| Born: | 06-06-1869 |
| Faculty: | Medical School | Medical University Vienna |
| Category: | Expelled teacher |
Wilhelm SCHLESINGER, born on June 6th, 1869 in Vienna, died on September 18th, 1947 in Grenoble/France, was a private lecturer in internal medicine with the title of associate professor (Pd. tit.ao.Prof.) at the Medical School of the University of Vienna in 1938.
He was persecuted under National Socialism for racist reasons, although he had already converted from Judaism to the Protestant Church AB in 1896, and was dismissed from his post on April 22nd, 1938 and expelled from the University of Vienna.
He was the son of Julius Schlesinger (1837-1927) and Therese Schlesinger, née Spitzer (1846-1934) and studied medicine from 1884 at the universities of Graz (1889/1890) and Vienna, graduating as "Dr. med.univ." in Vienna on July 26th, 1892 (his brother, Medizinalrat Dr. Alfred Schlesinger, also became a physician).
He worked from 1892-1894 as an aspirant/assistant physician under Prof. Hermann Nothnagel (1841-1905) at the First Medical University Clinic in Vienna, from 1894-1897 as an assistant under Prof. Bernhard Naunyn (1839-1925) at the Medical Clinic of the Kaiser Wilhelm University in Strasbourg and returned to Vienna in 1897, where he started to work as a general practitioner. He habilitated in internal medicine at the University of Vienna in 1904.
From 1907, he held lectures and courses with practical exercises on dietetics and medical nutrition, and soon afterwards, from 1908 to 1911, he was head of the outpatient clinic for stomach, intestinal and metabolic diseases at the Third University Medical Clinic, before moving to the Kaiser-Franz-Joseph-Spital as head of department for several years in 1911. During the First World War, he was a regimental and later staff physician in Vienna (head of the internal department of Garnison Hospital No. 2 in Vienna) and Przemyśl/Poland, after which he returned to the Kaiser Franz Joseph Hospital full-time until 1919. In 1921, he was awarded the title - but not the position - of associate professor ("tit. ao. Prof.") at the University of Vienna.
As an internist, he was known as a specialist in metabolic diseases, especially diabetes. He gave the first lectures on diet and cooking at the University of Vienna in 1907, which he summarized in a textbook in which he explained the importance of nutrition and diet for the metabolism.
He was a member of the Society of Physicians in Vienna, the Society for Internal Medicine and Pediatrics in Vienna, the Society for Neurology in Vienna and the German Congress for Internal Medicine.
He was the doctor of famous international patients such as the Indian Prime Minister Vithalbhai Patel (1873-1933) and the Austrian Finance Minister Redlich. At the end of 1934, at the invitation of King Achmed Zogu of Albania, who was fundamentally reforming the Albanian healthcare system at the time and building two new hospitals in Tirana, he visited the existing institutions and developed an overall plan for the Albanian healthcare system, for the implementation of which he was appointed head of the Supreme Medical Council and hospital director in Tirana/Albania in March 1935. In Albania, he was also involved in the containment of malaria and was able to draw on his experience from the First World War, where he had managed a large infectious diseases hospital in Przemysl and was subsequently head of a malaria hospital. After the successful implementation, he returned to Vienna in June 1936. In Austria, he was awarded the Knight's Cross 1st Class of the Austrian Order of Merit in the summer of 1935.
He was married to Helene Laqueur (1874-1953), daughter of the Strasbourg ophthalmologist Ludwig/Louis Laqueur (1839-1909) and their daughter Dr. Annemarie Schlesinger (1903-?) also became a doctor (until 1935 she was an assistant doctor at the II Medical Clinic in Vienna and followed them both to Albania and Grenoble). Wilhelm Schlesinger lived in Vienna 1st district, Hohenstauffengasse 2.
He was expelled from Vienna in 1938 and was able to emigrate to France in time, where he lived in Grenoble from 1939, where he also became the founder of the Grenoble section of the "Freunde Österreichs/Amis de l'Autriche" association.
His works include: Vorlesungen über Diät und Küche. Ein Lehrbuch für Ärzte und Studierende (1917), Krankenkost im Haushalte, in: Hausbuch der Heilkunde 1 (1924); Obst- und Gemüse-Obstkuren, in: Mitteilungen des Volksgesundheitsamtes (1934); etc.
Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Schlesinger died at the age of 78 on September 18th, 1947 in Grenoble/France.
Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna/personnel roster ("Personalstand der Universität Wien") 1937/38, 31, personnel records, Rectorate GZ 677 ex 1937/38; FISCHER 1932/1933, 1392f.; MERINSKY 1980, 241-242; OeBL 1815-1950 Bd. 10 (1992), 200f.; MUEHLBERGER 1993, 32; BLUMESBERGER 2002, 1211f.; UB MedUni Wien/van Swieten Blog (2008); Medizinische Klinik, July 12th, 1935, 4; Neues Österreich, October 2nd, 1947, 7.
Herbert Posch
