When researching my family history, I occasionally encounter an ancestor whose life deserves considerably more attention than a simple collection of names, dates and places. One such person is my great-great-grandfather, Dr. med. Jürgen Christian Georg Berendsen , born on 19 February 1855 in Schleswig and deceased on 19 April 1932 in Berlin. He lived for seventy-seven years, through a remarkable period of German history. Born in the Duchy of Schleswig before the German Empire existed, he witnessed the unification of Germany, the rapid development of modern medicine, the First World War, the collapse of the monarchy and the establishment of the Weimar Republic. His professional career unfolded during an era in which surgery, antisepsis and medical education were undergoing fundamental changes. But what interests me most is not simply the historical period in which he lived. It is the increasingly detailed picture of the man himself: a child described as physically fragile, a univ...
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