General Municipal Hospital Düsseldorf

The historical core of the University Clinics of Düsseldorf (UKD) (Moorenstr. 5) is an ensemble of buildings erected as a splendid General Municipal Hospital. Left of the flat modern main entry, the administration building still reveals traces of the old central portal framed by sculptures of Asclepios and Hygieia. Further left (East) appears the Wilhelminian staff villa for the director, now the human resources department. The General Hospital succeeded a municipal barrack lazaretto behind the main station as its very reverse, a generous pavillon style arrangement opened in 1907.1 Although a municipal institution, the hospital has been linked to an Academy, originally for practical year and specialist courses only. After WWI, the Professor for Pediatrics and Social Hygienist Arthur Schlossmann was elected into the Prussian Parliament in Berlin. He facilitated the implementation of both a Medical Academy for students in their clinical terms 1923, and the West German Academy for Social Hygiene 1920, managed by Ludwig Teleky until it was closed by the National Socialists in 1933.2
The most infamous graduate of the medical academy was Dr. med. Herta Oberhäuser, the only female culprit of the Nuremberg doctors' trial, the most famous is the Nobelist Harald zur Hausen. Famous professors include Walter Kikuth (1896-1968), who developed chemical antimalaria-drugs at Bayer, and the cardiac surgeon Ernst Derra sen. (1901-1979).
Apart from the memorials, selected viewpoints on the old clinical campus can still illustrate remarkable historical structures, such as:

The Academy established Medical History in 1914, the Department for the History, Philosophy and Ethics of Medicine of Düsseldorf University exists since 1965.

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  • Pictures: City of Düsseldorf, U. Koppitz; text: Thorsten Halling & Ulrich Koppitz

Bibliography

- Thorsten Halling, Jörg Vögele (eds.), 100 Jahre Hochschulmedizin in Düsseldorf 1907-2007, Düsseldorf University Press 2007.



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