Franz Altmann

Born:	04-10-1901
Faculty:	Medical School | Medical University Vienna
Category:	Expelled teacher

Franz ALTMANN, born on April 10^th, 1901 in Vienna, died on August 26^th, 1968 in Lebanon/New Hampshire, USA, was 1938 assistent (III. class) at the Laryngological Department Station (Prof. Neumann) at the Medical School of the University of Vienna. He was persecuted in times of Nazism for racist reason, lost his position and salary and was forced to leave the university on April 22^nd, 1938. He was the son of Dr. Ignaz Altmann (physician in Vienna, 1876-1923) and Hedwig Altmann (née Weiner, born 1878) and graduated at the University of Vienna Medical School on May 13^th, 1925 ("Dr. med.") and entered the Vienna Medical Association (Wiener Aerztekammer) on June 18^th, 1925 (the department for ear, nose and throat doctors on November 21^st, 1933) and opens a practise as ENT-doctor. 1922-1925 he was demonstrator at the I. Anatomcal clinic with Prof. Julius Tandler, 1925-1926 assistent, 1926-29 assistent with Prof. Rudolf Maresch at the pathological-anatomical Institute, then at the ENT-univerity clinic (1929/30 demonstrator, 1931-1934 assistant doctor, close collaborator and since October 1st, 1934 assistent with Prof. Heinrich Neumann (assistant III. class since January 1935). He lived in Vienna's 7^th district, Siebensterngasse 29/13 and had to flee an could emigrate - shortly before his habilitation - on July 30^th, 1938 to Brno/Czechoslovacia and from there to England and on Sepetember 4^th 1938 with the SS Pennland to the USA where he arrived in New York City on September 13^th, 1938) and applied for naturalization. He initially lived in 15 W., 81 str. in Manhattan, New York and married there on October 19^th, 1939 Wilhelmine Findeis (1904-1972), a nurse who arrived in New York only four days earlier via Zurich/Switzerland and Genoa/Italy. She was born in Grillenstein (Gmuend/Upper Austria) and had lived in Vienna. Franz Altman was baptized in New York on January 17^th, 1944 and became a member of the Second Presbyterian Church and received U.S. citizenship on February 1^st, 1944 (on January 8^th, 1945, so did his wife).
He could finish his habilitation for ENT and continue his career at the College for Physicians and surgeons at the Columbia University in New York (1949 ass. prof., 1955 clinical full prof. of Otolaryngology, 1966 prof. emeritus), a call from the University of Vienna (after the death of Prof. Otto Schlanders) in 1959 he rejected. He lived in New York (863 Park Avenue). Franz Altmanns published more then 130 articles and books and was a member and honorary mmember of many international scientific associations (e.g. American, Austrian, German and Turkish Otological Societies), president of the ENT-section of the New York Medical Academy (1968). He deceased on August 26, 1968 in Lebanon/New Hampshire, USA and is burried at Riverside Cemetery in Woodstock, Windsor, Vermont.

Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna; Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance (DÖW) 6802b; CZEIKE Bd. 1, 1992; Vienna City Archive (WrStLA)/ Historical Central Registration of Viennese inhabitants (WAIS); Austrian State Archives/ Archives of the Republic/ Entschaedigungs- und Restitutionsangelegenheiten (“Compensation and restitution matters“)/ Hilfsfonds (“Assistance Fund”) 1955–1982; Austrian State Archives/ Archives of the Republic/ Entschaedigungs- und Restitutionsangelegenheiten (“Compensation and restitution matters”)/ Vermöoegensverkehrsstelle (“Property Transaction Office”)/Vermoegensanmeldungen (“Property notices”) 1938–1945; information from Dr. Barbara Sauer, Vienna 2019; REITER-ZATLOUKAL/SAUER 2022.

Herbert Posch