Emanuel Mendel

Emanuel Mendel was born in Bunzlau, today's Boleslawiec, in Lower Silesia on October 28, 1839, the first son of seven children of the Jewish merchant Wolf Mendel and his wife Rosalia Guhrauer. At the age of 12, Mendel already attended the Gymnasium in Liegnitz due to his outstanding scholastic achievements. Kurt Mendel later wrote of his father, "even as a young boy he was the pride of his teachers in the school of his native Bunzlau as a diligent, striving boy." After graduating from high school at 16, Mendel studied medicine in Breslau, Berlin and Vienna. Even then, Emanuel Mendel was able to breathe international air through study trips to Vienna, England, France and Italy. Later, he became known and highly respected worldwide for his work. He was an honorary member of many societies abroad, in Belgium, Italy, even in Tokyo and at the Russian Tsar's court. While still a student, Mendel became a member of the "Old Wroclaw Fraternity of the Raczeks," founded in 1807, from which lifelong friendships grew. From his student days, according to his later wife Susanne Mendel, Emanuel Mendel often told little anecdotes "in his childish sunny way when talking about his youth." Because his beloved mother died when Mendel was only 13, he was raised mostly by his maternal grandmother. His father married two more times.

Doctorate in 1860 on "De operationibus ad sanandam epilepsiam adhibitis," Emanuel Mendel was licensed to practice medicine a year later. Still working as a staff physician during his military service, he managed a rural medical practice in Pankow. Eight years later, Mendel opened a private mental hospital at Pankow's Breite Strasse 18/18a. Mendel lectured in Berlin from 1873, having habilitated in the same year. Mendel was also a professor at the Friedrich-Wilhelms University in Berlin, since 1949 Humboldt University, from 1884 and became a psychiatrist highly respected in international circles.  His lectures were packed because he always knew how to combine scientific theory with medical practice. He set the course in research that is still effective today: for example, he was committed to the separation of psychiatry and neurology. At the same time, the inclusion of scientific approaches and methods was important to him. As a founding member and director of the "Neurologisches Zentralblatt" (1882-1907), Mendel expressed his thoughts to a broader scientific audience and published writings on the subject. These include "The Progressive Paralysis of the Insane" (1880), "The Mania" (1881), and the "Guide to Psychiatry," which was even translated into English in 1902. As a practicing physician, he was warm-hearted and always had an open ear for his patients, to whom he "mostly rode on horseback from village to village," according to son Kurt Mendel.

"I a 14-year-old immature schoolgirl, he for his 24 years a serious, mature man." - In 1863, Emanuel Mendel met his future wife Susanne Lindon in Berlin. In July 1870, Susanne Lindon was 17 years old, Emanuel Mendel "confessed his love on a beautiful summer evening while walking together in the palace garden." After their marriage in 1871, Mendel settled with her at Breite Strasse 44 in Pankow. The Mendels' estate was often well frequented by guests. Through his many fields of activity, Emanuel Mendel had numerous acquaintances and some close friendships, which he maintained until his death. His wife took an interest in Mendel's professional career. She often accompanied him on business trips, but the couple also traveled extensively in their private lives, the first being to Vienna in 1871 on the occasion of their honeymoon. Mendel's children were also born in Pankow. Fritz Mendel (born 1872), Kurt Mendel (1874-1946) and his twin sister, who died when she was only five months old, Trude Mendel (born 1875) and Lotte Mendel in 1883. The Mendel children enjoyed "A happy joyful youth," playing "diligent sports on the ponds, tennis court, etc." The sons followed in his professional footsteps and became well-known figures in the world of medicine. They loved their father very much. His son Kurt Mendel wrote in his obituary, "On the morning of June 23, I, who was proud to call myself his son, student and collaborator, closed my eyes to him forever, bid him farewell forever."

Emanuel Mendel was also involved in politics. His wife Susanne Mendel wrote in a commemorative volume about him: "He often emphasized [...] how he counted it his greatest honor to enjoy the trust of his constituents." Thus he was a district council representative for Niederbarnim and from 1877-1881 a member of the Reichstag for Potsdam-Niederbarnim. He was politically active for the German Progressive Party. Here he was able to combine his professional and political interests. He is primarily credited with the version concerning the sanity of persons (related to the incapacitation of the "mentally ill") in the German Civil Code. Politically, it was always health issues that preoccupied him. His liberal spirit was also reflected in the establishment of the "Mendel Foundation" at the Pankow Hospital. The protection of children from child labor, as well as that of the unemployed who were limited by their illnesses, were of great concern to him. Nevertheless, Mendel's marriage and also his professional life were always influenced by the political situation of the time and by some of Mendel's wartime missions, because, according to Susanne Mendel, "he was entirely a soldier in the war and if a wound at Le Bourget on October 30 had not forced him to return home, he would not have been given back to me an hour before peace was concluded." It is also clear from many letters to his wife Susanne Lindon during his military service that he was a German patriot and looked to Germany for his fatherland. A fact which, in anticipation of the horrors of National Socialism in the next century, seems particularly bitter for people of Jewish origin.

In his obituary of Emanuel Mendel, colleague Paul Adolf Näcke emphasized not only his professional and political successes, "all of which were characterized by great clarity, calm, great experience and thoroughness," but above all his character, for which "his patients and students idolized him." "To his numerous friends," Näcke said, "he was a faithful advisor, always kind, helpful and true." His private life was marked by his love of work. For Emanuel Mendel, this by no means meant turning away from things far from work that made life more enjoyable. His family, as well as his many travels, made his life excitingly beautiful. He indulged in smoking and gambling as "his only hobbies," to the displeasure of his wife. After his death, his son Kurt spoke of him as an "amiable, philanthropic being" who made "his cheerful, sunny disposition, his great modesty, his confidence for the good in all difficult situations of life, the security, calm and wise understanding that radiated from his person, his delicious humor standing above things, his touching love for his wife and children" felt by everyone he met. There is not much to suggest that Emanuel Mendel lived out his parents' Judaism religiously. Rather, he most likely saw himself as an atheist. Nevertheless, in 1893, as a political response to the increasingly strong anti-Semitism, he founded the "Central-Verein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens" (Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith), of which he was a board member and which was to defend the civic rights of Jews. 

Until his death in 1907, Emanuel Mendel was committed to his ideals both professionally and politically. After his last trip with his wife to Merano, his illness announced itself more and more. On June 23, 1907, Emanuel Mendel died at the age of 68 in Berlin-Pankow of a severe heart and kidney ailment with the last words to his children "Be good to your mother." He was buried in the Gerichtstraße Urn Cemetery in Berlin. Numerous friends, family, as well as professional and political companions and many of his students attended the funeral service. With many obituaries and commemorative speeches, a memorial was set to this so many-sided man. The fact that his body was the only one of Pankow citizens to be laid out in the great hall of the town hall and also that his grave was designated as an "honorary grave of the city of Berlin" speaks for the fact that his political, professional and personal reputation continued long after his death. This is also reflected in his epitaph: "What has passed, does not return, but went it down shining, Leuchtet's long still back!" and so one can understand the words of his wife very well: "A noble man has gone with him."