Karl Schmidt (doctor)

Karl Schmidt (born October 25, 1899 in Oberhausen ; † July 20, 1980 in Bad Brückenau ) was a German ophthalmologist , university professor , free corps member and National Socialist . At the time of National Socialism he was both director of the eye clinic and university rector of the University of Bonn and during the Second World War also at the Reich University of Strasbourg . After the end of the war he practiced as a resident doctor.

Life

Karl Schmidt was the son of the student teacher Otto Schmidt. At secondary school his hometown, he made the 1917 Notabitur . From June 1917 he served with the Pioneer Battalion 24 in Cologne-Riehl and took part in the First World War, most recently as a non-commissioned officer. At the beginning of January 1919 he was discharged from the army. Schmidt, who had been a member of the Bubenreuther German Burschenschaft since 1917 , began studying medicine at the University of Erlangen with occasional interruptions after the end of the war .

In March 1919 Schmidt joined the Freikorps Epp and was involved with this paramilitary association in the suppression of the Munich Soviet Republic . After the Kapp Putsch , he volunteered for six weeks in the Reichswehr in the spring of 1920 and took part in fighting on the Lower Rhine. After passing the preliminary medical examination, he moved to the University of Rostock in the summer semester of 1921 . With the Rostock student company he was involved in the fighting in Upper Silesia in 1921 . From the winter semester of 1921 he continued his medical studies at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn , where from 1922 he was deputy chairman of the general student committee and chairman of the clinic. In April 1923 he completed his studies with the state examination and in May 1924 he was awarded a Dr. med. PhD . The Medizinalpraktikum he graduated from the University Hospital and the Eye Clinic in Bonn, where he joined in December 1928 habilitated . Then he was a private lecturer for ophthalmology in Bonn and senior assistant at the eye clinic in Bonn. From 1930 he was a member of the Medical Association of the Rhine Province. This was followed by research stays of several weeks at the Eye Clinic in Budapest and the Chemical Institute in Königsberg . In 1929 Schmidt became spokesman and in 1935 federal director of the liberal fraternity of the Bubenreuthers , which refused to accept the National Socialist ideology and dissolved in 1936. He was nicknamed Bierschmidt .

Since 1931 Schmidt was born with Ingeborg. Janson married. The marriage had six children.

Full professor in Bonn and Strasbourg

During the time of National Socialism , Schmidt became a member of the NSDAP ( membership number 3.244.124) in early May 1933 and in the same year he joined the NS-Ärztebund , for which he was district office manager from 1934 to 1936. From 1933 to 1936 he was the leader of the teaching staff at the University of Bonn. From 1934 he was a member of the National Socialist People's Welfare and the Sturmabteilung (SA) and from 1935 a member of the National Socialist Lecturer Association . He was also involved in the German hunters' association , the German Red Cross and the Reich Air Protection Association .

At the beginning of October 1935, Schmidt succeeded Paul Römer as director of the Bonn eye clinic and at the same time became an associate professor at the University of Bonn. From 1936 to 1939 he was rector of the University of Bonn and received a full professorship there in 1937 . Schmidt, who had taken part in the Nazi party rallies in 1937 and 1938 as a staunch National Socialist , was promoted to Hauptsturmführer in the SA in 1938 and to Standartenführer in 1942 .

During the German occupation of France in World War II , Schmidt received the chair for ophthalmology at the Reich University of Strasbourg at the end of 1940 and headed the university eye clinic there. At the same time he was the founding rector of the University of Strasbourg and remained in this position until the Allies reconquered Alsace in November 1944 .

“The recovery of Strasbourg with the sword has required blood sacrifices from all German tribes. Show yourself worthy of these sacrifices in your study. "

- Karl Schmidt in the preface to the first course catalog of the Reich University of Strasbourg 1941/42

Since the Reich Ministry for Science, Education and National Education had prevented the Reich University of Strasbourg from being relocated to the interior of the Reich in time, Schmidt and most of the university staff could no longer move across the Rhine . In March 1945 he was still missing in Berlin along with many other Strasbourg university lecturers.

post war period

After the liberation from National Socialism , Schmidt was denazified as a minor offender in September 1948 .

“I was happy to join the NSDAP because I saw in it the only way to put the completely muddled internal political situation in Germany back into order. […] In 1933 I believe I can forbid my previously owed liberal-democratic-political principles, since democracy in its freest form had essentially been shipwrecked in Germany since 1918 and above all else was unable to solve the burning questions of social need. "

- Karl Schmidt on March 11, 1948 to the district investigation committee for political cleansing Balingen.

Schmidt was not taken back into the university service. He practiced as a resident ophthalmologist in Melle and in Mülheim an der Ruhr . He took over the deputy chairmanship of the Association of Friends of the Reich University of Strasbourg. He was involved in medical self-administration.

Honors

• Iron Cross 2nd class
• War Merit Cross
• Decoration of honor of the German Red Cross 1st class
• St. Alexander Order , Commander

literature

• Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I: Politicians. Sub-Volume 5: R – S. Winter, Heidelberg 2002, ISBN 3-8253-1256-9 , pp. 274-275.
• 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 .
• Michael Grüttner : Biographical Lexicon on National Socialist Science Policy (= Studies on Science and University History. Volume 6). Synchron, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 3-935025-68-8 , p. 130.
• Ralf Forsbach : The medical faculty of the University of Bonn in the "Third Reich" , Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 2006. ISBN 978-3-486-57989-5 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Rostock matriculation portal
2. ↑ Who is who? , Volume 17, Schmidt-Römhild, 1971, p. 965
3. ↑ Ernst Höhne: The Bubenreuther. History of a German fraternity. II., Erlangen 1936, p. 341.
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Ralf Forsbach: The Medical Faculty of the University of Bonn in the “Third Reich” , Munich 2006, p. 266f.
5. ↑ Karl Schmidt ( Memento of the original from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on www.bubenreuther.de 
6. ↑ ^{a b c d} Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, pp. 545f
7. ↑ Herwig Schäfer: Legal teaching and research at the University of Strasbourg: 1941-1944 , Contributions to the legal history of the 20th century, Volume 23, Mohr-Siebeck, Tübingen 1999, ISBN 3-16-147097-4 , pp. 34f.
8. ↑ Quoted from Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 546
9. ↑ Joachim Lerchenmüller: The University of Strasbourg: SD Science Policy and Academic Careers Before and After 1945 , in: Karen Bayer, Frank Sparing, Wolfgang Woelk (ed.) Universities and colleges during National Socialism and in the early post-war period , Steiner 2004. P. 53– 81, here p. 64
10. ^ ^{A b c} Ralf Forsbach: The Medical Faculty of the University of Bonn in the "Third Reich" , Munich 2006, p. 623
11. ↑ Quoted from Ralf Forsbach: The Medical Faculty of the University of Bonn in the “Third Reich” , Munich 2006, p. 623