Kurt Wachholder

Kurt Otto Eduard Wachholder (born March 23, 1893 in Oberhausen ; † August 7, 1961 in Bonn ) was a German physiologist , professor and rector of the University of Rostock .

Life

Kurt Wachholder was the son of the mine director Max Wachholder (1864–1923) and his wife Helene (1869–1942), née Hackenberg. He passed his school leaving examination in Düsseldorf in 1912 and then studied medicine at the universities of Bonn and Freiburg im Breisgau . Since he participated in the First World War in the medical service from 1914 to 1918 , he did not complete his studies with a state examination until 1920 and was awarded a Dr. med. PhD . He then worked as an assistant to Karl Hürthle at the Physiological Institute of the University of Breslau , where he qualified as a professor in physiology in 1923 and then worked as a private lecturer or, from 1928, as an associate professor. In the meantime, in 1929, he took over the chair for physiology at the University of Zurich .

In 1933, Wachholder was appointed to the chair of physiology at the University of Rostock from Breslau, which he held for twenty years. At the time of National Socialism he was a supporting member of the SS and he joined the Nazi lecturers ' association, but was not a member of the NSDAP . During the Second World War he did medical service in Pomerania and later with the medical team in Rostock, most recently with the rank of senior field doctor. From 1940 he was dean of the medical faculty for one year , from 1941 initially prorector and from 1944 to 1946 rector of the University of Rostock.

After the end of the war he was commissioned by the Soviet local commandant to resume teaching at the University of Rostock in May 1945. At the end of May he "formed a committee of inquiry to examine the university's political status". Even classified as politically harmless, he made a contribution to rebuilding the university. From 1947 he was editor of the journal of the entire internal medicine . In rejection of the “Stalinist education system”, he and other colleagues wrote a memorandum in which individual aspects of the “second university reform” were criticized, which German universities and authorities in the GDR received . Wachholder resigned from the GDR in 1953 and accepted a position at the University of Bonn for the Chair of Physiology, where he worked until his death and was director of the Physiological Institute. His main research interests were exercise, nutritional, work and sport physiology.

Fonts (selection)

• About the frog's wipe reflex. A contribution to the analysis of the reflex functions of the spinal cord , Fischer, Jena 1920, (from: Zeitschrift f. Allg. Physiol. Vol. 19, dissertation at the University of Bonn 1920)
• Investigations into the innervation and coordination of human movements with the help of the streams of action . Habilitation thesis at the University of Breslau in 1923
• Arbitrary posture and movement, especially in the light of electrophysiology. Investigations , JF Bergmann, Munich 1928 (from: Experiences in Physiology, Vol. 26)

literature

• Michael Buddrus , Sigrid Fritzlar: The professors of the University of Rostock in the Third Reich. A biographical lexicon , Saur, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-598-11775-6 , pp. 417-419.
• 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. 178.
• Biographical lexicon for Mecklenburg . Vol. 1, Rostock 1995, pp. 241–244 (not evaluated)

Web links

• Literature by and about Kurt Wachholder in the catalog of the German National Library
• Entry on Kurt Wachholder in the Catalogus Professorum Rostochiensium

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk : Spirit in the service of power. University policy in the Soviet Zone / GDR 1945 to 1961 . Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-86153-296-4 , p. 116