Dr. med.
Josef Neu
1892 - 1970

Education and Places of Work

Josef Neu studied medicine in Munich, Bonn, and Kiel from 1910. He had to interrupt his studies on account of his active participation in the First World War. He resumed his studies at the University of Tübingen in September 1918, where he passed the state examination in 1919 and received his doctorate with the thesis “Ueber das chemische Verhalten von Bleigeschossen im menschlichen Körper”. He wrote his thesis under Adolf Dennig, who habilitated in internal medicine at the University of Tübingen in 1891 and had been practising as an internist in Stuttgart since 1910. Neu received his licence to practise medicine on 13 July 1919.

Neu was initially able to retain his health insurance licence in 1933 owing to having fought in the First World War (“Frontkämpferprivileg”: Nazi terminology for those having actively fought in World War I). From 1938 onwards he was only allowed to run a private practice. His licence to practise medicine was withdrawn on 30 September 1938. Neu was temporarily imprisoned at the Welsheim Schutzhaftlager (protective custody camp) after the November pogrom.

Escape to the USA in 1940

Neu fled with his wife from Antwerp, Belgium, aboard the S.S. Westernland to the USA on 21 January 1940, arriving in New York on 3 February 1940. He applied for naturalisation in the USA in June 1940 and moved from New York to Chicago. He obtained a licence for private practice in Chicago. He was naturalised in the USA in 1945.

Return to Germany in 1964

Josef Neu returned to Germany in September 1964 and lived in Stuttgart.

He died at the Karl-Olga-Hospital in Stuttgart on 4 April 1970 at the age of 78.