Werner Gerlach

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Werner Gerlach (born September 4, 1891 in Wiesbaden , † August 31, 1963 in Kempten (Allgäu) ) was a German pathologist, honorary SS brigade leader and diplomat.

Life

Werner Gerlach was born as the son of the bacteriologist and hygienist Valentin Gerlach and his wife Marie. Niederhaeuser was born. He attended the humanistic grammar school in Wiesbaden, which he graduated from high school in 1910. Immediately afterwards, between April and October 1910, he did military service in Tübingen . He studied medicine at the Universities of Tübingen and Munich . He became a member of the Corps Borussia Tübingen (1911) and the Corps Saxonia Jena (1937).

During the First World War he was deployed in the ambulance department of the 6th Army and in various medical companies on the Western Front. Gerlach was awarded the Iron Cross 1st Class. In 1917 he presented during a leave from the front, the state examination and attained a doctorate to the Dr. med. From 1917 to 1919 Gerlach was last medical officer in the military mission in Turkey (Haidar Pascha hospital) and was awarded the Iron Crescent there.

After his military service in 1919, he was assistant to Georg Schmorl in Dresden. In 1920 he became an assistant to Herxheimer at the Pathological Institute of the Municipal Hospital in Wiesbaden . At the end of 1920 he received an assistant position to Robert Rössle at the Pathological Institute of the University of Jena and was there from 1921 prosector . Gerlach went to Switzerland with his mentor Rössle. From 1922 to 1924 he worked as a prosector at the University of Basel . In 1923 he qualified there for pathology . From 1924 he was the chief senior physician and prosector at the Hamburg General Hospital Barmbek . In 1928 he received the Venia legendi of the University of Hamburg with the title of professor. Then he was appointed to the chair for pathological anatomy of his teacher Rössle at the Friedrichs University in Halle . The medical faculty named his research on tumors , physiological studies and work on genetics as scientific merits of Gerlach . His studies on inflammation and embryonic connective tissue are particularly valuable. He rebuilt the pathological institute with extensive funds that had been guaranteed as part of his appointment. Because of his "outstanding teaching talent", his move to the University of Basel in 1929 was regretted.

time of the nationalsocialism

In Switzerland, where he held the chair for pathological anatomy from September 20, 1929, Gerlach became a member of the NSDAP / AO in 1933 ( membership number 1,780,666), which in 1936 had over 5000 members under Wilhelm Gustloff . In 1936, Gerlach was dismissed for "non-disciplinary National Socialist activity". In the spring of 1937, however, the Basel appellate court ordered his reinstatement.

On April 1, 1937, Gerlach von Himmler was drafted into the SS and Himmler's personal staff on an honorary basis with the rank of SS-Hauptsturmführer . In 1937, the Reich Ministry of Science approved his appointment to the chair for general pathology and pathological anatomy at the "National Socialist Model University" Jena , succeeding Walther Berblinger, who had emigrated to Switzerland . A little later he became dean of the medical faculty on the intercession of Karl Astel .

Himmler had heard about the section of SS Rottenführer Albert Kallweit, who had been murdered in Buchenwald, through the pathologist Gerhard Buhtz , director of the Jena Institute for Forensic Medicine. Thereupon Himmler commissioned Gerlach to write instructions for the autopsies of SS members. Buhtz was then transferred to Breslau as a punishment. Thereupon Gerlach was briefly from July 1 to September 30, 1938 also head of forensic medicine in Jena and then restored the priority of pathology over forensic medicine.

After the " Reichskristallnacht ", Gerlach informed the Thuringian doctor leader Rohde that his colleague Ernst Giese was treating Jewish patients.

In 1939 Gerlach took a leave of absence from his teaching duties. He planned to write a textbook on pathology. The diplomatic post in Reykjavík as the German consul general offered to him by the Foreign Office . He asked his now almost 18-year-old daughter Ingeborg if she would like to support him as a typist. Ingeborg Gerlach then took courses in typing and shorthand. Gerlach himself was also interested in paleopathological research opportunities, which led him to Louis Leakey and his wife Mary Leakey in the Olduvai Gorge on a trip to East Africa long after the war . When he transferred to the Foreign Service, he attempted to succeed (smoker) cancer researcher Dietrich Eberhard Schairer (1907–1996), who had been acting as his representative since May 1, 1939, in a letter to the adviser Max de Crinis in the Reich Ministry to be recommended, as this fulfills all requirements, also “politically”, for this; Schairer was actually appointed acting director in 1943 and made an extraordinary professor. Immediately after the British occupation of Iceland on May 10, 1940, Gerlach was separated from his wife and daughters and interned in the Tower (solitary confinement) until autumn 1940, before moving to Dunluce House with his family from autumn 1940 to autumn 1941 (repatriation), Ramsey, Isle of Man was reunited with wife and daughters.

From January 5, 1942, Gerlach was acting representative of the Foreign Office at the Reich Protector in Prague.

On April 10, 1943, he was transferred to the German Embassy in Paris as head of the cultural department . The ambassador Otto Abetz and the head of the German Institute Karl Epting hoped to be able to use Gerlach for their interests in the event of conflicts with the party leadership, as he had been promoted to SS Brigade Leader honorary in the personal staff of the Reichsführer-SS, Heinrich Himmler , in the autumn of 1942 . However, Gerlach was “largely disinterested in the cultural and political work in Paris”. In the summer of 1944, under the impression of the Americans approaching Paris, the embassy was first relocated to Saint-Dié-des-Vosges , and later to Sigmaringen . From September 1944 until the end of the war, Gerlach was responsible for the befriended governments in exile, first in Berlin, later in Austria (probably Bad Aussee) and in Garmisch.

post war period

From 1945 to 1948 Gerlach was interned in America; In 1947 he was interrogated twice by Robert Kempner as a witness in the Foreign Office trial (typewritten copies in the IFZ). After his release, Gerlach opened a private pathological institute in Kempten (Allgäu) in 1949 . Obituaries praised Gerlach's contribution to the introduction of spectral analysis into medicine.

family

Werner Gerlach was the younger brother of the physicist Walther Gerlach . The two released joint publications, but were politically different. Werner Gerlach married Henriette "Henny" Syffert (1891–1966) on September 11, 1920 and had two daughters with her: Ingeborg geb. 1921 and Eva-Maria born. 1929.

Fonts

  • On the question of the histogenesis of Grawitz's tumors of the kidney. Tübingen 1916.
  • Manual of special pathological anatomy and histology. Vol. 5: digestive glands. Tl 2: Head salivary glands, pancreas, gall bladder, etc. Biliary tract. 1929
  • detailed list of publications compiled by Carl Krauspe (see below: Literature and Archives).
  • Manual of special pathological anatomy and histology. Vol. 5: digestive glands. Tl 1: liver. 1930.
  • Walther Gerlach, Eugen Schweitzer, Werner Gerlach, Else Riedl: The chemical emission spectral analysis. Basics and methods. Voss, Leipzig 1930.
  • Walther Gerlach, Werner Gerlach: The element detection in the tissue. In: Virchow's archive. Vol. 282, H. 1, October 1931.
  • Walther Gerlach, Werner Gerlach: The chemical emission spectral analysis. 2, application in medicine, chemistry and mineralogy. Voss, Leipzig 1933 (English 1934).
  • Walther Gerlach, Werner Gerlach, Eugen Schweitzer: The chemical emission spectral analysis. 3 tables for qualitative analysis. Voss, Leipzig 1936.

Literature and Archives

  • Christian Bode: On the history of forensic medicine at the University of Jena from 1901 to 1945. Dissertation from the Medical Faculty of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, July 2007 ( PDF ).
  • Isidor Fischer , Peter Voswinckel : Biographical lexicon of the outstanding doctors of the last fifty years. Urban & Schwarzenberg, Berlin et al. 1932–1933 (new edition: Olms, Hildesheim et al. 2002, ISBN 3-487-11659-6 ).
  • Michael Grüttner : Biographical Lexicon on National Socialist Science Policy (= Studies on Science and University History. Volume 6). Synchron, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 3-935025-68-8 .
  • Maria Keipert (Red.): Biographical Handbook of the German Foreign Service 1871–1945. Published by the Foreign Office, Historical Service. Volume 2: Gerhard Keiper, Martin Kröger: G – K. Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2005, ISBN 3-506-71841-X .
  • Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945? S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2003, ISBN 3-596-16048-0 .
  • Carl Krauspe: Memorial sheet: Werner Gerlach. In: Negotiations of the German Society for Pathology, 48th Conference, Stuttgart, March 31–4. April 1964. Gustav Fischer Verlag, Stuttgart 1964.
  • Günter Lachmann: National Socialism in Switzerland 1931-1945. A contribution to the history of the foreign organization of the NSDAP. Ernst Reuter Society, Berlin-Dahlem 1962.
  • Gerd Simon , Hans Raab: The Icelandic expedition of the ancestral legacy of the SS ( PDF ; there also photo by Werner Gerlach).
  • David Tréfás: German Professors in Switzerland - Case Studies from the History of the University of Basel in the 19th and 20th Century. In: Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde . Volume 109 (2009), pp. 103-128, on Gerlach pp. 125-127 ( digitized version ).
  • Hedwig Trinkler: From the history of pathology and its institution in Basel (= society for the good and the common good : Neujahrsblatt. Vol. 151). Basel 1973, pp. 76-90.
  • Susanne Zimmermann: The medical faculty of the University of Jena during the time of National Socialism (= Ernst Haeckel House Studies. Vol. 2). Publishing house for science and education, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-86135-481-0 .

Archives holdings

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christine Pieper: The social structure of the chief physicians of the General Hospital Hamburg-Barmbek 1913 to 1945. A contribution to collective biographical research. Münster / Hamburg / London 2003, ISBN 3-8258-6495-2 , p. 195 f. (Sources: Archive of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Werner Gerlach personal files; StAHH, 352-10, 266; StAHH, 361-6, IV. 1377, etc.).
  2. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1960, 126/373; 71/779.
  3. ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives: Disciplinary measures at the University of Basel in the 1930s on the website of the University of Basel.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.isis.unibas.ch
  4. ↑ Uwe Hoßfeld et al. (Ed.): "In the service of the people and fatherland". The Jena University in the Nazi era. Böhlau, Cologne 2005.
  5. ^ Letter from Gerlach dated May 16, 1942, in: Hendel, Joachim [edit.]: Ways of Science in National Socialism: Documents on the University of Jena, 1933–1945 , Stuttgart: Steiner, 2007 ISBN 978-3-515-09006-3 , P. 274 f.
  6. ↑ C. Worbes: Smoking and its health consequences . In: The Pathologist. 30, 2009, pp. 411-412. doi : 10.1007 / s00292-009-1155-y . See also the obituary in: International Journal of Epidemiology 2001; 30: 28-29, there the use of Gerlach for Schairer is denied. The pathologists Schairer in Ulm and Gerlach in Kempten (Allgäu) could still have met after 1945.
  7. ↑ In Reykjavik, shortly before the family was deported to England, Gerlach failed to burn the consulate files in the bathroom stove, see Danish and English Wikipedia and the Danish literature cited there: Invasion of Iceland ; da: invasions af Iceland ; see also the German invasion plans: Operation Icarus .
  8. ↑ Gerd Simon (Ed.): Science Policy in National Socialism and the University of Prague (documents) ( PDF ( Memento from September 21, 2003 in the Internet Archive )).
  9. ↑ Eckard Michels , The German Institute in Paris 1940–1944 - a contribution to Franco-German cultural relations and the foreign cultural policy of the Third Reich , Franz Steiner Verlag 1993, p. 115.
  10. ↑ (documents in the Kittel family archive in the IPG). The date of this promotion in November 1943 and the SS membership number 293.003 are based on a mix-up with Karl Gerland . see. SS-Verordnungsblatt, Volume 9, No. 4a of November 9, 1943.
  11. ↑ Michels, footnote 10.
  12. ^ Rudolf Heinrich, Hans-Reinhard Bachmann: Walther Gerlach - physicist, teacher, organizer. An exhibition in the Deutsches Museum on the occasion of the experimental physicist's 100th birthday, July 26th - November 29th, 1989. Deutsches Museum, Munich 1989, DNB 891072012 .
  13. ^ Folders Gerlach, Vorlass Werner Kittel, Institute for the history of persons, Bensheim.
personal data
SURNAME Gerlach, Werner
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German pathologist, National Socialist and diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH September 4, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Wiesbaden
DATE OF DEATH August 31, 1963
Place of death Kempten (Allgäu)