Dr. med. Robert Goldschmidt
- Koblenz, 13.11.1878
- London, 05.04.1970
- Member since 1926
- Escaped to England in 1938
- Berlin
- Specialist in gastrointestinal and metabolic diseases
Education and Places of Work
Born into a well-known Jewish banking family in Koblenz, Robert Goldschmidt attended the Kaiserin-Augusta-Gymnasium in his home town. After graduating from high school on Easter 1898, he went on to study medicine in Freiburg, Berlin, and Munich. He passed the state exam in Munich and received his doctorate in 1902 with the thesis “Ueber einen Fall von Kommunikation zwischen Oesophagus und Lunge”. He received his licence to practise medicine in 1904.
Robert Goldschmidt was part of the close circle of students and friends of Ismar Boas and worked, among other things, on the detection of occult blood in human stool.
He actively participated in the First World War with assignments in various field hospitals.
Goldschmidt ran a large practice in Berlin. He was an attending physician at the Geisbergstrasse dietetic spa in Berlin. He also had beds at Dr. Ernst Solms’ private clinic. As embassy doctor, Goldschmidt treated the members of the Turkish, Mexican, and Bolivian embassies.
After 1933
There was a continuous decline in the number of patients in Goldschmidt’s practice due to the boycott measures of the National Socialists since the spring of 1933. In his application for compensation to the Berlin Compensation Office in 1951, Robert Goldschmidt stated: “Forced to emigrate due to being Jewish”.
Escape to England in 1938
Goldschmidt fled to England after the November pogrom in 1938 and was able to work as a General Practitioner in Finchley, North London. He was released from internment as an enemy alien in October 1939.
Two of the Goldschmidt couple’s three children fled to South Africa. Their son Herbert Fritz Goldschmidt, born in 1916, lived with his parents in London from 1939.
Rudolf Goldschmidt died in Hendon, a suburb of London, on 5 April 1970 at the age of 91.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the Koblenz City Archives for important information on the Goldschmidt family.
