death_place birth_place nationality field birth_date residence image article_title birth_name
berlin , west germany barmen , german empire german surgery prosthetics 03 july 1875 german west germany empire , weimar republic , nazi germany , bundesarchiv bild 183-r45871 , prof. dr. ferdinand sauerbruch.jpg ferdinand sauerbruch
 ernst ferdinand sauerbruch
ferdinand sauerbruch

ernst ferdinand sauerbruch -lrb- 3 july 1875 -- 2 july 1951 -rrb- was a german surgeon .
sauerbruch was born in barmen -lrb- now a district of wuppertal -rrb- , germany .
he 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 .
he 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 .
this invention was a breakthrough in thorax medicine and allowed heart and lung operations to take place at greatly reduced risk .
as a battlefield surgeon during world war i , he developed several new types of limb prostheses , which for the first time enabled simple movements to be executed with the remaining muscle of the patient .
sauerbruch worked at the ludwig maximilians university of munich from 1918 to 1927 on surgical techniques and diets for treating tuberculosis .
from 1928 to 1949 , he was the head of the surgical department at the charité in berlin , attaining international fame for his innovative operations .
because of his experience and extraordinary skills he quickly attained an international reputation and operated on many prominent patients .
at the same time he was well known for his uncompromising and passionate dedication to all patients independent of their social , political or ethnical backgrounds .
before world war ii , the nazi government awarded him the german national prize for art and science .
sauerbruch position towards the nazi government is ambiguous and the subject of debate .
in his position he was clearly in contact with the political elite but he was never a member of and did not support the political objectives of the nsdap .
he was , however , 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 .
while he had accepted the `` german nationalpreis '' , a short-lived german alternative to the nobel prize , he also publicly spoke out for people who were prosecuted -lrb- e.g. liebermann -rrb- .
he was part of the so-called `` mittwochgesellschaft '' , a group of scientists that included critical voices and was later arrested because his son peter had ties to claus von stauffenberg .
in 1937 , he became a member of the newly established `` reichsforschungsrat '' -lrb- reich research council -rrb- that supported `` research projects '' of the ss , including experiments on prisoners in the concentration camps .
as head of the general medicine branch of the rrc , he personally approved the funds which financed august hirts experiments with mustard gas on prisoners at natzweiler concentration camp from 1941 until 1944 .
however he was one of the few university professors who publicly spoke out against the ns-euthanasia program t4 .
in 1942 , he became surgeon general to the army .
in mid-september 1943 , sauerbruch was awarded the knight 's cross of the war merit cross with swords .
on 12 october 1945 , he was charged by the allies for having contributed to the nazi dictatorship , but not convicted for lack of evidence .
sauerbruch stayed at his hospital throughout the whole war , his operating theatre was literally taken by the red army in 1945 .
late in life , he became demented and was dismissed from the charité because he continued to perform surgeries on patients , some with uncertain results .
his colleagues detected the errors but were unable to stop him because of his fame and power -lrb- for an account , see youngson , 1997 -rrb- .
sauerbruch died in berlin at the age of seventy-five .
his life was portrayed in the german 1954 film `` sauerbruch -- das war mein leben '' , which is based on his memoirs `` das war mein leben '' , although the validity of these memoirs -lrb- written by the journalist hans rudolf berndorff -rrb- is contested by sauerbruch 's disciple rudolf nissen .
he is buried in berlin-wannsee .
a high school in grossröhrsdorf in saxony in modern germany bears his name .
his oldest son hans sauerbruch -lrb- 1910 -- 1996 -rrb- became a painter ; he lived in berlin , rome and after the war in konstanz where his son , the architect matthias sauerbruch , was born .
ernest 's second son peter sauerbruch -lrb- 5 june 1913 -- 29 september 2010 -rrb- 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 14 .
panzer-division and leader of a kampfgruppe `` sauerbruch '' .
he lived in hamburg and munich .
the third son , friedrich sauerbruch , was a surgeon as well .
he assisted his father and was actually responsible for the termination of his fathers activities at the charité -lrb- which had become too risky due to his illness -rrb- .
he lived in berlin and later in moers .
