Hugo Schmiedl

Born:	04-25-1868
Faculty:	Medical School | Medical University Vienna
Category:	Deprivation of academic degree

Hugo SCHMIEDL (born on April 25^th, 1868 in Bruenn, Moravia, Austro-Hungarian Empire [Brno, Czech Republic], as the son of Alois Schmiedl (1831-1909) and Karoline Schmiedl, née Königer (1841-1919)), had graduated at the Medical School at the University of Vienna on July 26^th, 1892 with the academic degree "Dr. med.". He had left the Jewish Community of Vienna on November 7^th, 1929, lived and worked in Vienna's 13^th district, Sankt Veit Gasse 67 and was married to Hilda Schmiedl, née Tandler (1884-1942), the daughter of the former Vice-President of the Jewish Community of Brno Gustav Tandler (1852-1922). The already 70-year-old retired physician Dr. Hugo Schmiedl and his wife Hilde were persecuted under National Socialism for racist reasons, had to flee Vienna and managed to emigrate to France, where they lived in Nice. Due to their successful emigration, Hugo Schmiedl and his wife were deprived of their German citizenship (to the Reich Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia) and thereupon the University of Vienna also deprived him of his academic degree on March 26^th/April 1^st, 1943, with the racist argument, that he as a Jew was not considered dignified an academic degree of a German university ('eines akademischen Grades einer deutschen Hochschule unwuerdig') (deprivation decision announced in the German Reichsanzeiger of April 13^th, 1943).

His wife Hilda, however, had already been deported from Nice, in the unoccupied part of France, in 1942 and on September 7th, 1942, deported from the collection camp Drancy near Paris to the concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau [Oświęcim] in German-occupied Poland and presumably murdered there. Hugo Schmiedl was deported from Drancy to the Auschwitz-Birkenau [Oświęcim] concentration camp about a year later on October 9^th, 1943, and murdered.

It was not until 12 years after the revocation, long after the end of National Socialism, and in ignorance of his murder, that his doctoral degree was posthumously restored to him on May 15^th, 1955, or the revocation declared 'null and void from the beginning'.

Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna/graduation register ("Promotionsprotokoll") MED 1890–1894 No. 691, rectorate 118 ex 1941/42 No. 190, GZ 1636 ex 1941/42, GZ 151 ex 1942/43 (= S 127.9) No. 5, GZ 561 ex 1944/45 No. 15; Austrian State Archives OeStA/ AdR/ E-uReang/ VVSt/ VA/ 45280, OeStA/ AdR/ E-uReang/ FLD 16935, OeStA AdR E-uReang Hilfsfonds Sammelstellen A und B Negativ-Akten Liegenschaften N 1466; Municipal and Provincial Archives of Vienna WStLA 1.3.2.119.A41 182; 53; 54, Bezirk 23; Deutscher Reichsanzeiger, Nr. 86, April 13^th, 1943; POSCH 2009, 471; REITER-ZATLOUKAL/SAUER 2022; information from Dr. Barbara Sauer, Vienna, 04/2022; www.doew.at; www.ushmm.org; https://yvng.yadvashem.org..

Herbert Posch