26 Facts About Alfred Grotjahn

Alfred Grotjahn was a German physician, social hygienist, eugenicist, journalist-author and, for three years between 1921 and 1924, a Member of the Reichstag in the recently launched German republic.

Alfred Grotjahn's son emigrated to the United States in 1937, ending up in Los Angeles, where he acquired notability on his own account as a psychoanalyst.

Alfred Grotjahn's father was a morphine addict, in the habit of signing in as a hospital patient for treatment.

Alfred Grotjahn's mother, born Emma Frey had met his father in her home city of Zurich where Robert Grotjahn had been a medical student.

Alfred Grotjahn was only 6 when his mother died of sarcoma.

Alfred Grotjahn would look back on his childhood as an unhappy one.

Alfred Grotjahn was a pacificist by temperament, and in addition to respecting family tradition, he was conscious that in the event of another war involving conscription, a medical training would be likely to qualify him for a reduced term of service on the frontline, because he would be of greater usefulness to his country as a physician than as a soldier.

Alfred Grotjahn deferred moving in to Berlin, discouraged by his father from making the move to a city with "certain political distractions", so his third year, which was his first clinical year.

Alfred Grotjahn took the opportunity to sign up for lectures in Sociology with Ferdinand Tonnies who had a poor reputation as a lecturer and whose course only attracted two students.

In 1896 Alfred Grotjahn opened his own medical practice in Berlin- Kreuzberg.

Alfred Grotjahn's theme was the interaction between alcoholism, health care provision and housing conditions.

In 1905 Alfred Grotjahn was one of those behind the establishment of the "Berlin Society for Social Medicine, Hygiene and Medical Statistics".

On 16 November 1912 Alfred Grotjahn received his Habilitation, the higher post-graduate degree normally needed to secure a life-long teaching career in the German universities sector.

Alfred Grotjahn was the first candidate in Germany to habilitate in the newly fashionable discipline of "social hygiene".

In 1915, after twenty years, Alfred Grotjahn withdrew from running his own medical practice and instead accepted a position in charge of the social hygiene department at the Berlin City Medical Office.

Alfred Grotjahn became the first Professor for Social Hygiene anywhere in Germany.

Alfred Grotjahn increasingly attended faculty meetings and, indeed, mane use of the detritus they produced.

In July 1914 Alfred Grotjahn had greeted with enthusiasm the controversial acceptance by the Social Democratic party leaders in parliament to support war funding with their Reichstag votes.

Alfred Grotjahn was included as a list candidate for the 1920 General Election, but due to a strong challenge from the breakaway Independent Social Democratic Party it turned out that his name had appeared one place too far down the party list for him to secure election to the Reichstag for him to secure a seat.

Alfred Grotjahn had nevertheless participated effectively in the election campaign, cementing his links with a number of more longstanding party activists in the process.

Alfred Grotjahn became one of six qualified medical practitioners in the parliament though only one other of these, Friedrich Borschmann, was a Social Democratic Party member.

Alfred Grotjahn served as a member of the Reichstag between 1921 and 1924.

Alfred Grotjahn set out his case that the social surroundings of patients will have an influence both on the course taken by a disease and on their healing.

The conveniently readable "" which Alfred Grotjahn published jointly with the Austrian professor Ignaz Kaup triggered a rethink, however.

Alfred Grotjahn was a prolific writer and not, over time, consistent in all his writings, which can make it hard to pick out the most representative.

Alfred Grotjahn emerged as an advocate for the "rationalisation of human reproduction quantitively and qualitatively", advocating a "cleansing of human society from the sick, the ugly and the inferior", whom he reckoned accounted between them, for approximately one third of the population.