Prof. Dr. med. Paul Friedrich Richter
- Beuthen/Bytom, Upper Silesia, Poland, 16.07.1868
- Berlin, 08.10.1934
- Member since 1925
- Berlin
- Specialist in internal medicine
“Author, born on July 16, 1868 in Beuthen O / Schl., of Jewish confession, son of the royal medical officer Dr. S. Richter, attended the grammar school of my hometown from Easter 1877, which he left at Easter 1885 with the certificate of maturity. He devoted himself to the study of medicine, initially in Göttingen, where he passed the preliminary medical examination on February 26, 1887. During the summer semester of 1887 he studied in Heidelberg and moved to the University of Breslau in Michaelmas 1887. Here he passed the state medical examination on February 19, 1890,” Richter wrote in his curriculum vitae in his dissertation. ‘Richter’s father was Dr. Salo ( Salomon ) Richter, his mother was Valesca Richter, née Perls. His parents’ grave is preserved in the Jewish cemetery in Breslau, today Wroclaw.
Education and Places of Work
During his studies, Richter worked in 1888 as a junior assistant at the Breslau University Medical Clinic under Anton Biermer, the first person to describe pernicious anemia (Biermer’s disease). He received his license to practice medicine in 1890. In January 1891, he received his doctorate from the University of Breslau with the thesis “Experimental investigations on antipyresis and pyresis, nervous and artificial hyperthermia”. He had written his thesis at the Institute of Pharmacology there, whose director, Wilhelm Filehne, was researching drug-based fever reduction at the time.
From 1894 to 1910, Paul F. Richter worked and researched at the III Medical University Clinic of the Charité in Berlin under Hermann Senator. His fellow assistants at Senator’s clinic at the time included Hermann Strauß, Theodor Rosenheim and Heinrich Rosin, who were involved in founding the new specialist society for digestive and metabolic diseases in 1913/14.
In 1902, Richter qualified as a professor of internal medicine at the Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin. In 1921, he was appointed associate professor of internal medicine at the University of Berlin.
From 1910 to 1933, Richter held the position of chief physician in the Department of Internal Medicine at the Berlin-Friedrichshain Municipal Hospital. From 1923, he worked as a consultant internist at the Berlin Jewish Hospital Adass Yisroel at Elsässer Strasse 85.
His scientific work focused on questions of physiological chemistry, metabolism in kidney and liver diseases and diabetes mellitus. Richter was extremely active as a publicist. Together with the metabolic researcher Alexander von Korányi, he published the two-volume work “Physikalische Chemie und Medizin” in 1907/1908. Among other things, he wrote the articles on “Functional kidney diagnostics” and “Chronic nephritides” in the multi-volume Special Pathology and Therapy of Internal Diseases, Volume 7, 1920, edited by Friedrich Kraus and Theodor Brugsch. In 1928, “Wie soll der Arzt in der Praxis Stoffwechselkrankheiten behandeln” was published and in 1931 “Insulintherapie bei Diabetes mellitus”.
Paul Friedrich Richter had been a member of the Society for Digestive and Metabolic Diseases since 1925 and was a member of the advisory committee until 1933. It was at his suggestion that the meetings of the specialist society were held alternately in Berlin and Vienna from 1924 onwards.
1933
It is not clearly documented whether Richter was dismissed from his position as head physician of the Department of Internal Medicine at the Friedrichshain Municipal Hospital in Berlin in April 1933 or whether the 65-year-old “voluntarily” retired. Richter’s “non-Aryan” senior physician at the Friedrichshain clinic, Dr. med. Harry Heller ( 1899 – 1967 ) was dismissed on March 31, 1933. In his testimonial for Heller, Richter lamented “that his departure from the hospital suddenly interrupted a promising career” (see compensation file Dr. Harry Heller, sheet M5). Heller was no longer able to habilitate in 1933. He left Germany and reached Palestine via England in 1934, where he subsequently took up leading hospital positions.
On 14.09.1933, Richter’s teaching license at Berlin University was revoked due to his “non-Aryan descent” (§ 3 of the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service of 07.04.1933).
Paul Friedrich Richter died at the age of 66 on October 8, 1934 in Berlin. His burial place is not yet known.
Richter’s sister Gertrud Henriette Richter-Schück, born in 1875, died in Berlin in 1931. His brother-in-law Siegfried Schück, born in 1869, was deported from Berlin to Theresienstadt / Terezin in December 1942. He died under the conditions of the ghetto on February 26, 1944.
Richter, who lived alone in Berlin, was related through his mother to the art collector Hugo Perls and his sister Elise Flatow-Perls and was supported by them. Hugo Perls had already moved to Paris in 1931. Elise Flatow organized Richter’s funeral in October 1934. She was later able to flee Germany and made her way to the USA via France and Cuba.
Article by Harro Jenss, MD, Worpswede, Germany. As of 7.6.2024
Translation by Rachel Hinterthan – Nizan, completed by Cornelie Haag. As of 7.6.2024
Sources and Further Reading
Sources
