Prof. Dr. med.
Ernst Friedrich Müller
1891 - 1971

Ernst Friedrich Müller was born on December 23, 1891 in Berlin. He was the eldest son of the Royal Medical Councilor Dr.med. Georg Müller, specialist in orthopedic surgery, and his wife Ida, née Haase.

Ernst Müller completed his school education at the Wilhelms- and Friedrichsgymnasium in Berlin in 1909 with a high school diploma. He studied medicine in Berlin, Heidelberg, Munich and Kiel, where he also did his military service. In Berlin he completed an internship at the Institute for Pathology at the Friedrichshain Hospital under Prof. Dr. Ludwig Pick  and in the Department of Internal Medicine at the Am Urban Hospital under Prof. Dr. Albert Fränkel. He took his state examination in Kiel in 1914. At the beginning of the First World War, Müller was initially deployed as a naval doctor at the front. In 1916 he was assigned as head of the chemical-bacteriological laboratory of the naval hospital in Hamburg/Veddel. At the same time he worked as a volunteer doctor in the Institute of Pathology of the St. Georg´s Hospital in Hamburg under Prof. Dr. Morris Simmonds. Here he carried out the research for his dissertation entitled “Pericardial calcifications”.
This information is based on Müller’s application for his doctoral examination in Greifswald (Greifswald University Archives), which he successfully completed there in 1917

Training and place of work

In 1919 Ernst Friedrich Müller moved to the Pathological Institute at Eppendorf General Hospital (AK) in Hamburg as an assistant doctor under Prof. Dr. Eugen Fraenkel. From 1920-23 he trained in internal medicine under Prof. Dr. Hugo Schottmüller, head of the III. Medical Department of AK Eppendorf. Ernst Müller began his scientific career during his time in the naval hospital. He was particularly interested in the treatment of infectious diseases of the skin and ways to stimulate the immune system.

Many studies were carried out on the influence of local and systemic milk peptide injections, which led to the commercial production of the substance Aolan by Beiersdorf.

Müller shared in its financial success and was still receiving royalties in 1933. At AK Eppendorf he was sometimes called “Aolan-Müller”. Further work was carried out on the problem of (coli-) sepsis, including effects on the leukocytes of the liver. Ernst Müller finished his habilitation in 1923 and was given a position as a private lecturer.

He practiced in the outpatient clinic of the AK Eppendorf (under Hugo Schottmüller) which had just opened and gave lectures on bacteriology. At the invitation of Prof. Dr. Fordyce, he went from 1923-25, first as an assistant to the Vanderbilt Clinic in New York, then as an associate to Columbia University, New York. In his final report, Müller praised the great research opportunities in the various departments. He gave lectures at numerous universities and clinics and built up a scientific network. A particularly close collaboration developed with Prof. Dr. William Petersen of the University of Chicago, with whom several scientific papers and publications were written. His research topics covered the effects of insulin, nerve damage to the skin caused by Salvarsan, the regulation of the autonomic nervous system, particularly in the splanchnic area, as well as immunology and bacteriology. Müller became a member of the New York Academy of Medicine and the Medical Research Club.

In the fall of 1925, Müller returned to Schottmüller’s department for 6 months. In 1925, he traveled to Vienna with Prof. Otto Kestner (www.dgvs-gegen-das-vergessen) to the congress of the Society for Digestive and Metabolic Diseases. From 1926-27 Müller again spent time at Columbia University, NY.

When he returned to the III. Medical Department (Medical Policlinic with Inpatient Ward – note I-Ko) under the direction of Schottmüller in 1927, Ernst Müller was given a position as secondary physician (today senior physician; note I-Ko). In the same year, he was appointed professor. This endorsement was based on his “particularly productive scientific work with 82 publications”. His main task was the further expansion of the Medical Policlinic.

One of Ernst Friedrich Müller’s earliest scientific colleagues in AK Eppendorf Hamburg was Dr. med. Rose Susanna Hölscher (25.2.1897-3.1.1965), his later wife. Rose Hölscher studied medicine in Bonn, Tübingen and Frankfurt am Main. A special feature are the paper cutouts that she made of her lecturers and published as “Frankfurt Character Heads” (see Kuntz and Jenss, annotated new edition with a detailed biography of Rose Hölscher). She passed the medical state examination in Frankfurt in 1921 and was promoted to M.D. with her thesis “A contribution to the clinic and pathology of melano-sarcoma”. After her practical year, she worked as a volunteer doctor (without a contract and without pay,) in the III. Medical Department of AK Eppendorf under Schottmüller from 1923 to 1929. At the same time, she worked as a medical assistant in the scientific department of the Beiersdorf company [with salary; note I-Ko]. From 1923 onwards, Ernst Friedrich Müller and Rose Hölscher published several papers together. The topics were changes in the blood count in interaction with the skin and the autonomic nervous system.

In 1929, she went to Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York with a scholarship. In the fall of 1929, Ernst Friedrich Müller accepted an invitation to give lectures at the University of Chicago. On November 9, 1929, Rose Hölscher and Ernst Friedrich Müller were married in Chicago. The witnesses were Müller’s long-time scientific partner and supporter William Petersen, his wife Alma Schmidt Petersen and Hans H. Reese, who had moved from AK Eppendorf to Madison, Wisconsin, USA in 1924 and later became director of the neurological clinic there. Ernst Friedrich and Rose Müller returned to Hamburg in 1929.

From 1930, Müller had the position of part-time assistant doctor in Schottmüller’s department in AK Eppendorf (officially a university clinic from 1934 onwards) and was given the right to run a private practice, which he did successfully in Sophienterrasse in Hamburg. Müller continued to be a lecturer and head of the medical policlinic. Rose Müller later stated that she did scientific work for her husband from 1930 to 1933. In an obituary in 1971 Günther Budelmann, also an assistant under Schottmüller, highlighted Müller’s achievements in expanding the policlinic and his successful efforts to intensify cooperation with referring physicians and general practitioners (Inst. Gesch. Med. UKE, Hamburg). [Günther Budelmann was – like Schottmüller – a signatory of the “Confession of the German Professors to Adolf Hitler” in 1933 and joined the NSDAP in 1937. From 1947 he was chief physician in AK Harburg; see Guhl, AF: Ways out of the “Third Reich”; note I-Ko] Parallel to these activities, Müller took on the position of senior physician in the internal medicine department [today: chief physician; note I-Ko] at Jerusalem Hospital in Hamburg.

1933

In May 1933, Ernst Friedrich Müller received notice from the President of the Health Authority, Ofterdinger, of his termination from AK Eppendorf under Section 3 (“non-Aryan descent”) of the so-called “Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service”. Müller’s parents had both converted from the Jewish to the Protestant faith. Their son was baptized as a Protestant. An objection from Müller led to the termination being postponed until September 30, 1933. When Schottmüller found out about this, he arranged for Müller to be immediately granted leave of absence “in the interest of the service”.
In June 1933, the management of Jerusalem Hospital was informed about Ernst Müller being of “non-Aryan descent” and was therefore being terminated by AK Eppendorf. In consequence, Jerusalem Hospital informed the authorities that Müller had resigned on October 1, 1933 (StAHH 352-3_IH5ss).

Müller’s teaching license and thus his professorship were revoked in March 1934.

In August 1933, Müller received an invitation from Columbia University in New York to work there again as a lecturer. He was determined to move his practice to New York. On September 25, 1933, he applied for emigration. In the hope of returning to Hamburg, he asked to remain in the Hamburg medical registry until 1935.

On October 11, 1933, Ernst Friedrich and Rose Müller left Hamburg on board the SS Washington, bound for New York. Budelmann wrote that Müller left Germany “with bitterness but retained his composure” (Inst. Gesch. Med. UKE Hamburg).

Ernst Müller (in the USA the Müllers changed their name to Muller,) tried to maintain contacts with his homeland. In a letter to Max Nonne, who was director of AK Eppendorf neurological clinic until 1933, Muller wrote in April 1934 that almost all of AK Eppendorf employees had avoided contact since July 1, 1933. He emphasized that he and Rose now had their “own apartment and thus our Hamburg home with Friesian rooms and Hamburg memories.” He felt that his expectations of his professional situation had been exceeded: “…when after six months we are working at the best university in the country, have our own department at another hospital with my wife as a permanent assistant and have an already balanced budget…”. He owes this to the loyalty of his friends [in the USA; note I-Ko] (Peiffer J. Brain Research in Germany. P.935f).

Ernst Friedrich Muller opened a practice for internal medicine at 784 Park Avenue, New York. He was able to take his Hamburg practice facilities with him. Rose Muller worked in the practice for free from 1935-38 before becoming a partner with her own income (StAHH 351-11_20117). At the same time, Ernst Muller worked as a lecturer at Columbia University. Muller was an enthusiastic, perhaps strict but popular teacher.
The medical competition in New York was great, but Muller evidently worked hard to build up his patient base. In the 1940 US census he stated that he worked 80 hours a week, his wife Rose stated 42 hours a week (www.ancestry.de). Rose’s younger sister Lore Hölscher emigrated to New York in 1934, her mother Rose Hölscher in 1947. From 1942-46 Ernst Muller headed the medical polyclinic at Columbia University. He was a member of numerous American medical societies.

Within the scope of the denazification process at the University of Hamburg after 1945, Ernst Muller commented several times on the behavior of former colleagues at AK Eppendorf and protested against their rehabilitation (quoted in Guhl AF, p. 212).

In 1953 Ernst Muller submitted a claim for compensation. The approval and his retroactive appointment as full professor at the University of Hamburg took place in 1956 – a great satisfaction for Muller.

Well into his 80th decade, Ernst Friedrich Muller prepared numerous medical reports for patients who had suffered during the Nazi era and the Second World War taking not only somatic but also psychosomatic and psychiatric factors into account. Post-traumatic stress disorder with all its consequences was a significant topic for him.

Rose Muller died in New York in 1965. Rose and Ernst Friedrich Muller had no children. Ernst Friedrich Muller married his sister-in-law in the same year. On September 11, 1971, Ernst Friedrich Muller died in his summer house in Westchester, NY. Hans H. Reese wrote an obituary to the Hamburg faculty for his long-time friend. He emphasized Müller’s achievements, his love for Hamburg and the research and working conditions that were ideal for him at the time. Reese sent the above portrait in the hope that Ernst Friedrich Muller would be honored. In 2014, a stumbling block was laid in front of the main entrance of the University Hospital Eppendorf Hamburg.

In 1933, his brother Johannes Paul fled to France with his wife Edith, née Wertheim, and their two daughters. From 1940 onwards he lived underground in Paris. Edith Müller was caught by the Gestapo in Nice, imprisoned in the Drancy camp near Paris and deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp in October 1943. Her exact date of death is not known. In Berlin, a stumbling block commemorates Edith Müller. Johannes P. Müller fled to the USA. Both daughters survived. His brother Rudolf Ferdinand was deported and died in the Gross-Rosen concentration camp in 1941. His daughters survived. Ernst Müller’s parents fled to the Netherlands in 1933. Ernst and Rose Müller traveled to Rotterdam in 1935 and 1937, presumably to visit their parents in The Hague. His father, Georg Müller, died in The Hague in 1939. His mother, Ida Müller, committed suicide in 1942. A stumbling block was laid for him in Zeuthen near Berlin – where Georg Müller had had a summer house.