Wolfgang Heubner

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Wolfgang Heubner (1911)

Wolfgang Otto Leonhard Heubner (born June 18, 1877 in Leipzig , † February 26, 1957 in Heidelberg ) was a German pharmacologist.

Life

Heubner's father was the pediatrician Otto Heubner . His grandfather was the lawyer and politician Otto Leonhard Heubner . Wolfgang attended the Thomas School in Leipzig and then the Joachimsthalsche Gymnasium in Berlin. After graduating from high school, he began to study medicine at the Georg-August University in Göttingen . In 1897 he was reciprocated (with Hans Bahrdt ) in the Corps Bremensia . As an inactive he moved to the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin , the Philipps-Universität Marburg and the Kaiser-Wilhelms-Universität Strasbourg . In 1901 he passed the state examination in Strasbourg. Coined by the pharmacologist Oswald Schmiedeberg , he was named Dr. med. PhD. He also completed his habilitation here in 1907. After five years in Strasbourg, in 1908 he switched to Arthur Heffter as a private lecturer at the Pharmacological Institute of the Charité . In the same year he was appointed to the Pharmacological Institute of the Georg-August University, where he soon became full professor . 1927–1928 he was rector of Göttingen University. In 1929 he took over the Pharmacological Institute of the Medical Academy in Düsseldorf . In 1930 he moved to the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg . In 1932 he finally came to the Pharmacological Institute of the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin as the successor to Paul Trendelenburg . In the western part of the divided Berlin, the Free University of Berlin was founded at the end of 1948 . When the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität was renamed the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin in 1949 , the 71-year-old Emeritus Heubner made himself available to the Freie Universität as head of its pharmacological institute. 1950–1952 he was dean of her medical faculty. After his (second) retirement in 1953, he spent the evening of his life in Heidelberg, where he died at the age of 80. His successor at the Free University of Berlin was Hans Herken .

research

Heubner as a member of the Corps Bremensia (1897)

The main topic of Heubner's research was the pathology of hemoglobin , especially the mechanism of methemoglobin formation by substances such as aniline and nitrobenzene . Incidentally, as the doyen of his subject, he has worked in many areas. As the successor to Arthur Heffter, he published the Handbuch der Experimental Pharmacologie , now the Handbook of Experimental Pharmacology, from 1927 to 1950 (Volume 3 Part 1 to Volume 10) . From 1947 to 1957 (volumes 204 to 230) he was co-editor of Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's Archives for Experimental Pathology and Pharmacology , today Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's Archives of Pharmacology , the oldest pharmacological journal that still exists today. In 1911 he initiated the drug commission of the German medical profession .

politics

At the beginning of the Weimar Republic , Heubner was an active member of the left-liberal German Democratic Party (DDP). He headed the most important German pharmacological institute - that of the Reich capital - through the entire period of National Socialism. Sharp opponents of National Socialism such as Otto Krayer and Robert Havemann worked for him and also convinced supporters such as Hermann Druckrey and Norbert Brock . Heubner commented Krayer's steadfastness and consistent attitude in his diary: “Great!” Havemann was sentenced to death by the People's Court in 1943. At the urging of Heubner and Wolfgang Wirth , the execution of the judgment was postponed and Havemann's own laboratory was set up in the prison for research that was important for the war effort. It was agreed between Heubner and Havemann that nothing useful in the war should come out of these investigations. Havemann owed his life to this support.

Heubner's handwritten diaries from 1917 to 1956 were transcribed by the Mainz pharmacologist Erich Muscholl and made available to a Berlin research project on the Charité in the Third Reich. In an in-depth analysis, Udo Schagen summarizes (here translated from English): “It is sometimes judged that under the totalitarian regime it was not possible to protest against political instructions. The case of the pharmacologist Wolfgang Heubner at the Berlin Medical Faculty proves the opposite. If government measures did not match his convictions, he protested not only in private but also in writing to Nazi potentates and the Reich Ministry of Science, Education and National Education . He emphasized that science can only thrive out of a free mind. He insisted on a pacifism that did not allow him to support war preparations. He clearly refused to follow any Nazi ideas that contradicted his liberal spirit. Should his views conflict with his professorial position, he wrote, he would resign. However, nothing happened to him. He kept his position and his influence until the end of National Socialism. His case shows that it was possible - at least for nationally and internationally recognized scientists - to refuse to cooperate with National Socialism. "

Heubner to the Minister Bernhard Rust on October 4, 1933: “It will never be possible for me to affirm National Socialism internally (and of course also externally) insofar as it contradicts the convictions that have grown out of my innate disposition and my life experience. “Furthermore, it would be“ unbearable for me to remain in a public office only because the superior authority was mistaken about my true nature ”.

Heubner most beautifully formulated his attitude at the opening address of the 14th conference of the German Pharmacological Society on April 25, 1938 in Berlin:

“I don't know how high the percentage of such people is, but it remains indisputable that there are people who are extremely happy with the elucidation of unrecognized connections under strict evidence, regardless of whether they themselves or others provide the evidence. Such people are just as amazed when others do not feel such happiness as they are, conversely, astonished that a sober intellectual matter can bring happiness.

A feeling of happiness, however, creates gratitude. This gratitude is probably the real reason for the worldwide solidarity of the scholars, in which the question of origin or descent is indifferent to the question of the contribution of the individual to the happiness of the spirit. And it is imperative that a psychological law inserts that that feeling of gratitude extends to personal concern. So many souls are touched by it when misfortune falls on an outstanding discoverer of far-reaching connections.

The different susceptibility to the happiness of intellectual knowledge naturally also leads to differences in the evaluation of the understanding itself. I frankly admit that I value it beyond all measure and that I would like to be called an intellectualist if I want a little more of this precious gift owned. It seems to me that our irrational life does not deviate too far from that of the tiger, monkey or buffalo, but that ratio, and only ratio, has improved our understanding from century to century . And from this insight we receive wisdom, probably the noblest mark of human dignity.

A short time ago a poet came to mind: 'Only understanding and honesty help; the two keys lead to every treasure that the earth keeps. ' Here, I think, Goethe is not wrong ! Not even in the fact that he combines understanding and honesty. In truth, these two human characteristics are much more often united than it sometimes appears from propaganda speeches and writings. ...

We pharmacologists feel that we are intertwined in the gears between the irrational and the rational in several areas, of which I would like to single out only medicinal therapy and commercial poisoning. ... So we find that the efforts to which our heart belongs make us appointed guardians for tasks within the national community that no one else can fulfill in the same way: above all to watch, to warn and to sharpen one's conscience. "

Ratio, understanding, intellect, knowledge, insight, wisdom, honesty, conscience, human dignity, global solidarity - all values ​​that were diametrically opposed to the National Socialist anti-rational worldview. With the “excellent discoverer of far-reaching connections”, about whom “misfortune falls”, Heubner meant above all Otto Loewi . A month earlier, on March 11, 1938, the Anschluss of Austria was completed and Loewi was arrested in Graz that night . It should be noted that Heubner spoke to a large audience, including representatives of the Reich government.

In 1944 he is said to have been active in the scientific advisory board of the authorized representative for health care Karl Brandt and in June 1944 to have taken part in the discussion of the seawater experiments on "Gypsies" in the Dachau concentration camp.

Honors, memberships

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Manfred Stürzbecher : Heubner, Wolfgang Otto Leonhard. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 590.
  2. ↑ Kösener corps lists 1960, 39/989
  3. ↑ Dissertation: The cleavage of fibrinogen during fibrin coagulation .
  4. ↑ Habilitation thesis: About poisoning of the blood capillaries .
  5. ^ A b Peter Holtz : Opening address . Naunyn-Schmiedebergs Archive for Experimental Pathology and Pharmacology 232 (1957), pp. 1-11.
  6. ↑ Udo Schagen: From the freedom - and the leeway - the science (ler) in National Socialism: Wolfgang Heubner and the pharmacology of the Charité 1933 to 1945 , in: Sabine Schleiermacher and Udo Schagen (ed.): The Charité in the Third Reich. Paderborn, Ferdinand Schöningh, 2008, p. 227. ISBN 978-3-506-76476-8 .
  7. ↑ Schagen: From the freedom - and the leeway - the science (ler) under National Socialism , p. 219.
  8. ↑ W. Heubner: opening address. In: Naunyn-Schmiedebergs Archive for Experimental Pathology and Pharmacology 1938; 190: 25-29.
  9. ^ Klaus Starke: A history of Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's Archives of Pharmacology. In: Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's Archives of Pharmacology 1998; 358: 1-109.
  10. ^ Ernst Klee: The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. Edition Kramer. Koblenz 2012, p. 251
  11. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 113.
personal data
SURNAME Heubner, Wolfgang
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Heubner, Wolfgang Otto Leonhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German pharmacologist and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH June 18, 1877
PLACE OF BIRTH Leipzig
DATE OF DEATH February 26, 1957
Place of death Heidelberg