Otto Geßner

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Otto Geßner (born August 23, 1895 in Elberfeld , † May 30, 1968 in Freiburg im Breisgau ) was a German doctor, pharmacologist and university professor .

Live and act

Geßner was the son of a drawing teacher. He passed the Abitur in Elberfeld in 1913 and then studied mathematics and natural sciences in Münster , then medicine in Marburg and Strasbourg . During his studies he became a member of the Nibelungia Marburg Landsmannschaft . During the First World War from 1915 to 1918 he was stationed as an assistant doctor on the Western Front and was awarded the Iron Cross, 2nd class. In 1919 he continued his studies in Marburg, graduated in 1920 and was awarded a Dr. med. PhD . From 1920 to 1923 he practiced as a resident doctor in Lippe . From 1923 to 1935 he was a scientific assistant in Marburg and completed his habilitation there in 1926 with a thesis on amphibian poisons . In 1926/27 he took the chair for pharmacology in Giessen. In 1932 he was made a non-official associate professor.

From 1919 until its dissolution by the government in 1922, he was a member of the German National Guard and Defense Association . After the seizure of power by the Nazis , he was on April 20, 1933 NSDAP -member (no. 2828327). As a clerk for race issues in the staff of the SA Brigade 38 Halle, he was SA member from 1934 to 1943. He was also a member of the following NS organizations: NSFK , NSDDB (working group leader), NSDÄB , NSV , Arbeitsdank and Reichsluftschutzbund .

In November 1935 Geßner was transferred to Halle , where he acted as director of the Pharmacological Institute, replacing Martin Kochmann , who had been forced into retirement . In 1936 he was appointed full professor and head of the institute. From December 1936 to February 1938 he was dean of the medical faculty. From 1940 he held classes on warfare agents . In 1940 Otto Geßner was elected a member of the Leopoldina .

In May 1945, Geßner was arrested by the American military and released from the University of Halle. In June 1945 American occupation officers organized the so-called " Abderhaldentransport ", with which researchers who had worked on Wehrmacht and armament tasks were deported to the American occupation zone , taking documents and work materials with them. The University of Halle, the aircraft factory Dessau and chemical plants in Bitterfeld, Bernburg and Leuna were affected. The transport left Halle on the afternoon of June 24, 1945 and comprised around 730 people, 93 of them from institutes of the University of Halle, including Professor Otto Geßner from the Pharmacological Institute.

Nothing is known about Geßner's post-war activities; after the war he lived in Bielefeld and Marburg. Formally he was in 1959 by the University of Freiburg emeritus .

Publications (selection)

  • Contribution to the spread, statistics and casuistry of echinococcus disease . Diss. Med. Marburg 1920
  • The poisonous and medicinal plants of Central Europe. With special consideration of their effects. Karl Winter, Heidelberg 1931. 2nd, completely revised edition ibid 1953. 3rd edition, ed. and revised by Gerhard Orzechowski, ibid 1974.
  • Animal poisons . In: W. Heubner and J. Schüller (editors). Manual of Experimental Pharmacology. Supplementary work, volume 6. Springer, Berlin-Heidelberg 1938, pp. 1–83 (partially digitized November 17, 2017)

literature

  • Hans Hübner (editor): History of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg 1502–1977 . Halle (Saale) 2nd improved edition 1977. Therein: Werner Prokoph, pp. 81–90: The University of Halle - Wittenberg in the November Revolution and in the years of the Weimar Republic and Fascism (1917–1945)
  • Wolfram Kaiser: The "Jewish Question" at the Medical Faculty of the University of Halle-Wittenberg . In: Medizinhistorisches Journal , Volume 29 (1994), Issue 1, pp. 3-22
  • Henrik Eberle : The Martin Luther University in the time of National Socialism 1933–1945 . Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 2002, pp. 76–78, 254–257 ISBN 3-89812-150-X

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Berthold Ohm and Alfred Philipp (eds.): Directory of addresses of the old men of the German Landsmannschaft. Part 1. Hamburg 1932, p. 327.
  2. ↑ Wolfram Kaiser. The "Jewish question" at the Medical Faculty of the University of Halle-Wittenberg . In: Medizinhistorisches Journal , Volume 29 (1994), Issue 1, pp. 3-22
  3. ↑ Henrik Eberle. The Martin Luther University in the time of National Socialism 1933-1945 . Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 2002, pp. 77–78
  4. ↑ Henrik Eberle. The Martin Luther University in the time of National Socialism 1933-1945 . Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 2002, pp. 254-257
  5. ^ Ernst Klee : Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 182
personal data
SURNAME Geßner, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German doctor pharmacologist and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH August 23, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Elberfeld
DATE OF DEATH May 30, 1968
Place of death Freiburg in Breisgau