Philosopher in times of war: Theodor Lessing as a hospital doctor

摘要

During the First World War, the German philosopher Theodor Lessing (1872-1933) for some time served as a doctor in an emergency hospital. It was set up in the buildings of the former Prussian military academy in Hanover, the city in which Lessing was born, where he lived and worked as a Privatdozent of philosophy at the local Technische Hochschule. Lessing volunteered for the job: as a declared pacifist he refused to be involved in actual hostilities, but on the other hand he felt social pressure lying so heavily upon him that he could not keep completely aloof of the war effort. 'I could heal wounds instead of inflict wounds', Lessing wrote about his post as an army doctor.~1 He was accepted for the job even though he was not fully qualified: Lessing had completed his medical studies but for the final exams. But he never took these final exams as - after the death of his father - his very wealthy maternal grandfather promised him an inheritance that would bring him both financial independence and relieve him of the need for a paid job. Hence, he cheerfully abandoned his medical studies, and followed his literary ambitions. But his grandfather did not keep his promise, so eventually Lessing needed a paid job after all - but not in medicine, which he had only read reluctantly because his father, himself a family doctor in Hanover, had forced him to. Still, for the military authorities his aborted medical training sufficed for the job in the emergency hospital, as a great number of doctors was needed in times of war.