Friedrich (Frederick C.) Blodi

Friedrich (Frederick C.) BLODI, born on January 11^th, 1917 in Vienna/Austria (entitled residency ("heimatberechtigt") for Vienna/Austria, Citizenship: Austria), son of Dr. Adolf Blodi (1887-1967, white-collar employee) and Berta Blodi, née Grueger (1885-1970), lived in Vienna's 5^th district, Gassergasse 2/3/20, since 1939 in "Great Vienna", Maria Enzersdorf, Halperstorferstrasse 29. In the spring term of 1938 he was enrolled at the School of Medicine in the 3^rd year of his studies. He was baptized Roman Catholic - as was his father, who, however, had been a member of the Israelite religious community at birth - and so Friedrich Blodi was discriminated by the National Socialists as a so called "Mischling 1. Grades" and could only continue his studies provisionally – to be revoked at any time.
His younger brother Karl (Charles A.) Blodi (1918-2000), who studied chemistry at the Philosophical School, was discriminated in the same way.

He had already been drafted into the German Wehrmacht since March 1939 and was deployed in October in the Sanitäts-Ersatzabteilung XVII in Vienna when he completed his last year of studies in the fall term of 1939/40 (“Absolutorium” on December 15^th, 1939).
As "Mischlinge" had to submit a respective application to the Reich Ministry of Education in Berlin before each further step of their studies as of the 1^st trimester 1940, Friedrich Blodi submitted an application for admission to final examinations/viva voce and graduation, which was approved, but with the remark that he would nevertheless never be admitted as a physician in Nazi Germany. He was thus still able to graduate on February 3^rd, 1940, and was awarded a "Dr.med." degree, but a "barring clause" was noted on the doctoral diploma stating that he was not entitled to practice medicine anywhere in the German Reich - he was thus banned from practicing medicine.

Shortly thereafter, he was also dishonorably discharged from the German Wehrmacht in March 1940 as a "Mischling 1. Grades", since he was considered "unworthy of military service". However, he was at least able to work in pathology at the Hospital of the City of Vienna in Lainz and later assisted Prof. Safar at a private hospital in Vienna, where he focused on ophthalmology, which he also formally deepened under Prof. Meller and Prof. Böck from 1942.

Towards the end of the war, a patient he hardly knew asked him for help: her nephew, Karl Lauterbach, a CP resistance fighter who had been forced to fight as a Wehrmacht soldier on the Eastern Front, wanted to end his further participation in the senseless war by self-harming during a convalescent leave. Blodi then explained to her how a smooth bone fracture could be sustained and prescribed ether as an anesthetic so that her nephew could stand the pain of the injury. The fracture was implemented within the family in March and again in July 1944 before the renewed threat of conscription. During the Nazi era, this was considered "Zersetzung der Wehrkraft" (destruction of military strength) under the 1939 War Criminal Code and was punishable by death. In the fall of 1944, the military police arrested numerous "suspicious" wounded soldiers and tortured them until they obtained confessions of numerous self-destructions. The soldiers themselves and all those who had helped them, including Karl Blodi, were arrested and sentenced in October 1944 by the Vienna Field War Tribunal of Division 177, presided over by Judge Leopold Breitler: Karl Lauterbach and other self-injuring soldiers were sentenced to death, their helpers, among them relatives and also Karl Blodi, to 8 years in prison.
Karl Lauterbach was shot in February 1945, two months before the liberation of Vienna, together with 13 other self-injured soldiers in front of 170 soldiers stationed in Vienna as a deterrent example at the military execution site in Vienna-Kagran.
Karl Blodi was imprisoned in the penitentiary Stein/Danube and survived the massacre of hundreds of inmates of the prison on April 6^th/7^th, 1945. The next day he was transported with 835 other prisoners under inhuman conditions, constantly harassed and threatened by the guards, for three days in a coal freighter up the river Danube to Passau and from there on to the workhouse Suben/Inn where he was liberated soon after by the U.S. Army.

Friedrich Blodi had been friends with Ottilie Schmakal (1917-2019) since his high school days in Moedling/Lower Austria, and had been engaged to her since 1939. Thanks to her father's U.S. citizenship, she was able to emigrate to the U.S. in 1939, but correspondence between the two had broken off since 1943. She volunteered for the Women's Army Corps in the U.S. in September 1944 in order to get to Europe as quickly as possible to search for her fiancé Friedrich Blodi. In early 1946 she found him in a Vienna hospital and they were married shortly thereafter in April 1946 in Vienna and moved to the U.S. in 1947. They had two children, son Christopher and daughter Barbara, married: Gottlieb - both became successful ophthalmologists.
Frederick - now Frederick C. - Blodi lived in New York and completed his ophthalmology training at Columbia University and became a U.S. citizen on April 4^th, 1950 in Brooklyn, New York City, NY.
In 1952, at the invitation of Dr. Alson E. Braley, he moved to the prestigious Department of Ophthalmology at the University Hospital of the University of Iowa in Iowa City, IA, that he also chaired as professor and Braley's successor from 1967 to 1987, as well as the Department of Ophthalmology at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Iowa City. A few years before retiring in 1987, he moved from the U.S. to Saudi Arabia in 1984 and was director of medical education at the King Khaled Eye Hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Blodi was one of the most renowned ophthalmic surgeons of his time and authored over 200 scientific papers in the field of ophthalmology including marginal topics such as ophthalmology as a subject on international postage stamps or important translation work such as that of Julius Hirschberg's monumental 11-volume History of Ophthalmology, which he translated from German into English. In addition, he was editor-in-chief of the journal Archives of Ophthalmology and, at the request of his retired colleagues, also published a scientific autobiographical article, "From Vienna to Iowa: An Ophthalmologic Odyssey" (Survey Ophthalmology 34 (1990) 4, 309-314).

Through his international career and linguistic talents, he was a major player in the transfer of knowledge between European and U.S. ophthalmology and also served as president of the American Academy of Ophthalmology (1979), president of the Association of University Professors of Ophthalmology (AUPO) and the American Ophthalmological Society, was chairman of the American Board of Ophthalmology.

He received numerous awards e.g. the Gold Medal Favarola of the Società Oftalmologica Italiana, the Howe Medal of the American Ophthalmological Society, the Zimmerman Medal and the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art I. Class (1984) and delivered the Jackson Lecture, the Verhoeff Lecture (American Ophthalmological Society) and in 1993 the Zimmerman Lecture at the American Academy of Ophthalmology.

Frederick C. Blodi, nee Friedrich Blodi, died after two strokes in 1993 and 1996 on October 30^th, 1996 in Iowa City, IA/USA.

Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna/enrollment forms ("Nationale") MED 1937-1940, graduation registry ("Promotionsprotokoll") MED 1929-1941, No 4915, Rectorate GZ 944 ex 1939/40/41, Rectorate GZ 464 ex 1938/39, MED GZ 1115 ex 1939/40; Austrian State Archives OeStA/ AdR/ E-uReang/ Hilfsfonds/ Abgeltungsfonds 2882, OeStA/ AdR/ E-uReang/ VVSt/ VA/ 322, OeStA/ AdR/ E-uReang/ Hilfsfonds/ Sammelstellen A und B/ Negativ-Akten Liegenschaften N 436, OeStA/ AdR/ E-uReang/ FLD 11260 (all: father Adolf Blodi); POSCH/INGRISCH/DRESSEL 2008, 156, 365; Bernhard SCHWARTZ, In memoriam Frederick C. Blodi, MD, 1917-1996, in: Survey of Ophthalmology 41 (1997) # 5, 359-360; Robert FOLBERG, Frederick C. Blodi, MD, 1917-1996, in: Ophthalmology 104 (1997) # 2, 175-177; Thomas GELDMACHER,  "Im Café Weber sah ich viele Kameraden, die den Arm in Gips trugen." Karl Lauterbach und das Simmeringer Netzwerk von Selbstverstümmlern, Sommer 1944, in: Thomas Geldmacher, Magnus Koch, Hannes Metzler, Peter Pirker u. Lisa Rettl (Hg.): "Da machen wir nicht mehr mit ..." Österreichische Soldaten und Zivilisten vor Gerichten der Wehrmacht. Wien 2010, 188–194; Du bist anders? Eine Online-Ausstellung über Jugendliche in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus; Karl Lauterbach (1924–1945): "... starke Schmerzen, körperlich als auch seelisch".

Herbert Posch