Paul Schilder

Born:	02-15-1886
Faculty:	Medical School | Medical University Vienna
Category:	Expelled teacher

Paul SCHILDER (born on February 15th, 1886 in Vienna, died on December 8th, 1940 in New York) was lecturer ('Dozent') for Neurologie und Psychiatrie at the Medical School of the University of Vienna.
He was persecuted in times of Nazism as a Jew, was deprived of his venia legendi and thrown out of the university on April 22nd, 1938. Paul Schilder studied medicine at the University of Vienna and was graduated 'Dr.med.' in 1909 and 'Dr.phil.’ in 1917. From 1918 on he worked as assistant of Julius Wagner-Jauregg at the Psychiatric-Neurological University Clinic, was promoted lecturer ('Privatdozent') of neurology and psychiatry at the university of Vienna in 1920 and 'ao. Professor' in 1925.
As a psychoanalyst Paul Schilder continued the famous Saturday evening lecture at the psychiatric clinic at the General Hospital after Sigmund Freud's retirement.
Paul Schilder advised his cousin, Dr. Ludwig Popper (1904-1984), not to specialize on psychiatry and commented, that the discipline – although it’s subject was really interesting – had no possibilities for therapy apart from malaria treatment of general paralysis, which was introduced by his boss. He recommended him to specialize on internal medicine. Paul Schilder resided  in the USA since 1932, where he worked at New York's Bellevue Hospital. In 1938 he was deprived of his 'venia legendi' at the University of Vienna on racial grounds.
His cousin Dr. Ludwig Popper, had worked as 'assistant' at the Department of Medical Chemistry of the University of Vienna until 1936 and intended to be 'habilitated' (postdoctoral qualification), didn't have the chance to finish after the "Anschluss". Until 1938 he kept on working voluntarily (unpaid) as head of the nurses' station of the Vienna General Hospital and as a guest physician at the outpatient department of the gynecological clinic. The Medical School of the University of Vienna informed him in June 1938, that his habilitation no longer serves any purpose because of his "non-Aryan" descent and that he could come to pick up his documents. He was able to emigrate to Switzerland in 1938 and to Bolivia in 1939. He returned to Vienna in 1947 and received his habilitation as a lecturer ('Privatdozent') for internal medicine in 1948. At the height of his career Paul Schilder was hit by a car in New York in 1940 and letally injured.

Lit.: MERINSKY 1980, 239-240; UB MedUni Wien/van Swieten Blog; information from his great cousin Dr. Lutz E. Popper, Oberwart/Austria, 2014; Lutz Elija POPPER, Hg., Ludwig Popper (1904-1984): Bolivien für Gringos. Exil-Tagebuch eines Wiener Arztes, Oberwart 2005; Lutz Elija POPPER, Briefe aus einer versinkenden Welt 1938/1939, Oberwart 2008, bes. 14-19 [zu Ludwig Popper].

Katharina Kniefacz