Max Marcus

Max Marcus (born October 30, 1892 in Rees , † September 17, 1983 in Tel Aviv ) was a German-Israeli surgeon .

Live and act

Berlin memorial plaque on the house, Turmstrasse 21, in Berlin-Moabit

Max Marcus attended the humanistic grammar school in Bonn and studied medicine in Bonn and Munich . During his studies he belonged to the association VJST Jordania in the umbrella organization Kartell Jüdischerverbindungen (KJV). During the First World War he served as a doctor in western and eastern theaters of war. After the suppression of the Munich Soviet Republic , he was briefly imprisoned for contradicting an anti-Semitic agitator at a public meeting.

Work at Berlin hospitals

• At the Moabit Hospital , Max Marcus first worked in Carl Benda's pathological institute from 1920 , then in Wilhelm Zinn's II internal department and finally in Moritz Borchardt's surgical department from April 1922 . On January 1, 1927, he was appointed senior surgeon. His special fields of work were abdominal and vascular surgery , particularly pancreatic surgery . In 1932 he completed his habilitation with a thesis on the " pathogenesis of acute pancreatic diseases ". He wrote the chapter on rectal diseases for the “New German Clinic” manual published by Felix and Georg Klemperer .

He was considered a gifted diagnostician as well as a skillful and sensitive surgeon .

• On November 1, 1932, Max Marcus became the doctor in charge of the Second Surgical Department at the Friedrichshain Municipal Hospital . This made him the youngest head physician in Berlin. On March 29, 1933, he was released and forced to leave his office within a few hours. A short time later he fled to Palestine. The Friedrichshain Hospital was renamed " Horst Wessel Hospital " at the beginning of October 1933 .

Escape

In June 1933 he accepted an invitation from Tel Aviv's Mayor Meir Dizengoff to take over the management of the surgical department at Hadassah Hospital. At that time he was one of the first qualified surgeons in Palestine . At Hadassah Hospital, he had to build an infrastructure from private funds that allowed major operations. On the other hand, his refusal to use the local language was interpreted as a joker's arrogance . He spoke only German to doctors, nurses and sick people. He was also accused of preferring doctors who spoke German as assistants. Between 1940 and 1948 he worked in an underground hospital and cared for members of the Hagana . He also treated Arab patients. He later taught at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and trained generations of successful surgeons. He ruled out a return to Germany, even after Ferdinand Sauerbruch had offered him a chair in 1947.

Marcus was a co-founder of the Assuta private hospital and continued to work there after his retirement at Hadassah Hospital Tel Aviv.

literature

• Christian Pross and Rolf Winau (eds.). Do not abuse. Moabit Hospital. 1920-1933 A center for Jewish doctors in Berlin. 1933-1945 Persecution • Resistance • Destruction. Published on behalf of the Berlin Society for the History of Medicine (Sites of the History of Berlin Volume 5). Hentich, Berlin 1984 ISBN 3-88725-109-1 , pp. 158-163
• Doron Netherlands. German doctors emigration and health policy developments in "Eretz Israel". In: Medizinhistorisches Journal , Vol. 20, H. 1/2 (1985), pp. 149-184

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Max Marcus. Rectum and anus. In: Neue Deutsche Klinik , Vol. 7 (1931), p. 249

Web links

Commons : Max Marcus  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Jewish doctors from Germany and their part in the development of the Israeli health system
• Memorial plaque at Moabit Hospital