[The speech on Bier as a problem. Arthur Israel (1883-1969) and his struggle to come to terms with the Berlin...

Arthur Israel was associated with August Bier's University Surgical Clinic in Berlin from 1910 to 1933, in the end as the head of the downgraded (outpatient) clinic. After he was forced out of his Berlin post, Israel was department head in the Israelitisches Krankenhaus Hamburg until he emigrated to the U.S. in 1940, settling in New York. In 1960, he returned to Germany. Based on papers from Israel's estate, the article describes his life stations and his struggle to cope with his time at the Berlin university clinic. The focus is on a meeting in Berlin in 1961. His departure from the usual practice of heaping praise on the clinic and its former head marks the beginning of a never-published critique of conditions in the clinic. The ambivalence reflected in his evaluation is in stark contrast to the traditional cultivation of "Bier's School".