Children's Sanatorium Zell - Prof. Dr. med. Erich Benjamin

Erich Benjamin was a German pediatrician, curative psychiatrist and founder of child and adolescent psychiatry.

Moritz Walter Erich Benjamin was born on April 23, 1880 in Berlin as the fourth of five children of the banker Max Benjamin and his wife Therese,née Marcussohn.He attended the " Königliche Wilhelm Gymnasium " in Berlin. After graduating from high school, he studied medicine in Berlin and Heidelberg. In 1905 he received his doctorate in medicine in Leipzig. In order to become a pediatrician, he studied at the Vienna University Children's Hospital, in Berlin and in Dusseldorf, where the young physician worked as a volunteer assistant. In 1914 he was habilitated in Munich and called up for military service. From 1914 to 1916 he served as a battalion doctor on the Western Front. After his discharge due to illness in 1916, awarded the EK 2, he took over the management of the Munich University Children's Polyclinic.In 1921 Erich Benjamin acquired the Zell Children's Sanatorium in Ebenhausen, which had been built and managed by the pediatrician Dr. Spielberg in 1910. Erich Benjamin ran the children's home until 1935. In the same year, his teaching license at the University of Munich and his license to practice medicine were revoked. In 1937, he sold the children's sanatorium far below its market value. In 1939, their daughter Renate, who was training to be a nurse for infants in Great Britain, followed her parents. Erich Benjamin tried to regain a foothold in his profession in his new homeland - without the hoped-for success. He died on April 22, 1943 in Baltimore at the age of 63.