Prof. Dr. med.
Maximilian Weinberger
1875 - 1954

Maximilian Weinberger grew up in a Jewish family in Schaffa in the district of Znaim in the former Austria-Hungary (today Šafov, Czechia). His father was Alois Weinberger (born November 12, 1847), and his mother was Julia Weinberger, née Sinaiberger (born October 12, 1857). His parents married on August 9, 1874, in Eibenschitz, Moravia (today Ivančice, Czech Republic).

After graduating from the state grammar school in Znaim, Moravia in 1892, Weinberger studied at the Medical Faculty of the University of Vienna. He completed his studies with the state examination and was awarded his doctorate on December 21, 1898.

Education and place to work

In 1898/1899, Maximilian Weinberger began his clinical training as an intern at the General Hospital in Vienna, the center of the Vienna Medical School, in the departments and clinics for skin diseases, ear diseases, and syphilis. In addition, he worked at the Third Medical University Clinic from 1900 to 1909 as an assistant physician to Leopold Schrötter von Kristelli. His work focused on the fields of radiography of the chest organs and on diseases of the respiratory organs.

In 1909, M. Weinberger was appointed as a private lecturer in internal medicine.

From 1909 to 1932, Dr. Weinberger was the chief physician and the head of the medical department at the Rudolfstiftung Hospital (also known as the Rudolfspital). From 1932 until 1938, he was appointed the Chief of the IV. Medical Department of the Vienna General Hospital. In 1921, he was appointed associate professor at the University of Vienna.

Weinberger lived and practiced from the summer of 1925 until his late escape in 1941 in Vienna’s 4th district at Brucknerstrasse 4.

After 1933

During National Socialism and after Austria’s annexation to the German Reich, Maximilian Weinberger was persecuted on racist grounds. On April 22, 1938, he was removed from office (his “venia legendi” revoked) and expelled from the University of Vienna.

From October 1938, after being licensed by the Nazi authorities, he worked as a “Krankenbehandler“ (medical practitioner) and was able to work temporarily at the hospital of the Jewish Community (Rothschild Hospital).

On May 26, 1941, Maximilian Weinberger and his wife left Vienna. On June 10, 1941, they fled Lisbon for the United States on the SS Mouzinho, together with Hermine Weinberger’s 87-year-old mother, Bertha Schereschewsky, and 700 other European passengers, including 130 children.

On June 19, 1941, they arrived in New York. In July 1941, they moved to Chicago. There, in October 1941, the Weinbergers applied for US citizenship.

The 66-year-old Weinberger was unable to find work as a doctor in Chicago. Maximilian Weinberger died in December 1954 at the age of 79. His wife Hermine Weinberger died in February 1985 at an advanced age in Chicago. Her grave is located at Montrose Cemetery, Chicago, Cook County, Illinois.

“He was unable to make new friends and lived in complete seclusion, almost cut off from the outside world. … An unquenchable longing for his homeland and his old life clouded his twilight years and drove the once lively and intellectually active man into quiet and painful seclusion.” (From the obituary of his former colleague and surgeon W. Denk, Wiener klinische Wochenschrift)

Weinberger’s sister, Paula Fischer, was deported from Vienna to German-occupied Belarus on May 27, 1942, on transport 23, train Da 204, and was murdered in Maly Trostenets on June 1, 1942.