Werner Kollath

Werner Georg Kollath (born June 11, 1892 in Gollnow ( Pomerania ), † November 19, 1970 in Porza ( Lugano )) was a German bacteriologist and hygienist . He also researched and published on questions of nutrition. Kollath is considered a pioneer of whole food nutrition .

Life

Werner Kollath was born on June 11, 1892 in Gollnow as the son of the general practitioner Dr. med. Georg Kollath was born. He went to school in Gollnow and Stettin and passed his school leaving examination in autumn 1911 .

Studies, military service, at the University of Wroclaw

Kollath studied medicine in Leipzig , Freiburg im Breisgau , Berlin and Kiel . During the First World War , for which he volunteered as a volunteer, he served as a field doctor . After the war he continued his studies in Marburg . He received his doctorate there in 1920 and received his license to practice medicine .

In 1923 he became an assistant to Richard Pfeiffer at the Hygiene Institute at the University of Breslau . In 1926 he completed his habilitation with a thesis on “Vitamin Substance and Vitamin Effect. A study on the connections between mineral and oxygen changes, phosphatides and ultraviolet light, tested on the growth conditions of the influenza bacillus ”. In 1932 Kollath was appointed associate professor at the University of Breslau and in 1933/34 he took over the position of the chair in the subject of hygiene .

Career in the Nazi state

In April 1933, Kollath applied for membership in the NSDAP . It was only accepted in May 1934 ( membership no. 3.522.586) because the first application had been lost. He was a supporting member of the SS . From October 1933 he was a member of the National Socialist Teachers' Association (NSLB), the NS Lecturer Association , the National Socialist People's Welfare (NSV) and the Reich Air Protection Association .

In 1935 he followed a call to the University of Rostock and worked as a professor of hygiene and bacteriology and at the same time as director of the state health office. Here he stopped u. a. Lectures on racial hygiene and advocated the establishment of a corresponding chair. Kollath expressly committed himself to the New German Medicine . In 1937 he became dean of the medical faculty for a year and published a textbook on hygiene under the title Basics, Methods and Aims of Hygiene . In the Third Reich, Kollath's hygiene textbook met with approval from the authorities, probably also because of the statements on racial hygiene. The Reich Office for the Promotion of German Literature selected it as one of the 100 best German books of 1936/37. Among other things, this book says:

“The difficulties in the hygienic area so far have been that sufficient legislation, e.g. B. enabled the elimination of the inferior from reproduction, has not existed in the past. "

His affirmation of this National Socialist legislation becomes clear elsewhere:

"A higher and nobler form of humanity was only introduced in Germany through the National Socialist legislation through the sterilization laws."

- Werner Kollath

In 1942 Kollath published his main work The Order of Our Food . This publication date indicates that the book was viewed by the Nazi state as a "war important book". In The Order of Our Food , Kollath used the term whole foods . Whole foods stand for a diet that "contains everything the organism needs for its maintenance and for the preservation of the species". As for the nutritional concept itself, he mainly used Bircher-Benner's publications .

Kollath's commitment to National Socialism lasted until spring 1945. Before the surrender he took part in the Volkssturm exercises .

Some of his records - particularly his medical examinations - are said to have been lost as a result of acts of war.

After the Second World War

Rostock belonged to the Soviet zone of occupation . Due to the circular issued by the President of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on August 30, 1945 to clean up the administration , Kollath was dismissed as a university professor and director of the hygiene institute in October 1945 because of his NSDAP membership. As director of the Mecklenburg Medical Examination Office, however, he remained in office until August 1946. For “probation” he was epidemic commissioner from August 1945 and later chief epidemic commissioner for the Rostock, Wismar and Güstrow districts .

Kollath contradicted the dismissals by claiming that he was not an “active fascist” but, on the contrary, had even represented opposing views. In the winter of 1945 the President of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania asked him to comment because he had been informed that Kollath had been a sponsoring member of the SS. Kollath justified his SS membership by saying that he should have rehabilitated because of his pro-Jewish attitude. Otherwise he would not have been accepted into the NSDAP and "all of his later scientific work" would have become impossible. Kollath did not provide any evidence to support this argument. In February 1946, the Rector of Rostock University supported Kollath's request for permission to print the Textbook of Hygiene and The Whole Foods of Food . For "political, human and scientific reasons" there were no concerns and even Russian doctors would intend to translate the textbook into Russian. On June 1, 1946, Kollath received a certificate from the SED local association in Rostock that he was “only a nominal member of the NSDAP” and that he had already applied for membership in the KPD in December 1945 . He was "accepted as a party candidate in the SED". This certificate and the positive attitude of the rector initially improved Kollath's chances of receiving the chair for hygiene at the University of Rostock. Both the rector and the dean of the medical faculty supported his appointment. However, in the summer of 1946, the state doctor for Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Redetzky, came to the conclusion that Kollath “must be considered incompatible”. He criticized the fact that after the deadlines had expired, Kollath had still not submitted a statement on the allegations against him. The “great trust” initially placed in Kollath is no longer justified. During his probationary period, as Commissioner for the Disease, Kollath “did not have the performance that one has to demand from a full professor of hygiene”. The "processing of all his additional income" showed "how mercantile and selfish he is". This was followed by Kollath's dismissal as director of the Mecklenburg Medical Examination Office with immediate effect.

Kollath examined the effect of his diet suggestions and documented the results accordingly. In 1945/1946 he claims to have noticed significant improvements in the course of infectious diseases in the 350 patients in a city hospital in Mecklenburg .

In November 1946, Kollath's application to become a “specialist in hygiene and health advice” was rejected because such a discipline was “not yet recognized as a specialty” and “due to political stress”. After losing his position as director of the health department in early 1947, the Kollaths left the Soviet occupation zone in secret in March 1947 and moved to Hanover . There Kollath worked as a food chemist and consultant for the biscuit manufacturer Bahlsen . During the Second World War , he had tested “Aviator drop food” for Bahlsen .

In 1948 the second, modified edition of Kollath's hygiene textbook appeared. Jörg Melzer, author of a dissertation published as a book , which researched the history of whole food nutrition , stated: “He exchanged racial hygiene for social hygiene , Goebbels for Goethe and, for example, deleted B. the passages about Hitler, about selection, genetic material and forced sterilization . "

In 1948 Kollath received the denazification notice (initially: Category IV, after Kollath's objection: Category V) and carried out research at the Institute of Pathology in Stockholm from September 1948 to February 1949 . In 1950 he published the book The full value of food and its importance for growth and cell replacement . In it, Kollath speaks of a “doctrine of whole values”. Even after 1950 he campaigned for the popularization of whole foods and worked, among other things, on the first health rock house. From 1951 he had the so-called "Kollath Breakfast", which essentially consisted of fresh-grain porridge, sold through health food stores . In addition, he had animal feed and probiotics produced and sold on the basis of his nutritional research .

During a private trip through Chile , he was offered a research position for hygiene at the Medical Faculty in Santiago de Chile , which Kollath refused. In April 1952, he was given early retirement retrospectively to April 1951 and was paid again. The basis was allegedly an official medical report. From 1952 to 1956 Kollath devoted himself to animal experiments at the University of Munich in order to prove his hypotheses about mesotrophy due to inadequate nutrition.

From 1956 to 1970 Kollath was a member of the scientific advisory board of the International Society for Food and Vital Substance Research (IVG) and from 1964 a member of the scientific advisory board of the working group health science.

Theory

According to Kollath's theory, only foods that were as untreated as possible contained enough essential ingredients, which he called “auxones”. According to Kollath, these “auxons” were important for cell division. Their lack of nutrition could cause “mesotrophy” - malnutrition that leads to chronic diseases. He compared the “ calorie value ” with the “fresh value”; the food energy is the "partial value", while the freshness is the "full value" of the food. In his opinion, cooked food was basically only “partially valued”. Kollath divided the diet into two broad groups: the "food" and the "food". According to Kollath, “food” is “living food” that contains so-called “ ferments ”. A “food”, on the other hand, is “dead food”, “in which these ferments are destroyed - mostly through heating”. He divided both groups into three "value groups":

• Food:
  • Naturally
  • mechanically changed
  • changed fermentatively

• Food:
  • heated
  • preserved
  • prepared

All six “value groups” postulated in this way by Kollath, later received as “value levels”, contain food of both vegetable and animal origin, as well as drinks. The lower the level of processing , the higher the value of the food. He rates plant-based food higher than animal food , and raw food higher than processed food. Kollath assigned the highest value to “natural foods”. This value category includes various nuts, oil fruits, cereals, vegetable fruits, fruit, vegetables and "aromatic herbs", but also honey , raw milk , breast milk , raw eggs , "natural spring water" and mineral water from the spring.

His “whole foods concept” and numerous reasons for whole foods are based on this theory .

Effect and reception

Kollath wrote 326 specialist publications, including 28 books. His main work, The Order of Our Food , first published in 1942, is considered the basis of whole food nutrition. In 2005 the 17th edition of the book was published. The "scientific autobiography " on the unity of medicine , which ended with praise for Adolf Hitler , was also published for the first time in 1942 by Kollath. It was last reprinted in 1988. In the opinion of the medical historian Robert Jütte , the author's attitude can still be seen in this “reviewed”, cleaned up new edition.

Kollath found recognition for his work on nutrition in the 1950s and 1960s, above all from the International Society for Research on Nutrition and Vital Substances (IVG), the World Association for the Protection of Life , the Health Science Working Group founded in 1964, and alternative medicine specialists . Both Max Otto Bruker and Johann Georg Schnitzer named Kollath as a source of inspiration for their nutritional concepts. In 1982 the news magazine Der Spiegel reported critically in an article about various commercial providers in the field of naturopathy and health food , who based their offers on Kollath's ideas. On “lecture tours in the service of the health food industry”, Kollath would once have ensured that the “belief in the mysterious 'vital substances and building blocks'” became widespread and could become the “basis for flourishing business”. The mesotrophy thesis would not only have underpinned the health image of health food, but also brought “prosperity for Kollath and his disciples”.

As early as the 1950s, several colleagues and the German Society for Physiological Chemistry raised objections to Kollath's theories and experimental methods . For example, it was denied that the condition described by Kollath of "mesotrophy" is a specific clinical picture . Rather, it arises as a result of insufficient intake of various nutrients and is in no way a model for the " diseases of civilization " of humans. The criticism also came from researchers and research institutes to which Kollath had cited in 1954 to support his views. For example, the Swedish doctor Torsten Gillnäs criticized that “the basic diet used by Kollath both earlier and in Stockholm is not suitable for such experiments”. Kollath's attempts were not confirmed in Stockholm and the food used "probably contained certain vitamins as admixtures in unknown quantities". The German senior field doctor W. Grab said in 1952 that “casein has to be cleaned very carefully for vitamin experiments”, was “generally known in vitamin research, since traces of vitamins left behind can change the test results”. There is no evidence for the existence of “auxons”.

The term “Auxone” did not catch on later either. According to the current state of knowledge, it covers roughly a combination of B vitamins (with the exception of thiamine ), secondary plant substances and some trace elements .

In the opinion of the nutritionists Claus Leitzmann and Bernhard Watzl , "the conclusions from Kollath's mesotrophy experiments, which are not applicable from today's point of view," "in no way affect the trend-setting results and the nutritional significance of his other extensive work". The two protagonists of wholefood nutrition refer to Kollath's “Order of Food” and his emphasis on the nutritional importance of grain for humans. This is a convincing expression "that the natural composition and wholeness of food are the most likely to enable the organism to continuously and optimally maintain cell division and growth over its entire lifespan".

The food chemist Udo Pollmer and the biologist Susanne Warmuth, on the other hand, addressed contradictions in Kollath's “Order of Food”. His assignment of the food to the value levels is occasionally incomprehensible. For example, heat-treated muscle meat is given a value of 4, while offal is sorted into the isolated substances with a value of 6. Blanched legumes are assigned value level 1 (“natural foods”), but fruit juices are classified as value level 4 (“heated foods”). Fruit tea is considered “unheated”, while malt coffee is “heated”. Mussels would be classified as "mechanically modified". Pollmer also pointed out that the whole foods concept of Kollath was justified with questionable animal experiments on rats, and criticized this methodology. From today's perspective, only one “ conclusion ” can be derived with certainty from Kollath's experiments : “The classic experiments in vitamin research urgently need to be checked using modern methods.”

State of knowledge on the health aspects of food processing

Even during Kollath's lifetime and before that, there were hygienic and nutritional reasons for processing food. Compared to cooked food, raw food can lead to incomplete digestion , which impairs the absorption of vitamins and trace elements and promotes deficiency diseases and flatulence . Some vegetable poisons, such as the phasins found in legumes and the cyanogenic glycosides, are only largely destroyed by the action of heat. Only part of the phase content is broken down during the germination process. The cell membranes are broken open more completely by heating , which means that more nutrients are available.

Zwicky license for gentle processing of grain

In 1956, the Swiss peeling mill Zwicky in Mühlheim-Wigoltingen entered into a license agreement with Werner Kollath and started manufacturing the kitchen-ready “Kollath Breakfast”, named after him, according to a particularly gentle and stabilizing process known as “collating”. The product is also in the assortment in 2019 and with changed packaging also in the assortment of the largest Swiss retailer Migros .

Awards

• 1957: Golden Bircher Benner Medal of the International Society for Research on Nutrition and Vital Substances (IVG)
• 1966: Hufeland Medal from the Central Association of Doctors for Naturopathy

Fonts

• Vitamin substance or vitamin effect? A study of the connections between mineral and oxygen metabolism, phosphatides and ultraviolet light, tested on the growth conditions of the influenza bacillus (Bacillus Pfeiffer) , in: Zentralblatt für Bakteriologie, Parasitenkunde und Infektionskrankheiten 100, 1926, 97-145.
• Basics, methods and goals of hygiene. An introduction for physicians and scientists, economists and technicians , Leipzig 1937.
• On the unit of medicine , Stuttgart 1942 (autobiography).
• The order of our food. Basics of a permanent nutrition theory , Stuttgart 1942.
• Hygiene textbook , 2 volumes, Stuttgart 1949.
• The whole value of food and its importance for growth and cell replacement. Experimental basics , Stuttgart 1950.
• Grain and humans - a community , Bad Homburg v. d. H. 1964

literature

• Jörg Melzer: Whole food nutrition. Dietetics, naturopathy, National Socialism, social demands , Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2003. ISBN 3-515-08278-6 .
• Uwe Spiekermann: The natural scientist as a cultural scientist. The example of Werner Kollath. In: Gerhard Neumann, Alois Wierlacher, Rainer Wild (eds.): Food and quality of life: Perspectives from natural and cultural sciences , Campus Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 2001; Pp. 247-274. ISBN 3-593-36852-8 . [1]
• Alexander Ströhle: Looking back and looking sideways in the age of nutritional disorder: A homage to Werner Kollath , Ralf Reglin Verlag, Cologne 2009. ISBN 978-3-930620-58-6 .
• Herbert Warning: Kollath. Scientific work , Bad Homburg vdH 1963
• Bernhard Watzl, Claus Leitzmann: A commentary on the nutritional work of Werner Kollath In: Werner Kollath: The order of our food , 17th edition, Karl F. Haug Verlag, Stuttgart 2005; Pp. 289-299. ISBN 3-8304-7210-2 .
• Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich . Who was what before and after 1945 . 2nd Edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Werner Kollath in the catalog of the German National Library
• Entry on Werner Kollath in the Catalogus Professorum Rostochiensium

Individual evidence

1. ↑ This information is on Kollath's NSDAP membership card; see. Jörg Melzer: Whole food nutrition. Dietetics, naturopathy, National Socialism, social demands , Stuttgart 2003, p. 216.
2. ↑ Jörg Melzer 2003, p. 219.
3. ^ ^{A b} Robert Jütte : History of Alternative Medicine. Beck, Munich 1996, p. 58.
4. ↑ Jörg Melzer 2003, p. 215.
5. ↑ Quoted from Jörg Melzer 2003, p. 214.
6. ^ Quotation from Ernst Klee : Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Second updated edition, Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 329, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8
7. ↑ Jörg Melzer 2003, p. 249.
8. ↑ ^{a b} Werner Kollath: The order of our food , 13th edition 1987, page 201.
9. ↑ Jörg Melzer 2003, pp. 225f.
10. ↑ Michael Buddrus, Sigrid Fritzlar: Kollath, Werner In: The professors of the University of Rostock in the Third Reich: A biographical lexicon. , Walter de Gruyter 2007, p. 236. ISBN 3-598-11775-2 .
11. ↑ Jörg Melzer 2003, p. 231.
12. ↑ Jörg Melzer 2003, pp. 232-233.
13. ↑ Michael Buddrus, Sigrid Fritzlar: Kollath, Werner In: The professors of the University of Rostock in the Third Reich: A biographical lexicon. , Walter de Gruyter 2007, pp. 236-237. ISBN 3-598-11775-2 .
14. ↑ Michael Buddrus, Sigrid Fritzlar: Kollath, Werner In: The professors of the University of Rostock in the Third Reich: A biographical lexicon. , Walter de Gruyter 2007, p. 237. ISBN 3-598-11775-2 .
15. ^ ^{A b} Gunther Viereck: The hygienist and nutritionist Werner Kollath In: Gisela Boeck, Hans-Uwe Lammel (ed.): The University of Rostock in the years 1933–1945: Papers of the interdisciplinary lecture series of the working group "Rostock University and Scientific History" in Summer semester 2011 , Rostock Studies on University History Volume 21, University of Rostock 2012, ISBN 978-3-86009-132-6 ; Pp. 107-113. PDF full text .
16. ↑ Jörg Melzer 2003, p. 268.
17. ↑ Jörg Melzer 2003, p. 271.
18. ^ ^{A b c} Michael Buddrus, Sigrid Fritzlar: Kollath, Werner In: The professors of the University of Rostock in the Third Reich: A biographical lexicon. , Walter de Gruyter 2007, p. 238. ISBN 3-598-11775-2 .
19. ↑ Jörg Melzer 2003, pp. 279f.
20. ^ Entry on Werner Kollath in the Catalogus Professorum Rostochiensium
21. ^ Werner Kollath: The order of our food , 16th edition, Karl F. Haug Fachbuchverlag, Heidelberg 1998. ISBN 978-3-7760-1699-4 .
22. ↑ Jörg Melzer: Whole food nutrition. Dietetics, naturopathy, National Socialism, social demands. Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-515-08278-6 , p. 253.
23. ↑ Werner Kollath: The order of our food. 13th edition 1987, p. 32 ff.
24. ↑ Bernhard Watzl, Claus Leitzmann: A commentary on the nutritional work of Werner Kollath In: Werner Kollath: The order of our food. 17th edition, Georg Thieme Verlag 2013, ISBN 978-3-8304-7801-0 , p. 289 ff.
25. ↑ Werner Kollath: The order of our food. 13th edition 1987, pp. 50/51.
26. ↑ Inferior existence through half-value food - The scientific theories of health food fans. In: Der Spiegel. 30/1982, July 26, 1982.
27. ^ Hans-Werner Altmann, Franz Büchner, Erich Letterer: Nutrition - Handbook of general pathology, eleventh volume, first part. Springer-Verlag, 1962, ISBN 3-662-28643-2 , pp. 3-4.
28. ↑ Auxone. In: Lexicon of Nutrition. Spectrum Academic Publishing House, Heidelberg 2001.
29. ^ Bernhard Watzl, Claus Leitzmann: A commentary on the nutritional work of Werner Kollath. In: Werner Kollath: The order of our food. 17th edition, Georg Thieme Verlag 2013, ISBN 978-3-8304-7801-0 , p. 299.
30. ↑ Udo Pollmer, Susanne Warmuth: Lexicon of popular nutritional errors. Piper, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-492-24023-9 , p. 324 ff.
31. ↑ Udo Pollmer: Kollath - a monument wavers. ( Memento from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) In: EU.LEN-Spiegel. 7th year, No. 1, March 15, 2001, p. 6.
32. ↑ C. Koebnick, C. Strassner, I. Hoffmann, C. Leitzmann: Consequences of a long-term raw food diet on body weight and menstruation: results of a questionnaire survey. In: Ann Nutr Metab. Vol. 43, No. 2, 1999, PMID 10436305 , pp. 69-79.
33. ↑ Claus Leitzmann: The 101 most important questions - Healthy nutrition , CH Beck 2010; Pp. 35-36. ISBN 978-3-406-59979-8 .
34. ↑ Jeremy M. Berg, John L. Tymoczko, Lubert Stryer: Stryer Biochemistry. 7th edition, Springer-Verlag, Berlin / Heidelberg 2013, ISBN 978-3-8274-2988-9 .
35. ↑ Jürg Klopfenstein: Schweizerische Schälmühle E. ZWICKY AG , Thurgauer Jahrbuch, Volume 42 (1967), pp. 87-96
36. ↑ E. ZWICKY AG: Healthy things from nature , St. Galler Tagblatt, February 24, 2017
37. ↑ Bio-Kollath-Breakfast , Migros homepage, accessed on October 3, 2019