Ernst Sträussler

Born:	04-17-1872
Faculty:	Medical School | Medical University Vienna
Category:	Expelled teacher

Ernst STRÄUSSLER (born on April 17th, 1872 in Ungarisch Hradisch [Uherské Hradište/Czech Republic]) was lecturer ('Dozent') for Psychologie und Neuropathologie at the Medical School of the University of Vienna.
He was persecuted in times of Nazism as a Jew lost his position and was thrown out of the university on April 22nd, 1938. Sträussler completed his studies at the Medical School of the University of Vienna and graduated in 1895 with the academic degree 'Dr. med.'.
In 1919 he became extraordinary professor ('Extraordinarius') in neuropsychiatry. Later he also became a forensic psychiatric expert for the Austrian Supreme Court and head of the histopathological laboratory of the University of Vienna Clinic for Psychiatry-Neurology, where he worked with Josef Gerstmann and others.
Ernst Sträussler was regarded as „the Nestor of Austrian neuropathology“. Gerstmann-Sträussler-Scheinker syndrome, which is named after him, Josef Gerstmann and Ilya M. Scheinker, was first described by them in 1936. Ernst Sträussler did not emigrate from Austria and survived World War II in Vienna. He avoided deportation because of his “Aryan” wife.

Lit.: MERINSKY 1980, 266-267; Lawrence A. ZEIDMAN, Matthias Georg ZILLER u. Michael SHEVELL, Gerstmann, Sträussler, and Scheinker. The persecution of the men behind the syndrome, in: Neurology 83/3 (15.Jul.2014), 272-277; UB MedUni Wien/van Swieten Blog

Katharina Kniefacz