Dr. Ludwig Guttmann (1899-1980)

Ludwig Guttman 1953, The Canadian Jewish News.

Ludwig Guttmann was a German-born Jewish neurosurgeon who founded the Paralympic Games. In 1930, after receiving his medical degree, he worked as a prominent neurosurgeon in Germany. When the Nazis took power, Jewish doctors were dismissed and Guttmann was forced to leave his post. In 1937 he became the director of Neurology and Neurosurgery at the Jewish Hospital in Breslau, Germany.

Following the violent Nazi attacks in 1938, Guttmann ordered that anyone seeking refuge would be admitted to the hospital. The next day he had to justify sixty-four new patients to the Gestapo. He saved all but three men from being sent to concentration camps.

"He took the Gestapo from bed to bed justifying each man's medical condition. Apparently he also pulled faces and grimaced at the patients from behind the Gestapo's back, signalling to them to pull the same expressions and then saying, 'Look at this man; he's having a fit.'!" (Eva Loeffler, daughter of Ludwig Guttmann, National Paralympic Heritage Trust)

With the changing political climate, Guttmann knew he and his family had to escape Germany.

"...In 1939 the German government ordered my father to go to Lisbon. He was to treat a good friend of the Portuguese dictator, Salazar... On the way back he stopped in London and met people from the Society for the Protection of Science and Learning, an organisation that was helping Jewish academics get hold of visas... and he had been offered a research post at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford." (Eva Loeffler, daughter of Ludwig Guttmann, National Paralympic Heritage Trust)

Later in 1939 they immigrated to England and he began research at Oxford.

In 1943, the British government asked Guttmann to become the director of the new National Spinal Injury Centre at Stoke Mandeville Hospital.

"...it was in Autumn 1943, that it was decided to set up a new spinal unit at the former Ministry of Pensions Hospital Stoke Mandeville, Aylesbury, to deal with the increased number of spinal-cord casualities anticipated with the opening of the Second Front planned for the early summer of 1944." (Ludwig Guttmann, Western Mail)

Guttman agreed to lead the specialized center and was given autonomy over running it; his basic principle was a radical approach - provide comprehensive care from the beginning throughout all stages of treatment, incorporating sports therapy to build physical strength, self-confidence, and independence.

Ludwig Guttmmann teaching physiotherapists 1947, Mandeville Legacy.

Lugwig Guttmann with nursing staff 1953, Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies.

"Thus began the most fascinating and rewarding work of rescuing these men and women from the human scrap-heap, and helping them to regain that dignity which is the rightful heritage of every human being." (Ludwig Guttmann, Western Mail)

"He [Guttmann] was a very inspiring man and made both patients and staff feel wanted and worthwhile. He motivated other people and his enthusiasm was infectious. He made people believe that they were part of something bigger than themselves, so staff and patients cooperated fully. I have experienced this personally. He taught patients and staff and instituted research at all levels. He recognised the value of physiotherapy and at any early stage incorporated sport into rehabilitation." (John Silver, British Medical Journal)

Thesis

Background