Dr. med.
Alfred Otto Günzburg
1861 - 1945

Alfred Günzburg grew up in a Jewish family in Frankfurt am Main. His father was the merchant Ludwig Günzburg, born on May 5, 1823 in Ichenhausen, Bavaria, died on March 24, 1911 in Frankfurt a.M., his mother Theresa Günzburg, née Reiss, on November 25, 1838, died on May 13, 1911 in Frankfurt a.M. Alfred Günzburg had two siblings: Hedwig Marie Hirschel (born in Günzburg on October 22, 1858, died on June 11, 1939 in Frankfurt a.M.; married in 1884 to Alfons Hirschel, born on May 26, 1851, died February 26, 1912 in Frankfurt a.M.) and brother Robert Günzburg, born in 1864 in Offenbach a.M., died April 26, 1925 in St. Martin, London.

Günzburg studied medicine in Heidelberg, Marburg, and Leipzig. He completed his studies with a license to practice medicine and a doctorate in 1885. In April 1894, Alfred Günzburg married Luise Daisy Strauss, born on December 18, 1866, from Frankfurt.

In 1895, their son Ludwig Alexander was born, who would later study medicine in Munich. He would then return to Frankfurt and settled as a doctor of general medicine. In 1897, their son Paul Günzburg followed. After World War I, he worked as a bookseller in Frankfurt. In 1899, their daughter Marie Therese Günzburg was born. She emigrated to Turkey with her husband Rudolf Thilmany in the mid-1920s and lived in Istanbul until her death on September 19, 1954.

Training in Medicine and Place of Work

Since 1886, Günzburg worked as an assistant physician at the Königswarter Hospital in Frankfurt, the forerunner of the later Israelite Hospital in Frankfurt am Main, under the hospital physician Simon Kirchheim.

Following Kirchheim’s retirement in 1908, Alfred Günzburg took over as medical director of the Department of Internal Medicine at Königswarter Hospital. Günzburg was involved in the planning of the new Israelite Hospital, which was inaugurated in 1914. Alfred Günzburg headed the Department of Internal Medicine at the new Israelite Hospital until 1925. His successor was Professor Dr. Simon Isaac.

1888 to 1908, Günzburg was also a founding member and chief physician of the “Gumpertz Siechenhaus,” a Jewish hospital for the poor in Frankfurt that combined care for the sick, the disabled, the elderly, and the poor.

Alfred Günzburg, along with other colleagues, co-founded and served as the long-time chairman of the Frankfurt Jewish Nurses’ Association and Nurses’ House until the 1930s. He advocated for special training and professionalization in the nursing profession and was the first to train Jewish nurses. In recognition of his services, he was awarded the title of “Sanitätsrat”.

Early on, he was interested in issues related to the still very young field of gastroenterology. The ‘Günzburg reaction’ (also known as the ‘Günzburg reagent’ or ‘Günzburg test’), a diagnostic method he developed for detecting free hydrochloric acid in gastric juice, is named after him. He also described the ‘Günzburg phenomenon’ in duodenal ulcers.

In May 1912, Alfred Günzburg was among those clinicians and practicing specialists in gastric, intestinal and metabolic diseases who prepared the founding of a specialist society for digestive and metabolic diseases in Bad Homburg, and above all, the first congress for the new field of gastroenterology, which took place on April 24, 1914. The initiators of the meeting were Ismar Boas of Berlin and Curt Pariser of Bad Homburg

On January 6, 1926, at the age of 65, Alfred Günzburg closed his practice.

After 1933

In April 1933, the Günzburg family experienced the Nazi boycott of Jewish medical practices and businesses. His son, Dr. Ludwig Günzburg, fled to Palestine in July 1933. Shortly thereafter, his second son, Paul Günzburg, also followed him to Palestine and, like his brother, lived in the Ramot HaShavim settlement.

“Ludwig Günzburg had a doctorate. As a member of the Association of Socialist Doctors, he was banned from practicing immediately after the beginning of the NS-dictatorship. Ludwig Günzburg traveled to Palestine with a visitor’s visa and explored the possibility of emigrating. In the fall of 1933, his wife and their three children followed. The family settled in Ramot HaShawim. Ludwig Günzburg obtained a medical license and worked as a general practitioner in a small private practice. He later founded the Beit Finestone Hospital, the first Israeli rehabilitation center for accident and war wounded, which he directed until 1965. In 1959, the hospital merged with the Beit Levinstein pulmonary sanatorium for tuberculosis patients in Raanana. The hospital and sanatorium still exists under this name today. It is one of the most renowned hospitals in Israel. Even at the age of 70, he continued to serve as a consultant and worked as a part-time physician for Kupat Cholim, the temporary state health insurance program for immigrants, until he was 79. After a serious illness, Ludwig A. Günzburg died in 1976 at the age of 81. (from: http://aerzte.erez-israel.de/guenzburg/)

In 1935, Alfred Günzburg and his wife left Frankfurt a. M. and Germany. They arrived in Palestine and lived until his death in 1945 in the family home of his son Ludwig Alexander in Ramot HaShavim (“Hill of the Returned,” near Tel Aviv), which had been founded as a cooperative settlement by German immigrants in 1933.

Ludwig Günzburg quickly became involved in the small cooperative after his arrival in Palestine, serving on its advisory board and executive board, and actively supporting the further development of the small settlement alongside his medical work (see P. Leers, Ramot HaShavim 1933-1973, pp. 93-98). Alfred Günzburg, Ludwigs father and 74 years old, advised his son and did work for him in the small laboratory. After he had overcome the first difficult years, the “Kupat Cholim” (health insurance) entrusted him with the management of a nursing home for chronically ill people.

Alfred Günzburg died on November 6, 1945, at the age of 84, in Ramot HaShavim. His grave is located in the Ramot HaShavim Cemetery. His wife, Luise Daisy Günzburg, had already died in January 1936, just months after their arrival in Palestine.