Maxim Zetkin

Maxim Zetkin (left), 1953

Grave of Maxim Zetkin in the Friedrichsfelde Central Cemetery

Maxim Zetkin (born August 1, 1883 in Paris , † August 19, 1965 in Berlin ) was a German politician and surgeon .

Live and act

Maxim Zetkin was born in Paris in 1883 to Ossip and Clara Zetkin . Two years later, his younger brother Kostja was born. After attending a grammar school in Stuttgart , Zetkin studied medicine in Munich from 1902 to 1908 . He received his doctorate there in 1909. In 1902 Zetkin joined the SPD , he switched to the USPD in 1917 and to the KPD in 1919 .

From 1920 Zetkin worked as a surgeon in Moscow and was also politically active in Russia . From 1924 he belonged to the CPSU . In 1935 he became a lecturer at the Medical Institute in Moscow. In 1936 and 1937 he took part in the Spanish Civil War as a doctor in the ranks of the Republican Army .

After his return to the Soviet Union , he worked in Moscow as chief physician from 1939 to 1941 and then worked in the Caucasus until the end of the war .

Maxim Zetkin returned to Germany after the end of the war in 1945 and helped rebuild the health system in the Soviet occupation zone . He joined the SED in 1946 . From 1947 to 1960 he was a professor at Berlin's Humboldt University . At the same time, he became Medical Director of the Charité in 1949 and, from 1950, a senior staff member in the Ministry of Health .

Maxim Zetkin was a co-founder of the Volk und Gesundheit publishing house and published, among other things, the dictionary of medicine .

Honors

For his work he was awarded the title of Honored Doctor of the People in 1950 , the Patriotic Order of Merit in bronze in 1955 and in silver and gold in 1958. Zetkin was also the recipient of the Hans Beimler Medal and the honorary title of Outstanding Scientist of the People (1963). In 1955 he became a corresponding member of the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin . He was buried in the "Pergolenweg" grave complex at the Socialist Memorial at the Friedrichsfelde Central Cemetery in Berlin-Lichtenberg . The hospital in Nordhausen was named after him in 1983 and the military medical section at the University of Greifswald in 1987.

Fonts (selection)

• Die Chirurgie des Traumas (as editor), Berlin 1955–1958
• Dictionary of Medicine (as editor with Herbert Schaldach ), Berlin 1956
• German complete edition of the works of IP Pawlow (as editor), Berlin 1953–1954

literature

• Peter Schneck, Bernd-Rainer Barth :  Zetkin, Maxim . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
• Otto Weiss: Zetkin, Maxim , in: Hugo Maier (Hrsg.): Who is who of social work . Freiburg: Lambertus, 1998 ISBN 3-7841-1036-3 , pp. 657f.

Web links

Commons : Maxim Zetkin  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Maxim Zetkin in the catalog of the German National Library