Dr. med.
Karl Isaac-Krieger
1889 - 1969

“I, Karl Isaac, was born in Cologne on the Rhine on 10 May 1889 as the son of the factory owner Isidor Isaac and his wife Anna Philippine, née Straus. After attending a preparatory school for three years, I started at the Königliches Friedrich-Wilhelms-Gymnasium (Royal Friedrich Wilhelm Grammar School) in Cologne on Easter 1898, from which I graduated on Easter 1907 with the certificate of maturity,” Karl Isaac states in the curriculum vitae included in his dissertation.

Education and Places of Work

Isaac-Krieger studied one semester in Göttingen, five semesters in Berlin, then in Heidelberg, Munich, and Bonn. He passed the state examination in Bonn on Easter 1912. Isaac was a medical trainee at the Medical Clinic of the Karlsruhe Municipal Hospital from June to December 1912. He worked for Hugo Starck, the first describer of the “Starcksche Sonde” (Starck probe) and a founding member of the (D)GVS. He then moved to Heidelberg to the University Women’s Clinic. Isaac received his doctorate from the University of Heidelberg on 7 August 1913 with the thesis “Aktinomykose und Compressionsmyelitis”.

He started his training in internal medicine at the I. Medical Clinic of the Rudolf Virchow Hospital (RVK) in Berlin on 1 July 1914 under Leopold Kuttner, who supported him considerably in the years to come. His training was interrupted by the First World War, in which Isaac actively participated. He again worked for Kuttner at the I. Medical Clinic of the RVK from February 1919 to 31 March 1925. Thereafter Isaac-Krieger settled in Berlin as a specialist in gastrointestinal and metabolic diseases. He had been using the name Isaac-Krieger since 1920.

Isaac-Krieger worked and published on pancreatic enzymes in stool and duodenal secretions, on duodenal secretion analysis, occult blood in the stool, ulcer therapy, and dietary treatment, among other things, in the Archive for Digestive Diseases (“Boas Archiv”). He also ran nutrition courses at the Lette House in Berlin.

1933

Isaac-Krieger lost his health insurance licence as early as 1933. His appeals and petitions against this decision were all rejected, the last one in May 1934.

Escape to the USA via England in 1938

Isaac-Krieger fled Berlin on 22 September 1938, initially to England, where his son Gerhard had already emigrated to in 1937. Karl Isaac-Krieger, his wife, and their 17-year-old daughter were able to travel from Southampton to the USA aboard the S.S. Washington on 4 November 1938. They reached New York on 10 November 1938. The son initially remained in England and later moved to the USA.

Isaac-Krieger received a licence to practise medicine in New York in November 1939, after having passed language tests and redoing his medical examinations. He was also an active adjunct at Lenox Hill Hospital and Beth Israel Hospital in New York. He referred to himself as Charles Isaac-Krieger in the USA.

He was a member of the American College of Gastroenterology and the Rudolf Virchow Medical Society in the City of New York.

Charles Isaac-Krieger died in New York on 25 March 1969 at the age of 79.