Bad Harzburg . From 1951 Kötschau was a member of the Central Association of Doctors for Naturopathic Treatment , which awarded him the Hufeland Medal in 1958 . He was also a member of the scientific advisory board of the Society for Biological Anthropology, Eugenics and Behavioral Research and the International Society for Research on Food and Vital Substances and was a member of the World Association for the Protection of Life .

In Schloßberg near Rosenheim he practiced as a resident homeopath until old age. In numerous publications he praised his "biological medicine" under the title "holistic medicine". He concealed his thoughts from the National Socialist era with a thin varnish of neutral terms. In 1954, the Hippokrates-Verlag announced Kötschau's new book with the title Prevention or Care? on:

“This book is the result of 20 years of work on the problem of prevention. It clarifies the nature and meaning of care and prevention. "

It was a revision of his 1939 publication with the title Combative Provision Instead of Charitable Welfare . Kötschau's "holistic medicine", which was also included in the Brockhaus in 1970, should be based on the fundamentals of homeopathy, naturopathy, acupuncture and psychotherapy in a "preventive health care" way and aimed at strengthening the "psychophysical forces".

In the post-war period, Kötschau presented himself as a victim of National Socialism. Due to his holistic conviction, he was withdrawn from the chair in Jena on the initiative of Alfred Rosenberg . Walter Wuttke-Groneberg said:

"If you followed Kötschau's argument, Julius Streicher would also have been a resistance fighter."
"Like the bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie as a whole, folk and naturopathy are among those groups that have sought an alliance with fascism and, after its decline in the pose of the victim, believed they could forget their true role as deceived fraudsters."

It should be added that “folk and natural medicine” of the Weimar period cannot be described as a uniform “grouping”. Bernhard Aschner , Martin Gumpert , William Gutman (1900–1991), Otto Guttentag , Emil Klein , Otto Leeser , Edward C. Whitmont (1912–1998), Friedrich Wolf and many other “naturopaths” never have “the alliance with fascism” searched.

Fonts (selection)

  • About the typhoid vaccination. Diss. Med. Koenigsberg 1921
  • On the scientific-critical attitude in homeopathy. In: Allgemeine Homöopathische Zeitung 176 (1928), p. 112
  • For the scientific justification of homeopathy. Leipzig 1929
  • What does scientific-critical homeopathy want. In: German Journal for Homeopathy 12 (1933), pp. 20–24
  • To build a biological medicine. Hippocrates, Stuttgart 1935
  • On the National Socialist upheaval in medicine. Hippokrates, Stuttgart 1936 (collection of papers and contributions 1933–1936.)
  • Together with Adolf Meyer . Theoretical foundations for the development of biological medicine. (= Scientific Research Reports, Natural Science Series, Volume 40), Dresden - Leipzig 1936.
  • Series of publications of the 'Verein Deutsche Volksheilkunde' (VDV 1936–1939)
  • Writings VDV 08. Nuremberg 1937. Health through exercise in nature.
  • Writings VDV 10. Nuremberg 1937. Health assessment and health training.
  • Writings VDV 12. Nuremberg 1938. Prevention is better than cure! Struggle at nature gets healthy.
  • Writings VDV 13. Nuremberg 1938. Health cannot be bought in stores. It lies in one's own way of life.
  • Writings VDV 15. Nuremberg 1938. The influence of Christianity on the position and attitude of the sick. In it, p. 36:
"The disabled person or person to be disabled is, insofar as he has not yet reached the age limit [for retirement],
to train for performance and health, even if this should accelerate the unfavorable outcome of his illness.
In other words: A decision is made about it, either efficiency or natural failures. "
  • Writings VDV 16. Nuremberg 1938. New ways to health and performance through combative training of the youth.
  • Writings VDV 18. Nuremberg 1939. Environmental damage.
  • Writings VDV 20. Nuremberg 1939. Consequences and diseases of deficiency.
  • Combative provision instead of charitable care. Nuremberg 1939
  • Healthy through exercise and adaptation to nature. In: The turning point. (Bircher-Benner-Hauszeitschrift) , 21st year Zurich 1944, pp. 445–451
  • Health care instead of sickness care . In: The turning point. (Bircher-Benner-Hauszeitschrift), 31st year Zurich-Erlenbach, No. November 11, 1954, pp. 403-406
  • Prevention or care? Prelude to a health teaching. Hippokrates, Stuttgart 1954 (New edition of the text Combative Provision Instead of Charitable Welfare from 1939, adjusted from National Socialist vocabulary )
  • Health care for digestive diseases. In: Better digestive organs. Part II. , Public Health Yearbook 1958, Part II, Zurich 1958, pp. 19–47
  • Medicine at the crossroads. Restoring order, wholeness and center in medicine. Ulm 1960.
  • Performance and health. Bad Harzburg 1965
  • Natural medicine - new ways. Man and nature are a whole. Publishing Basics and Practice, Leer 1978
  • Review. In: Erlebnisheilkunde 1977, No. 1, pp. 1-7

literature

  • Friedrich Asbeck: Natural medicine in life pictures. Nutrition reformers, biologists and doctors show the way. Publishing Basics and Practice, Leer 1978
  • Udo Benzenhöfer . The Paracelsus dramas by Martha Sills-Fuchs in the context of Julius Streicher 's 'Association of German Folk Medicine' . In: Peter Dilg and Hartmut Rudolph (eds.). Results and Desiderata of Paracelsus Research. Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 1993, pp. 163-181
  • Detlef Bothe: New German Medicine 1933-1945. Represented using the magazine "Hippokrates" and the development of the folk medicine movement. Matthiesen, Husum 1991, ISBN 3-7868-4062-8 ( summary ( Memento from August 17, 2005 in the Internet Archive ))
  • Alfred Haug: The Reich Working Group for a New German Medicine (1935/36). A contribution to the relationship between conventional medicine, naturopathy and National Socialism. Matthiesen, Husum 1985, ISBN 3-7868-4050-4
  • Matthias Heyn: National Socialism, Naturopathy and Preventive Medicine: Karl Kötschau's New German Medicine. Diss. Med. Hanover 2000.
  • Ulrich lens . Ralph Bircher in the 1959s and 1960s: from the “damage to civilization” to the environmental crisis - perspectives of an alternative “life science” from a conservative spirit. In: Eberhard Wolff (ed.). Living power. Max Bircher-Benner and his sanatorium in a historical context. here + now, Baden 2010, pp. 166–187.
  • Robert Jütte : History of Alternative Medicine. From folk medicine to today's unconventional therapies. Beck, Munich 1996, pp. 42–55: The “New German Medicine” or: the failed attempt at a “synthesis” (1933–1945). Pp. 55–65: "Holistic medicine" versus "technical medicine" (1945–1995)
  • 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. ^ Christian Pross . The Attitude of German Émigré Doctors Towards Medicine under National Socialism. In: Social History of Medicine 22 (2009), No. 3, pp. 531–552 (here: p. 543) (PDF) via Ch. Pross publications
  2. ^ Christian Pross. The view of German émigré doctors on Nazi “racial hygiene”. In. Deutsches Ärzteblatt 107 (2010) issue 50 (December 17), A2494-2496 (here: 2495) digitized
  3. ↑ Jonathan Davidson. A century of homeopaths: their influence on medicine and health. Springer, New York 2014, pp. 165–168: Bioethics and the contributions of Otto Guttentag
  4. ↑ Hans Ritter. Current homeopathy. Theory and practice. Stuttgart 1962, pp. 68-71.
  5. ↑ Karl Kötschau. Report on observations and experiences at the homeopathic hospital Stuttgart. In: Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift 53 (1927) Part 2. S. 1927. In it the summary of a report before the Medical Section of the Silesian Society for Patriotic Culture from July 29, 1927. Kötschau's main demand: “Scientifically exact studies must also be carried out for homeopathic problems be made."
  6. ↑ From the I. Medical Clinic of the Charité in Berlin (Director: Geh. Rat His .) And from the Laboratory for Inorganic Chemistry and Inorganic-Chemical Technology of the Technical University in Stuttgart (Director: Prof. Wilke-Dörfurt.). Karl Kötschau and Arthur Simon . On the criticism of homeopathy and biochemistry. In: Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift 54 (1928), Part 2, pp. 1244-1246. (Argumentation against high potencies based on the results of experiments.)
  7. ↑ From the I. Medical Clinic of the Charité in Berlin. (Director: Go. Council His .). Karl Kötschau. The effect of small doses in relation to Arndt-Schulz's law and homeopathy. In: Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift 54 (1928), Part 2, pp. 1586–1588 and 1631–1632. (Lecture given at the Association for Internal Medicine and Pediatrics in Berlin on May 7, 1928.)
  8. ↑ Alfred Haug. The Reich Working Group for a New German Medicine (1935/36). Matthiesen, Husum 1985, p. 167.
  9. ↑ a b c The Nuremberg Medical Trial 1946/47. Verbal transcripts, prosecution and defense material, sources on the environment. Index tape for the microfiche edition . On behalf of the Hamburg Foundation for Social History of the 20th Century. German edition, microfiche edition, Munich 2000, p. 113
  10. ↑ a b c d e Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 327
  11. ^ Alfred Haug: The Reich Working Group for a New German Medicine. Husum 1985, p. 86.
  12. ^ Matthias Heyn. National Socialism, Naturopathy and Preventive Medicine. Hanover 2000, p. 55.
  13. ↑ Excerpts in: Walter Wuttke-Groneberg. Medicine under National Socialism. A work book. Schwäbische Verlagsgesellschaft, Tübingen 1980, pp. 152–156.
  14. ↑ Karl Kötschau. Review . In: Erlebnisheilkunde 1977, H. I, pp. 1-7. Quote p. 5.
  15. ↑ Alfred Rosenberg. Messages on the ideological situation. Confidential. No. 41/2. Year, November 27, 1936, p. 42. Printed in: Martin Beutelspacher (Ed.). People and health . 3rd edition. Mabuse-Verlag, Frankfurt / Main 1988, pp. 40-44
  16. ^ Christian Pross: The Attitude of German Emigre Doctors Towards Medicine under National Socialism . In: Social History of Medicine . tape 22 , no. 3 , December 1, 2009, ISSN  0951-631X , p. 531–552 , doi : 10.1093 / shm / hkp064 ( oup.com [accessed November 4, 2019]).
  17. ^ Robert Jütte (1996), 57 f.
  18. ↑ Walter Wuttke-Groneberg. From Heidelberg to Dachau. In: Documentation of the Health Day Berlin 1980. Volume 1, p. 133 (note 39).
  19. ↑ Walter Wuttke-Groneberg. Heilpraktiker in National Socialism. In: Manfred Brinkmann and Michael Franz (eds.). Nightshade in the white land. Verlagsgesellschaft Gesundheit, Berlin 2000, p. 130.
  20. ↑ Alfred Haug. The Reich Working Group for a New German Medicine (1935/36). Matthiesen, Husum 1985, p. 44.
  21. ^ Robert Jütte . Homeopathy and National Socialism - a historical expertise (as of May 16, 2013). P. 11
  22. ^ Review by E. Silva [= Ewald Fabian ] in: " Internationales Ärztliches Bulletin ", Prague 4 (1937) Issue 2/3 (March-April) pp. 25-27 digitized
  23. ↑ Udo Benzenhöfer . The Paracelsus dramas by Martha Sills-Fuchs in the context of Julius Streicher 's 'Association of German Folk Medicine' . In: Peter Dilg and Hartmut Rudolph (eds.). Results and Desiderata of Paracelsus Research. Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 1993, pp. 163-181 (here: pp. 180-181).
  24. ↑ Excerpt in: Walter Wuttke-Groneberg. Medicine under National Socialism. A work book. Schwäbische Verlagsgesellschaft, Tübingen 1980, p. 111.
personal data
SURNAME Kötschau, Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German doctor, homeopath and naturopathic propagandist
DATE OF BIRTH January 19, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Apolda
DATE OF DEATH June 14, 1982
Place of death Stephanskirchen