| Born: | 06-12-1897 |
| Faculty: | Medical School | Medical University Vienna |
| Category: | Deprivation of academic degree |
Karl Stanislaus STERNBACH (born on June 12th, 1897 in Krakow, Galicia/Austria-Hungary [Kraków/Poland]) as son of the Dr.med. Karl Sternbach (military dctor, died in Vienna in 1934) and Karoline Sternbach (died in Vienna in 1931), had started to study medicine at the University of Vienna in the first World War from the fall term 1915/16 and had obtained the degree of "Dr. med." (MD) from the Medical School of the University of Vienna on February 28th, 1921.
He had left the Jewish Community in December 1918 and, after obtaining his doctorate (1921), also acquired Austrian citizenship (December 1923) and was licensed as a physician in Vienna from 1923 and lived in Vienna's 15th district, Neubauguertel 23a where he also had his urological practice. In 1936 he was an assistant at the urological ward of the Sophienspital (director: Prof. V. Blum).
He had to flee Vienna and was able to emigrate in time to Canada, where he arrived in 1939 and worked at the Department of Hygiene and Preventive Medicine at the University of Toronto. His wife and daughter were unable to emigrate with him to Canada and remained behind in England, where his wife worked as a maid in Dorking, but was unable to continue after an accident in 1941. Due to the war, Karl Sternbach, although sufficiently financially secure, could not transfer money from Canada to England, which is why they tried to make this possible through English and Canadian acquaintances.
In times of Nazism he was deprived of his academic degree on July 22nd, 1943 by the University of Vienna 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").
It took 12 years since the deprivation – and a very long time since the end of Nazism – until the regranting of the doctorate took finally place on May 15th, 1955, or the deprivation declared "null and void from the beginning," but without informing him.
Dr. Karl Sternbach had returned to Vienna after 1945, had been able to obtain restitution of the house in Vienna 's 13/14th district, Hadikgasse 46, which had been expropriated from him in 1938, and, according to the Vienna address directory, lived there at least until 1965 and practiced as a doctor.
It has not yet been possible to determine when and where Dr. Karl Sternbach died.
Lit: Archive of the University of Vienna/enrollment forms ("Nationale") MED 1915-1920, graduation registry ("Promotionsprotokoll") MED 1919-1923 No 509, rectorate GZ 118 ex 1941/42 No 125, GZ 561 ex 1944/45 No 15; Austrian State Archives OeStA/AdR/E-uReang/FLD 10952 & 10943, OeStA/AdR/E-uReang/VVSt/VA 6775; Municipal and Provincial Archives of Vienna WStLA/1.3.2.119.A41 235, Bezirk: 14; Vaughan Williams Foundation, Letter No. VWL1671; POSCH 2009, 481; Science, New Series, Vol. 93, No. 2411 (March 14th, 1941), pp. 258-260; Wiener Adressbuch Herold (vormals Lehmann) 1955 und 1965; www.genteam.at, www.ancestry.de.
Herbert Posch
