Berhard Gottlieb

BERNHARD GOTTLIEB In recognition of the outstanding scientific services of Galicia-born Austrian Bernhard Gottlieb (1885 – 1950), who in the 1930s was amongst the world’s best-known dentists as a specialist in parodontosis, the University Clinic of Dentistry named itself the "Bernhard Gottlieb University Clinic of Dentistry". Bernhard Gottlieb graduated in Vienna in 1911, was professor of dentistry at the University of Vienna between 1931 and 1938, and emigrated – excluded from the university for "racist reasons" – to the USA (Dallas/Texas), where he was added to the Hall of Fame at the Baylor College of Dentistry in Dallas in 1982, following a successful career.

Gottlieb’s importance can be seen in his successes in basic research, but above all in his love for his roots. His greatest personal effort, which placed him in the same group with numerous pathfinders of Austrian dentistry, predestined him to be, as a representative of these important people of our homeland, the name giver of the University Clinic for Dentistry, Oral Hygiene and Orthodontics. This honour is also grateful recognition of all such treasured Austrians, who – for whatever reason – had to leave their beloved homeland in the murk of the Second World War.

14.06.1885

Born in Kuty (Galicia)

1905

School leaving examination in Radautz

1906

Studied medicine at the University of Vienna

11.12.1911

Graduated Dr. med

Subsequently studied dentistry and worked in the dental surgery of his future father-in-law, Dr. Siegmund Herz. Attended evening science classes at the Anatomical Institute under Julius Tandler

from 1914

Served in the Imperial and Royal Army in the First World War

1914 - 1916 Head of a mobile patient ward

1916 – 1918 Head of a mobile dental outpatient clinic

During the War, collects jaw specimens, which would later form the basis for his famous histological studies.

After the War, surgery in Türkenstraße 13 and creation of a laboratory in the house next door, Türkenstraße 15

1921

Appointment as private lecturer at the Faculty of Medicine.

Gottlieb does his most important work in the years that follow with his students Balint Orban and Rudolf Kronfeld. Basic research for the development of parodontology and orthodontics. Has occasionally controversial discussions with scientists in Berlin (Oskar Weski), but also here in Vienna with the head of the Orthodontics Department, Albin Oppenheim.

1930

Appointed university professor under Prof. Pichler

1926

7th International Dental Congress in Philadelphia. The Viennese representatives, Pichler, Gottlieb, Orban, Kronfeld and Stein, earn high recognition for the results of their basic research. The president of the congress, William Logan, who is also Vice-Chancellor of the Loyola University in Chicago, invites Gottlieb to America to set up laboratories based on the Vienna model. Gottlieb sends his students Orban and later Kronfeld, who lay the foundations for their later careers in America through this cooperation.

1938

The anti-Semitic "cleansing policy" sweeps 75% of the intellectual elite of the medical faculty out of the country. Amongst them are Gottlieb, Orban, Oppenheim, Sicher, Weinmann and Stein. Gottlieb finds it hard to leave Europe behind and would never really feel at home in America.

1940

Works at the Kellogg Foundation in Ann Arbor, Michigan, then as guest professor at the University of Michigan

1941

Professor of Oral Pathology and head of the Department for Dental Research at the Baylor College in Dallas, Texas.

Cut off from his former colleagues, short on resources and supported by poorly trained assistants, Gottlieb was only able to continue his studies with great effort.

1950

Gottlieb dies at the age of 65 in Dallas, Texas

(Biographical data compiled by DDr. Johannes Kirchner, Director of the Dental Museum of the BGZMK)