Hilda Krampflitschek, Kramer, geb. Zimmermann

Dr. med. Hilda KRAMPFLITSCHEK, née ZIMMERMANN, later: KRAMER, born on June 25^th, 1888 in Vienna/Austro-Hungarian Empire [Austria] (entitled residency ("heimatberechtigt") for Vienna/Austria, citizenship 1938: Austria), daughter of Sigmund Samuel Zimmermann (1853–1935, merchant) and Cezilie Zimmermann, née Bachrich (1863–1922). She had originally attended only 2 classes of a girls' lyceum and married the physician Dr. Max Krampflitschek (1878–1919) on March 19^th, 1907 in the Tempelgasse synagogue and their son Robert was born on February 13^th, 1908. However, her husband died unexpectedly at the age of 41 on September 6^th, 1919, and she was thus already a widow at the age of 31 and the mother of an 11-year-old son with no professional training. She graduated from the Social Academy of the Municipality of Vienna in 1919-1920 and became a welfare worker. She and her son resigned from the Jewish Community on May 25^th, 1923, she became non-denominational and prepared part-time to take the school-leaving examination (Matura), which she successfully passed as an external student on October 13^th, 1925 at the Reform-Real-Gymnasium in Vienna's 8^th district, Albertgasse. She then began to study medicine at the Medical School of the University of Vienna in the spring term of 1926 and was awarded her "Dr.med.univ." on July 22^nd, 1932. She then opened a practice as a general practitioner and also worked for one year at the General Hospital in Vienna and one year at the Mautner-Markhof Children's Hospital. She lived in Vienna's 20^th district, Untere Augartenstraße 36/8 until 1934, bought the house in Vienna's 20^th district, Brigittenauer Lände 46 in 1934 and then lived there in TOP 8 and opened a practice as a general practitioner in TOP 4. From 1936 to 1938 she was in charge of the psychotherapeutic outpatient clinic in the department of Dr. Hans Hoff at the Polyclinic and at the same time began to study anthropology at the Philosophical School in the spring term of 1936. In the fall term of 1937/38, she was enrolled at the Philosophical School in the 2^nd and last year of studies and attended lectures in anthropology, ethnology and prehistory.

The "Absolutorium" was issued on February 23^rd, 1938, and she registered for the final examinations ("Rigorosen") in Ethnology, Anthropology, Prehistory on February 25^th, 1938, after two years of her medical studies had been credited to her in the minimum duration of studies in January. She passed the "one-hour Rigorosum" or "Philosophicum" shortly after the "Anschluss" on the day of Hitler's entry into Vienna and his Heldenplatz speech on March 15^th, 1938 (examiners: Meister, Reininger). Her dissertation: "I. Racial Studies of Montenegrins, II. The Heiligenstadt Skulls" (supervisors: originally Weninger and Menghin, then Christian and Geyer) - she evaluated the racial records of 115 Montenegrin prisoners of war of the First World War, which her supervisor Weninger had taken in prisoner-of-war camps in 1915-1917 - had been approved on July 1^st, 1938. On October 12^th, 1938, she had also passed the second viva, albeit with completely different examiners than had been planned, since in the meantime they had either been expelled for racist reasons (Josef Weninger) or for political reasons (Wilhelm Koppers) or had risen to higher offices in the Nazi state (Oswald Menghin) (examiners: instead of Weninger: Victor Christian, instead of Menghin: Eberhard Geyer, instead of Koppers: Kurt Ehrenberg).
Thus, after a long period of uncertainty, she was able to complete her studies and to receive her doctorate on October 18^th, 1938, amidst numerous symbolic discriminations in the context of a "non-Aryan doctorate", while at the same time being banned from working in the entire German Reich.

In the interwar period Hilde Krampflitschek was active in the Association for Individual Psychology and was a member of the Viennese "Working Group of Educators, Caregivers and Kindergarten Teachers", which evaluated the educational methods of the time in the family as well as in public institutions such as after-school care and kindergartens for their applicability and meaningfulness in terms of developmental psychology.
She was a collaborator of Alfred Adler, active in the circle of socialist individual psychologists in Vienna, published, among other things, in the International Journal of Individual Psychology, gave lectures and courses at numerous institutions in the city of Vienna, and also worked in several educational counseling centers as a medical advisor.
In 1937 she helped to keep the "Club of Friends of Individual Psychology" going and to advise parents and teachers on educational problems before it was dissolved under National Socialism.

Hilda Krampflitschek had to flee Vienna and was able to emigrate in 1938 to London in England/Great Britain, where she moved on to Edinburgh, Scotland in 1939 and finally lived in Auchenfroe House in Cardross, Dunbartonshire, Scotland, and worked as a psychotherapist. Their son Robert Krampflitschek, a merchant, had been baptized again as a Roman Catholic in Vienna on September 4^th, 1938, and on the same day married Leopoldine Hildegard Novotny (1901–1995), whom he had already married in a civil ceremony on July 22^nd, 1932, in the Schottenpfarre in Vienna, and emigrated on February 25^th with the SS Veendam from Rotterdam/Netherlands to the USA, arriving in New York on March 9^th, 1939. After Hilda Krampflitschek obtained a U.S. visa at the embassy in Glasgow, Scotland, on November 13, she also emigrated to the U.S. on December 19^th, 1939, aboard the SS Volendam from Southampton, England, arriving in New York City, NY, on December 30^th, 1939 and planned to continue to Bridgewater, Connecticut where her son, by then Robert Kramer, lived and worked as a salesman and farmer (he later moved with his wife to Sheridan, Wyoming where he also died on May 4^th, 1963). In the USA, Hilde Krampflitschek also changed her last name to "Kramer" and worked as a teacher of mental hygiene at Moravia College for Women in Bethlehem in Pennsylvania, and later at Pilgrim State Hospital in New York.

Her publications include The Fantastic Child (Dresden 1927) and numerous articles in the Individual Psychology Bulletin in the 1940s.

The physician, welfare worker, individual psychologist and anthropologist DDr. Hilde Kramer, née Zimmermann, married Krampflitschek, died in New York in 1958.

Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna/enrollment forms ("Nationale") MED 1925–1931 and PHIL 1937–1938; final examination files and registry ("Rigorosenprotokoll und -akt" PHIL No. 14249, graduation registry ("Promotionsprotokoll") PHIL 1931–1941 No. 2857, PHIL GZ 8 ex 1937/38 No. 36; Jewish Community Vienna (IKG-Wien) birth records 1887-1888 No. 3241, IKG-Wien birth rcords 1908/I–VI fol. 62 No. 496, IKG-Wien 02 marriage records 1907 fol. 14 No. 55, roman-catholic Parish Vienna's 1^st district/Unsere Liebe Frau zu den Schotten marriage records 1937–1938 fol. 60; Bernhard HANDLBAUER, Die Entstehungsgeschichte der Individualpsychologie, Vienna 1984; Bernhard HANDLBAUER, "Lernt fleissig Englisch": Die Emigration Alfred Adlers und der Wiener Individualpsychologen, in: STADLER II 2004 [1988]; FEIKES 1999; Clara KENNER, Hilda Krampflitschek, in: KEINTZEL/KOROTIN 2002, 405–407; POSCH/INGRISCH/DRESSEL 2008, 422; KOROTIN 2016, 1783f.; REITER-ZATLOUKAL/SAUER 2025; www.genteam.at; www.ancestry.de; www.myheritage.at; information by courtesy of Peter Nosber, Vienna 04/2024.

Herbert Posch