| Born: | 02-12-1906 |
| Faculty: | Medical School | Medical University Vienna |
| Category: | Expelled teacher |
Leopold WALTERSKIRCHEN, born on February 12th, 1906 in Wolfsthal, Lower Austria, was an assistant at the Second Medical University Clinic (headed by Prof. Jagic) at the Medical Faculty of the University of Vienna in 1938.
He was persecuted under National Socialism for so-called "political" or "administrative" reasons and dismissed from the University of Vienna.
He was born in 1906 as Leopold Wilhelm Hubert Freiherr von Walterskirchen zu Wolfsthal (from 1907: Count Walterskirchen, Baron zu Wolfsthal) at Schloss Walterskirchen in Wolfsthal, Lower Austria, the sixth of nine children of Franz Xaver Baron of Walterskirchen zu Wolfsthal (1862-1933, Imperial and Royal Privy Councillor and Chamberlain, hereditary member of the Austrian House of Lords, landowner in Wolfsthal) and Anna Maria, née Countess v. Ludwigstorff, Baroness zu Goldlamb (1870-1943, lady of the palace and the Order of the Star Cross). He passed his school-leaving examination (Matura) in 1925 at the Catholic private grammar school with public rights, Kollegium Kalksburg, Lower Austria, and then began to study medicine at the University of Vienna.
He graduated as "Dr. med. univ." on July 7th, 1933 and shortly afterwards opened a practice as a general practitioner in Vienna's 1st district, Bäckerstraße 10 on October 17th, 1933, but moved to Vienna's 1st district, Bräunerstraße 11 in 1935 at the latest.
He worked in parallel for two years from 1933 at the Pharmacological Institute of the University of Vienna and published his first scientific publications from this field of work in Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's Archiv für experimentelle Pathologie und Pharmakologie – in 1935 with Klaus Unna, Über die Wirkung des antidiuretischen Hypophysenhinterlappenhormons am gewässerten und nicht gewässerten Hund (vol. 178, 639–648), in 1937 again with Klaus Unna, Über den Zusammenhang zwischen Chlorid- und Wasserausscheidung nach Pituitrin (vol. 181, 681–688) and with Sylvester Zacherl, Beitrag zur Analyse der Giftwirkung hämolysierter Erytlirocyten (vol. 184, 659–666).
From 1935 he worked at the second medical university clinic (director: Prof. Jagic), and on January 1st, 1938 he obtained an assistant position as an unsalaried university assistant and was also sworn in to Adolf Hitler in the spring of 1938.
However, on November 4th, 1939, the Reich Commissioner for Reunification, Josef Bürckel, issued a decree Ref.D./He-B-9965 ordering Walterskirchen to "retire at the end of the month [i.e. November 30, 1939] in the interest of the service on the basis of § 6 of the Ordinance on the Reorganization of the Austrian Civil Service of May 31, 1939, RGBl. I p. 607", without severance pay, without pension entitlements, without admissible legal remedies. He was informed of this through official channels - Reichskommissariat, Austrian Ministry of Education, Rectorate, Dean's Office of the Medical Faculty, Head of the Clinic. He was therefore not dismissed according to the paragraph for "political reasons" (§ 4), but according to the paragraph for "administrative reasons" (§ 6) – however, the two paragraphs were often used interchangeably as grounds for people who were ideologically incompatible with National Socialism.
He was no longer able to work at the university or in public hospitals during the Nazi era, but found the opportunity to work in a private laboratory in Vienna from 1940.
After the end of Nazi rule, he married Lydia Malek (1922–?) in Vienna on May 27th, 1945, but the marriage was divorced in June 1961 without children.
From 1945, he was able to return to the second medical university clinic. In 1947 he became head of the internal medicine department at Vienna's Elisabeth-Hospital, and shortly afterwards in 1948 he took over as head physician at the Vienna-Lainz nursing home (until his retirement in 1971) and also ran his private practice in Vienna's 3rd district, Erdbergstraße 103.
He published further scientific papers, was appointed "Medizinalrat" and awarded the Grand Decoration of Honor for Services to the Republic of Austria.
Medizinalrat Dr. Leopold Walterskirchen, nee Baron von Walterskirchen zu Wolfsthal, died on April 1st, 1994 in Vienna's 3rd district, Baumgasse 20A and is buried at the cemetery in Wolfsthal, Lower Austria.
Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna/enrollment forms ("Nationale") 1926–1933, graduation registry ("Promotionsprotokoll") MED 1931–1941 No. 2026, personnel roster of the University of Vienna 1937/38, 110, Rectorate GZ 680 I ex 1937/38, GZ 467 ex 1939/40, MED GZ 515 ex 1939/40; rom.-cath. parish Wolfsthal/Lower Austria (archdiocese Vienna), birth register 1899-1915, fol. 79, No. 5; NOE AERZTECHRONIK 1990; REITER-ZATLOUKAL/SAUER 2025; Adelsdatenbank ADLER, www.geni.com; www.ancestry.de; Pharmaceutische Post from December 16th, 1933, p. 7; information by courtesy of Dr. Barbara Sauer, Vienna 07/2024.
Herbert Posch
