Schoenfeld, walther

(¤ 1888, † 1977) Dermatologist. Born in Gersfeld in the Rhön, he was most strongly influenced by the humanistic grammar school (Johanneum) in Liegnitz. He received his dermatological training from 1912-1920 in Würzburg under Karl Zieler, first as an assistant doctor and later as a senior physician. In 1917 he received his postdoctoral lecturing qualification with a topic on early neurological symptoms of syphilis. 1920 Call to the University Dermatology Clinic in Greifswald. In 1935 he was called to the Dermatology Clinic of the University of Heidelberg as the successor to Siegfried Bettmann, who had been forced out of university service by the Nazis for racist reasons. He took an early interest in the history of his subject and in 1941 published a book on the syphilis epidemics on the German coasts in the 19th century. In 1945 Schönfeld, who had not been a member of the NSDAP, was not dismissed and was able to continue teaching until his retirement in 1959. During this time, a historical work on "Women in Occidental Medicine" (1947) and especially the "Short History of Dermatology and its Reflection in Cultural History" (1954) was written. Schönfeld expanded the Achelis Library of Medical History and successfully established an Institute for the History of Medicine. Schönfeld was almost 71 years old when he handed over the clinic to Josef Hämel, his former co-chief physician with Karl Zieler, on 1 April 1959.