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.

In Vienna, Maximilian Weinberger lived for many years with his wife Hermine in the Wieden neighborhood of the 4th district, at 4 Brucknerstrasse.

After 1933

In June 1936, at his own request, Maximilian Weinberger was granted retirement by the Austrian Minister of Culture and Education from his position as chief physician at Vienna General Hospital. This did not affect Weinberger’s teaching duties at the Vienna Medical Faculty.

Following the “Anschluss” of Austria to the German Reich in March 1938, Weinberger was persecuted on racial grounds. On April 22, 1938, the Nazi authorities revoked his teaching license and expelled him from the University of Vienna. Maximilian Weinberger was licensed as a “specialist medical practitioner” at the hospital of the Jewish Community of Vienna until his escape (document from the Jewish Community of Vienna dated May 30, 1941, Simon Wiesenthal Institute, Vienna)

On May 26, 1941, Maximilian Weinberger and his wife registered their departure from Vienna.
On June 10, 1941, they fled from Lisbon to the United States on the SS Mouzinho, together with Hermine Weinberger’s 87-year-old mother, Bertha Schereschewsky, and 700 other passengers from all parts of Europe, including 130 children.

Maximilian Weinberger died there in 1954. The location of his grave is currently unknown.

“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).

His wife, Hermine Weinberger, died in February 1985 at an advanced age in Chicago. She is buried at Montrose Cemetery in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois.

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.