Julius Hallervorden (21 October 1882 – 29 May 1965) was a German

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

and

neuroscientist A neuroscientist (or neurobiologist) is a scientist who has specialised knowledge in neuroscience, a branch of biology that deals with the physiology, biochemistry, psychology, anatomy and molecular biology of neurons, neural circuits, and glial ...

. Hallervorden was born in Allenburg, East Prussia (Druzhba, Znamensk, Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia) to psychiatrist

Eugen Hallervorden Eugen is a masculine given name which may refer to: * Archduke Eugen of Austria (1863–1954), last Habsburg Grandmaster of the Teutonic Order from 1894 to 1923 * Prince Eugen, Duke of Närke (1865–1947), Swedish painter, art collector, and pat ...

. He studied medicine at the

Albertina The Albertina is a museum in the Innere Stadt (First District) of Vienna, Austria. It houses one of the largest and most important print rooms in the world with approximately 65,000 drawings and approximately 1 million old master prints, as well ...

Königsberg Königsberg (, ) was the historic Prussian city that is now Kaliningrad, Russia. Königsberg was founded in 1255 on the site of the ancient Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teutonic Knights during the Northern Crusades, and was name ...

. He worked in Berlin in 1909/10 and from 1913 on in Landsberg/Warthe (Gorzów Wielkopolski). In 1921 and 1925/26 he worked at the Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Psychatrie in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

, he left Landsberg in 1929 to organize a centralized psychiatric healthcare in the

Province of Brandenburg The Province of Brandenburg (german: Provinz Brandenburg) was a province of Prussia from 1815 to 1945. Brandenburg was established in 1815 from the Kingdom of Prussia's core territory, comprised the bulk of the historic Margraviate of Brandenburg ...

. In 1938, he became the head of the Neuropathology Department of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research. He was a member of the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...

, and admitted to knowingly performing much of his research on the brains of executed prisoners and participated in the

action T4 (German, ) was a campaign of mass murder by involuntary euthanasia in Nazi Germany. The term was first used in post-war trials against doctors who had been involved in the killings. The name T4 is an abbreviation of 4, a street address of t ...

euthanasia program. In a conversation with Leo Alexander, a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

Austrian

neurologist Neurology (from el, νεῦρον (neûron), "string, nerve" and the suffix -logia, "study of") is the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the brain, the spinal c ...

and

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

refugee who was forced to emigrate to the United States during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, Hallervorden said the following of his participation in the T4 program: Along with

Hugo Spatz Hugo Spatz (2 September 1888 – 27 January 1969) was a German neuropathologist. In 1937, he was appointed director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research. He was a member of the Nazi Party, and admitted to knowingly performing much ...

, Hallervorden is credited with the discovery of Hallervorden-Spatz syndrome (now referred to as Pantothenate kinase-associated neurodegeneration). After World War II, Hallervorden became President of the German Neuropathological Society and continued his research at the

Max Planck Institute Max or MAX may refer to: Animals * Max (dog) (1983–2013), at one time purported to be the world's oldest living dog * Max (English Springer Spaniel), the first pet dog to win the PDSA Order of Merit (animal equivalent of OBE) * Max (gorilla) ...

Giessen, Germany Giessen, spelled Gießen in German (), is a town in the German state (''Bundesland'') of Hesse, capital of both the district of Giessen and the administrative region of Giessen. The population is approximately 90,000, with roughly 37,000 univer ...

References

1882 births 1965 deaths People from Gvardeysky District People from East Prussia University of Königsberg alumni German neuroscientists Nazi human subject research Physicians in the Nazi Party {{germany-med-bio-stub

See also

References