[Fredy Quadfasel (1902-1981) : Neuropsychiatrist, politically persecuted NS opponent and his impact in American...

The physician and psychologist Dr. Fredy Quadfasel, born in East Prussia, was trained in neuropsychiatry by Kurt Goldstein in Frankfurt/Main and by Karl Bonhoeffer at the Charité in Berlin. After he was detained by the Gestapo due to political opposition, he was probably denounced for offending the so-called Malicious Practices Act (Heimtückegesetz) from March 1933, and imprisoned for 2-3 months. In 1934/35 he emigrated to the USA via England and Canada, where he initially ran a neuropsychiatry office in New York. Very soon he was able to take on an academic post and became an instructor in neurology. After medical military service in 1944-1947 at the Cushing General Hospital in Framingham near Boston, he was appointed head of the neurological department. Later he moved on to the Boston Veterans Administration Hospital. His academic positions included being an instructor in neurology at Harvard Medical School and associate professor at the Boston University School of Medicine. He had a considerable impact on neurology, especially on the locally emerging discipline of neuropsychology represented by Harold Goodglass and Norman Geschwind. Despite a lack of personal records of Quadfasel, a chequered reconstruction of his life and work was possible due to many archival documents with which it was possible to trace the career of a highly esteemed neurologist in Germany and the USA.