Walter Friedrich Haberlandt

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Walter Friedrich Haberlandt (born February 21, 1921 in Innsbruck - Mühlau ; † December 28, 2012 ) was a human geneticist , neurologist and psychiatrist and one of the first university professors for clinical genetics in Germany.

Origin and youth

Walter Friedrich Haberlandt was the son of Ludwig Haberlandt , the pioneer of hormonal contraception, and Risa Haberlandt, née Brem. His grandfather Gottlieb Haberlandt was the founder of the physiological plant anatomy . His great-grandfather Friedrich Haberlandt was an Austrian agricultural scientist with a teaching and research focus on crop production . Walter Friedrich Haberlandt had two older siblings, Hermann (1915–1958) and Hilde (1918–1998). Haberlandt attended elementary school and the academic high school in Innsbruck from 1927 to 1939. He had been married to Jutta, nee Solarek, since 1964. The marriage had four children.

Professional background

Haberlandt studied human medicine from 1939 to 1945 at the Leopold Franzens University in Innsbruck . In 1945 he was awarded a Dr. med is doing his doctorate . From 1945 to 1950 he completed his training as a specialist in neurological psychiatry. In 1950 Haberlandt took over the management of the psychotherapeutic outpatient clinic at Innsbruck University Hospital. A stay abroad from 1953 to 1955 took him to Columbia University in New York to study with Franz Josef Kallmann , who was doing research in the Psychiatric Institute of the Department of Psychiatric Genetics with a focus on genetic methodological projects in twin, family and population analysis.

From 1956 to 1959 he was a research assistant at the Institute for Human Genetics at the University of Münster with Otmar von Verschuer , specializing in the genetics of neurological-psychiatric diseases. In 1959 he completed his habilitation in human genetics at the University of Münster, “Clinical-genetic investigation of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis”. From 1960 to 1962 he worked at the Düsseldorf University Clinic for Psychiatry with Friedrich Panse with a focus on genetic research ( Huntington's disease ). In 1963 he was assistant at the Institute for Anthropology and Human Genetics with Wilhelm Gieseler at the University of Tübingen . In 1964 he was appointed lecturer, in 1966 he became an adjunct professor . On July 18, 1966, he received the approval of his own department with a chair for clinical genetics at the Institute for Anthropology and Human Genetics at the University of Tübingen from the Ministry in Stuttgart (probably the first of its kind in Germany at the time). On July 16, 1968, he was appointed to these positions in Tübingen.

Focus of work

Establishment of a cytogenetic laboratory and an outpatient clinic for genetic counseling and prenatal diagnostics . Working on a number of genetic diseases, especially in the field of psychiatry and neurology. From 1971 partner in the special research area “Anomalies of Sex Chromosomes”, University of Tübingen.

112 scientific publications, mostly individual authorship, as was customary at the time, including his large monograph “Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis” published by Gustav Fischer Verlag Stuttgart, are documented from this period. In addition, the archive records 17 dissertations supervised by Haberlandt from both the medical and biological faculties.

In 1986 he retired. This retirement was overshadowed by a heavy burden of events that became known to the general public through the press as "the Tübingen case": a lege artis genetic counseling of one of his co-workers (for which he was naturally responsible) from 1983, which was confirmed in 1984 by another human genetic university institute, led in the years from 1989 to 2000 with several contradicting and contradicting opinions of a large number of judges up to the Federal Constitutional Court (1 BvR 307/94) to a legal cascade, which the fundamental extent has shown the importance of the medical application of the constantly growing genetic knowledge and its different possibilities of interpretation in legal and other non-medical circles for the first time with this clarity. The extensive public and professional discussions that developed in this context, up to the present also at the Federal Constitutional Court, were in retrospect useful for the whole of German human genetics.

Fonts (selection)

  • Sociological observations and eugenic considerations in the context of genetic studies. In: Hans Freyer , Helmut Klages and Hans Georg Rasch (eds.): Actes du XVIIIe Congrès International de Sociologie. Nuremberg, 10-17 September 1958. Institut International de Sociologie. 4 volumes. Meisenheim am Glan: Anton Hain 1961, pp. 159–167

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Decree of the Baden Württemberg Minister of Culture of July 18, 1966 No. H5 600/9
  2. ↑ Personnel documents, Department of Clinical Genetics, University of Tübingen
  3. ↑ Federal Constitutional Court BVerfGE 96, 375 (BvR 307/94)
  4. ↑ s. a. Eduard Picker : Liability for damages for unwanted offspring. Publishing house CH Beck Munich.
personal data
SURNAME Haberlandt, Walter Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian human geneticist, neurologist and psychiatrist
DATE OF BIRTH February 21, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Mühlau (Innsbruck)
DATE OF DEATH December 28, 2012