Max Rosenfeld (psychiatrist)

Max Rosenfeld (1924)
Oil drawing by Paul Moennich , Rostock University Archives

Max Heinrich Gustav Rosenfeld also Rosefeldt (born August 25, 1871 in Königsberg ( East Prussia ), † August 26, 1956 in Berlin ) was a German neurologist , psychiatrist and university professor .

Life

Max Rosenfeld was the son of the businessman Heinrich Rosenfeld and his wife Franziska, born Hoppe. After graduating from high school in Königsberg at the Old Town High School, he first completed six months of military service (4-9 / 1892) as a one-year volunteer with Infantry Regiment No. 41 . This was followed by medical studies at the universities in Königsberg , Munich and Strasbourg , interrupted by the second part of military service (10/1896 - 4/1897) as a military doctor . In 1897 he received his doctorate in Strasbourg with the text A contribution to the knowledge of hydrochloric haemin. From October 1897 he was an assistant at the Medical Clinic of the University of Strasbourg with Bernhard Naunyn . From 1899 he was an assistant doctor and from 1901 to 1914 senior doctor at the Psychiatric and Nervous Clinic of the University of Strasbourg. Here he completed his habilitation in July 1903 with the thesis On the Influence of Psychological Processes on Metabolism and was subsequently also a private lecturer at the University of Strasbourg. In 1906 he was appointed adjunct professor and in October 1908 non-official extraordinary professor at the University of Strasbourg. In the First World War he was in the war from August 1914, first battalion doctor , then field doctor in a field hospital , chief physician in the fortress hospital in Strasbourg and finally until May 1920 chief physician of a nerve hospital in Frankfurt am Main.

In 1920 Rosenfeld was appointed full professor of psychiatry and neurology at the University of Rostock and at the same time became director of the Rostock-Gehlsheim sanatorium and director of the university's psychiatric and mental clinic, succeeding Karl Kleist . Rosenfeld mainly dealt with somatic psychological disorders, taught neurology, represented the scientific orientation of psychiatry with a shift in the direction of neuropathology. In the academic self-administration he was dean of the medical faculty in 1922/1923, in 1923/1924 he held the office of rector of the university and was prorector in 19124/1925. In April 1926 he was appointed senior medical officer. He was a member of the German People's Party before 1933 , became a supporting member of the SS from 1933 and a member of the Nazi teachers' association from 1934 . In September 1936 he retired for reasons of age.

From 1937 onwards, Rosenfeld worked as a contract doctor at the medical examination center in Berlin and, until 1945, he was also a research assistant for the Central Journal for Neurology and Psychiatry, published by Springer Verlag in Berlin . As a 70-year-old he was deployed in the Second World War from August 1941 onwards. He worked as a medical officer and specialist for nervous patients in the Wehrmachtslazarett 122 in Berlin-Tempelhof, and was promoted to chief medical officer in June 1942. From 1947 he gave lectures on psychiatry at the Berlin-Steglitz adult education center. As a specialist neurologist, he was also in 1948/1949 a medical examiner and chief appraiser at the specialist headquarters of the State Insurance Institute in Berlin, where he dealt with the assessment of pension applications.

Max Rosenfeld was married to Hedwig, born on October 3rd, 1903. Leydhecker (* 1878), daughter of the President of the Customs Administration of Alsace-Lorraine, Ludwig Leydhecker. The marriage had three children.

Although Rosenfeld's "Aryan descent" was checked and confirmed as early as 1935 by the expert for race research at the Reich Ministry of the Interior and again by the Reich Office for Family Research , he called himself Rosefeldt from 1937 - because of the ongoing inquiries about his "descent from German or related blood ".

Fonts (selection)

A contribution to the knowledge of the hydrochloric acid heme. Dissertation, Hirschfeld, Leipzig 1897.
About the influence of mental processes on the metabolism. Habilitation thesis, Goeller, Strasbourg 1903.
Vestibular nystagmus and its significance for neurological and psychiatric diagnostics. Springer, Berlin 1911.
The physiology of the cerebrum. Deuticke, Leipzig 1913.
The phenomena of the subconscious in normal and pathological mental life. (Rector's speech of July 1, 1923), Warkentien, Rostock 1923.
Repetition of practical psychiatry. Thieme, Leipzig 1928.

The neurological disorders in mental illness. In: Kurt Beringer (Hrsg.): Handbuch der Geisteskrankheiten. Volume 3. General Part 3, Springer, Berlin 1928, ISBN 978-3-642-90847-7 . ( doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-642-90847-7 )
The disorders of consciousness. Thieme, Leipzig 1929.
The neurological disorders in mental illness. In: Wilhelm Weygandt (Ed.): Textbook of nervous and mental diseases. Marhold, Halle / Saale, 1935, second revised edition 1952.

literature

Gustav Willgeroth : The Mecklenburg doctors from the oldest times to the present. State office of the Mecklenburg Doctors Association, Schwerin 1929, p. 325.
D. Schläfke, H. Weigel, F. Hässler, K. Ernst: History of Rostock psychiatry. In: Hanns Hippius (Hrsg.): University colloquia on schizophrenia. Volume 2. Springer, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 978-3-7985-1957-2 , pp. 44-46. ( Google Books )
Rosenfeld, Max Heinrich Gustav. In: Michael Buddrus ; Sigrid Fritzlar (ed.): The professors of the University of Rostock in the Third Reich. A biographical lexicon (= texts and materials on contemporary history. 16). KG Saur Verlag, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-598-11775-6 , pp. 337–338.
Grete Grewolls: Who was who in Mecklenburg and Western Pomerania. The dictionary of persons . Hinstorff Verlag, Rostock 2011, ISBN 978-3-356-01301-6 , p. 8321 .

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Buddrus / Fritzlar: The professors of the University of Rostock ... See literature.
↑ Stations of the war effort in World War I : From August 1914, first battalion doctor in Infantry Regiment No. 171 , then field doctor in field hospital 4 of the XV. Army Corps , then until November 1918 chief physician in the fortress hospital in Strasbourg and from February 1919 to May 1920 chief physician of the nervous hospital of the XVIII. Army Corps in Frankfurt am Main.
↑ Ekkehardt Kumbier, Kathleen Haack: Specialization and professionalization. The development of modern medicine at the University of Rostock with special consideration of psychiatry. In: Marc von der Höh (ed.): Traditions, caesuras, dynamics: 600 years of the University of Rostock. [On behalf of the rector of the university], Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2019, ISBN 978-3-412-51636-9 , p. 297 ( Google Books )

personal data
SURNAME	Rosenfeld, Max
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Rosenfeld, Max Heinrich Gustav (full name); Rosefeldt, Max
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German neurologist, psychiatrist and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH	August 25, 1871
PLACE OF BIRTH	Königsberg ( East Prussia )
DATE OF DEATH	August 26, 1956
Place of death	Berlin

[:2-1] Buddrus / Fritzlar: The professors of the University of Rostock ... See literature.

[:1-2] Stations of the war effort in World War I : From August 1914, first battalion doctor in Infantry Regiment No. 171 , then field doctor in field hospital 4 of the XV. Army Corps , then until November 1918 chief physician in the fortress hospital in Strasbourg and from February 1919 to May 1920 chief physician of the nervous hospital of the XVIII. Army Corps in Frankfurt am Main.

[:3-3] Ekkehardt Kumbier, Kathleen Haack: Specialization and professionalization. The development of modern medicine at the University of Rostock with special consideration of psychiatry. In: Marc von der Höh (ed.): Traditions, caesuras, dynamics: 600 years of the University of Rostock. [On behalf of the rector of the university], Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2019, ISBN 978-3-412-51636-9 , p. 297 ( Google Books )