Prof. Dr. med.
Walter Zweig
1872 - 1953

Education and Places of Work

After graduating from the Brünn/Brno Gymnasium, Walter Zweig studied medicine at the University of Vienna from 1890 to 1896, graduating with the state examination and doctorate in 1896.

He undertook his training in internal medicine under Hermann Nothnagel at the I. Medical Clinic of the University of Vienna from 1896 to 1901. He specialised in the new field of gastroenterology early on, and temporarily worked in Berlin with Ismar Boas in his polyclinic for gastrointestinal diseases. In addition, Zweig conducted research at the Institute of Physiology at the University of Vienna for a time.

Zweig was head physician (Primarius) of the department for gastrointestinal diseases at the Kaiser Franz Josef-Ambulatorium und Spital in Vienna from 1902 and was appointed as its medical director in 1929. Zweig habilitated at the University of Vienna in 1909 in internal medicine – with a special focus on digestive diseases. He was appointed professor (extraordinarius) in 1932.

In 1903, Zweig married Marianne Antonie Stern in Vienna; she had been born in 1876 into a Jewish family. In 1904, their son Konrad was born; he would later become a renowned economist.

He was a doctor at the Military Hospital No 2 in Vienna during the First World War from 1914 to 1918.

Walter Zweig was part of the close circle of friends and students of Ismar Boas. He supported his teacher Boas in Vienna in as many ways as he could from 1936 to March 1938, after the latter had to leave Germany in 1936 and sought refuge in Austria.

After 1933

After the German Wehrmacht invaded Austria in March 1938, Zweig lost his senior position at the Franz-Josef Outpatient Clinic and Hospital in Vienna on April 22, 1938. His teaching license was revoked in June 1938.

Escape to Great Britain in 1938

Walter Zweig fled Vienna together with his wife in 1938. They joined their son Konrad Zweig, who had been living in London since 1934. The economist Konrad Zweig had been working at the Kiel Institut der Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy). In Vienna, the Gestapo ordered the seizure of the Zweigs’ assets and household goods.

Walter Zweig lived with his wife at Kensington Court in London in 1938/39 and at Woodstock Road in Oxford from 1942 to 1947 before returning to London.

Zweig was one of the co-editors of the ‘Archiv für Verdauungskrankheiten’ (“Boas-Archiv”) and its successor journal ‘Gastroenterologia’ from 1936.

Walter Zweig died at the age of 82 on September 24, 1953, at Nelson Hospital in London. His wife passed away in 1957. His son, Konrad Zweig, continued to publish and teach on economic issues in England even after his retirement. He died in 1980 in Haslemere, in the county of Surrey.