Otto von Fürth

Born:	11-18-1867
Faculty:	Medical School | Medical University Vienna
Category:	Expelled teacher

Otto von FÜRTH (born on November 18th, 1867 in Strakonitz, died on June 7th, 1938 in Vienna) was a professor for Medizinische Chemie at the Medical School of the University of Vienna.
After studying sciences and medicine in Prague, Heidelberg and Berlin, he graduated to Dr. med. at the pharmacological department of the University of Vienna. Subsequently he worked as assistant professor at the pharmacological department in Prague and then at the physiological-chemical department in Strassbourg, where he was promoted professor of medical chemistry. Im 1905 he returned to Vienna and became lecturer, in 1906 extraordinary professor for physiological chemistry. His work was honored with the Ignaz L. Lieben-Prize for biochemistry in 1923 and since 1929 he was full professor and head of the Medical-Chemical Department 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 in 1938.
Otto von Fürth died only few months later in Vienna, his wife and daughter were deported to Maly Trostinec/Belarus and murdered there in 1942, his son died short time after his release of the concentration camp Dachau, in 1939 in Vienna.

In 1966 the 'Fürthweg' in Wien 13 was named after him.

Lit.: MUEHLBERGER 1993, 22; SOUKUP 2004, 229-233; DEICHMANN 2001, 77, 115, 120, 246, 284, 322; MERINSKY 1980, 69-70; UB MedUni Wien/van Swieten Blog; 100 Jahre Österreichische Krebshilfe 2010, 46.

Katharina Kniefacz