Herman Kiefer
Herman Kiefer (* November 19, 1825 Sulzburg, † October 11, 1911 in Detroit ) was a German -American physician and politician and a diplomat of the United States.
Life
Germany
After attending high school in Freiburg, Mannheim and Karlsruhe Herman Kiefer studied at the universities of Freiburg, Heidelberg, Prague and Vienna medicine. In Heidelberg he became in 1845 a member of the Corps Suevia .. Among his academic teachers were Friedrich Arnold, Jacob Henle, Johann von Oppolzer, Louis Stromeyer, Franz von Pitha and Friedrich Wilhelm von Scanzoni. By the end of his studies, he took an active part in the political developments in Baden, which led to the Baden Revolution. He was on September 12, 1847 a deputy to Offenburg Assembly and the Grand National Assembly on 19 March 1848. He was elected Chairman of the Upper Rhine circle of the Patriotic Association and on March 26, 1848 Chairman of the People's Assembly in Freiburg. On May 12 1849 he was a delegate to the national convention of Baden to Offenburg.
He graduated with a doctorate to the Dr. med and put on 29 May 1849 in Karlsruhe before the State Examination Commission, the medical state examination with distinction. On the same day he joined as a volunteer in the Emmendinger regiment of Baden revolution troops, to whose regiment he was appointed physician immediately. On June 5, 1849, he was appointed Chairman of the Department of Surgery and Obstetrics of the Republic of Baden.
As a regimental doctor, he participated in the battles of Philipsburg on 20 June 1849, Ubstadt on June 23, 1849 in part. On June 29, 1849, he was elected as the successor of Lorenz Brentano in the triumvirate, the election but rejected from.
After the defeat of the revolution, he fled on July 10, 1849 initially to Strasbourg. Here he was detained because the French authorities intended to grant the Baden Revolution refugees asylum. He managed to escape from prison. On August 18, 1849, he left Europe on a ship and arrived in New York City on September 19, 1849 as a free man.
United States
In October 1849, Hermann Kiefer settled as a general practitioner in Detroit. In 1859 he was appointed city physician of Detroit. As a staff physician at Harper Hospital, he took care of the medical care of veterans of the Civil War. In March 1889 he was elected a member of the Board of the University of Michigan and was chairman of the medical committee of the university. In June 1902 he was appointed professor emeritus of practical medicine at the University of Michigan. He has published numerous articles in medical journals. He was a member of the Michigan State Medical Society, the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Medicine.
His particular interest was educational issues in Detroit. He was in 1861 one of the founders of the local German - American Seminary, whose treasurer and chairman, he was in the years 1861-1872. Between 1866 and 1867 he was a member of the Education Committee and from 1882 to 1887 the City Library Commission of the City of Detroit.
Since its founding in 1854, Kiefer was a staunch opponent of slavery, a member of the Republican Party. In 1854 he was chairman of the German Republican executive committees of Michigan. From 1854 to 1880 he was in every presidential campaign Republican speaker of the German population in Michigan and took effect on the delegation of Michigan fully to support and Rutherford Hayes. In 1872 he was Presidential Elector of Michigan and in 1876 a delegate to the Republican National Convention of Cincinnati. In July 1883 he was appointed in Szczecin of U.S. President Chester A. Arthur to the U.S. Consul and returned for the first time after 24 years in his German homeland. During his tenure, he has authored numerous consular reports on the political, social and economic conditions in Germany. After the election of Grover Cleveland as U.S. president, he gave up the office and returned to Detroit.
From 1871 to 1883 he was vice president of the Wayne County Savings Bank, Detroit, and from 1883 to 1892 director of the Michigan Mutual Life Insurance Company, Detroit.
Kiefer was an excellent speaker. So he pulled up beside many campaign speeches in 1859 in Detroit to commemorate the 100th birthday of Friedrich Schiller and on March 18, 1898 for the 50th anniversary of the battles in front of the Berlin City Palace during the German Revolution 1848/1849 was the guest speaker.
In old age of 84 years, he returned in 1910 for a second time to return to Germany to participate in July 1910 in Heidelberg on the 100th foundation celebration of his corps Suevia.
Family
Herman Kiefer was the only son of the physician Conrad Kiefer and his wife Friederike born Schweyckert. His maternal grandfather was the director of the Botanical Garden of Karlsruhe. On 21 July 1850 he married Franciska throat, with whom he had been engaged in Germany. You and jaw mother were traveled after him in the United States. Even jaw father came to Detroit in 1851. However, his parents returned after a short residence in Detroit to Germany.
From his marriage with Franciska throat seven sons and two daughter were born. Two sons and one daughter died in infancy. The son of Guy Lincoln pine was an important hygienist. He was for many years medical officer of Detroit and was built in 1927 for State Health Commissioner appointed.
Awards
- The Pine Gate Memorial to Detroit Crematorium and a bronze plaque in the pine - niche of the columbarium remember Herman Kiefer.
- In his honor, the Herman Kiefer Hospital of Detroit in 1911 was named.
Writings
- Liberty Writings of Dr. Hermann Kiefer, Chairman of the Freiburg meeting, in 1917, editor Warren Washburn Florer (with picture, resume and biography, digitized )
- Essay on Trichina. In: Detroit Review of Medicine and Pharmacy, Volume I, 1866, p 101
- Surgery Within the Last Fifty Years, 1889
- Extension of European Trade in the Orient
- American Trade with Stettin
- How Germany is Governed
- Laboratory in Europe