11 Facts About Ferdinand Sauerbruch

Ferdinand Sauerbruch studied medicine at the Philipps University of Marburg, the University of Greifswald, the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, and the University of Leipzig, from the last of which he graduated in 1902.

Ferdinand Sauerbruch went to Breslau in 1903, where he developed the Sauerbruch chamber, a pressure chamber for operating on the open thorax, which he demonstrated in 1904.

Ferdinand Sauerbruch worked at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich from 1918 to 1927 on surgical techniques and diets for treating tuberculosis.

Ferdinand Sauerbruch was a fervent nationalist who wanted to undo the "humiliation of Versailles" and was keen to show off his country as an advanced and sophisticated society.

Ferdinand Sauerbruch was part of the so-called Mittwochsgesellschaft, a group of scientists that included critical voices; and after 20 July 1944 he was arrested and interrogated by the Gestapo because his son Peter had ties to Claus von Stauffenberg.

In mid-September 1943, Ferdinand Sauerbruch was awarded the Knight's Cross of the War Merit Cross with Swords.

Ferdinand Sauerbruch continued hospital surgery throughout the whole war; his operating theatre was taken by the Red Army in 1945.

Ferdinand Sauerbruch's colleagues detected the errors but were unable to stop him because of his fame and power.

Ferdinand Sauerbruch died in East Berlin at the age of seventy-five.

Ferdinand Sauerbruch assisted his father and was actually responsible for the termination of his father's activities at the Charite.

The third son Peter Ferdinand Sauerbruch was a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 4 January 1943 as a Hauptmann in the general staff of the 14th Panzer Division and leader of a Kampfgruppe "Ferdinand Sauerbruch".