Richard Stern

Richard STERN, born on March 29^th, 1878 in Vienna, was a private lecturer ("Privatdozent") in neuropathology at the Medical School of the University of Vienna in 1938 and was persecuted under National Socialism for racist reasons; his venia legendi was "suspended" on July 29^th, 1938 and he was expelled from the University of Vienna.

He was the son of the merchant Leopold Stern and Ernestine Stern, née Stein, and attended the Academic Grammar School in Vienna, where he passed his school-leaving examination (Matura) in 1896. He then began to study medicine at the University of Vienna and graduated as M.D. ("Dr. med.univ.") on November 21^st, 1902. Towards the end of his studies, he had already worked as an aspirant at the First Medical University Clinic and in 1904 became an assistant at the outpatient clinic there under Lothar v. Frankl-Hochwarth (1862-1914). In March 1909, Richard Stern became head of the Department of Nervous Diseases at the first Austrian Children's Hospital in Vienna. In 1913, he habilitated and became ürivate lecturer ("Privatdozent") in neuropathology at the University of Vienna with a thesis entitled "Differentialdiagnose und Verlauf des Morbus Basedowii und seiner unvollkommenen Formen" (in: Jahrbücher für Psychiatrie und Neurologie 29 (1909), 179-273) and subsequently began teaching on nervous diseases at the University of Vienna (with the exception of the years of the First World War until his expulsion in 1938).
He did military service from 1915-18 in a diagnostic ward run by Siegmund Erben (1863-1942) and, after his return, became head of the mental outpatient department of the First Medical University Clinic from December 1918.
From 1919, he was also head physician at the Pension Institute for Salaried Employees ("Pensionsanstalt für Angestellte").

Richard Stern was a member of the Society for Psychiatry and Neurology and the Society of Physicians in Vienna and published several articles, including on epilepsy and signs of paralysis, syphilis and tabes as well as clinical-chemical examination methods, among others "Familiäre Enuresis nocturna", in: Wiener klinische Rundschau 19 (1905), 381-383, "Vibrationsgefühl und Muskelsinn", in: Wiener Klinische Rundschau 20 (1906), 820-822, "Beitrag zur Kenntnis der Form und Grösse des Rückenmarksquerschnittes", in: Arbeiten des Neurologischen Instituts der Universität Wien 14 (1907), 329-372, "Zur Schlafbereitung", in: Wiener Klinische Rundschau 22 (1908), 65, "Die präaktive Spannung", in: ibid. , 410, "Eine statische Theorie der Epilepsie", in: Wiener Klinische Rundschau 23 (1909), 49, 65, 81, 97, "Zur Prognose der Epilepsie", in: Jahrbücher für Psychiatrie und Neurologie 30 (1909), 1-40, "Über einen Lähmungstypus bei der infantilen Hemiplegie", in: Wiener Klinische Rundschau 23 (1909), 789-791, "Ein passagères Phänomen der Säuglingshemiplegie", in: Neurologisches Centralblatt 29 (1910), 242-244, "Klinische Studien über die Zukunft nervenkranker Kinder mit spinalen und zerebralen Lähmungen", in: Jahrbücher für Psychiatrie und Neurologie 32 (1911), 139-308 and "Zur Entstehung der Angst", in: Wiener Klinische Wochenschrift 33 (1920), 875-878 (sometimes he is inadvertently credited in the research literature with publications by the Breslau internist Dr. Richard Stern (1865-1911)).

In 1938 he was persecuted under National Socialism for racist reasons, his venia legendi was "suspended" on July 29^th, 1938 and he was expelled from the University of Vienna and the Angestelltenversicherungsanstalt.

He had to flee Vienna, but was unable to emigrate in time and was deported on July 23^rd, 1942 from Grösslingova Street 51 in Bratislava [Slovakia] to Žilina [Slovakia], from there on September 18^th, 1942 to the Auschwitz concentration camp [Oświęcim/Poland], where he was murdered on October 13^th, 1942 at the age of 65.

Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna, National MED 1896-1902, doctoral record MED 1898-1904, RA GZ 680/II ex 1937/38 oh.ONr., MED GZ 1200 ex 1937/38, Senate p.304 .1237 (Personalbogen); MERINSKY 1980, 259-260; MUEHLBERGER 1993, 34; Alma KREUTER, Deutschsprachige Neurologen und Psychiater, Munich 1996, 1412; Death Books from Auschwitz, Remnants, Reports (ed. by State Museum of Auschwitz Birkenau), Munich/New Providence/London/Paris 1995; UB MedUni Wien/van Swieten Blog; Michael HUBENSTORF, Tote und/oder lebendige Wissenschaft. Die intellektuellen Netzwerke der NS-Patientenmordaktion in Österreich, in: Gabriel Eberhard & Neugebauer Wolfgang, eds, Von der Zwangssterilisierung zur Ermordung. Zur Geschichte der NS-Euthanasie in Wien Teil II, Vienna, Cologne, Weimar 2002, 237-420; Daniela ANGETTER, Richard Stern, in: ÖBL Bd. 13, 2008, 229f.; Lazaros C. TRIARHOU, Richard Stern (1878-1942), in: Journal of Neurology 268, 4398-4399 (2021) [https://doi.org/10.1007/s00415-021-10482-0]

Herbert Posch