Prof. Dr. med. Franz Alexander Lust

Eintrag im »Gedenkbuch« des Bundesarchivs:

• Lust, Franz Alexander
• geboren am 28. Juli 1880
• in Frankfurt a. Main/Hessen-Nassau
• wohnhaft in Baden-Baden und
• in Karlsruhe / Karlsruhe
• INTERNIERUNG/INHAFTIERUNG
• 11. November 1938 - 02. Dezember 1938,
• Dachau, Konzentrationslager
• TODESDATUM
• 23. März 1939
• TODESORT
• Baden-Baden
• Freitod

cf.: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_Stolpersteine_in_Karlsruhe

&: https://gedenkbuch.baden-baden.de/person/lust-prof-dr-franz/ (2. Stolperstein in Baden-Baden)

&: http://gedenkbuch.informedia.de/gedenkbuch.php?PID=12&name=2610

Google Translation:

Prof. Franz Lust

Even many of Karlsruhe do not know that the Karlsruhe Kinderklinik also bears the name "Franz-Lust-Kinderklinik". In the old building at Durlacher Tor, the name was in the entrance, almost ashamed, attached to the wall. He never appeared on letterheads and in official use. But who was that man who gave a name to the Municipal Children's Clinic?

Franz Lust was born on 28 July 1880 as the son of a merchant in Frankfurt. Although he wanted to become a pianist, he studied medicine in Munich, Berlin and Heidelberg for family reasons. In 1904 he received the approval. Initially, Franz Lust was assistant physician at the Städtisches Klinikum in Wiesba den. In 1907 he joined the Kinderklinik Heidelberg as a senior physician.

In 1910 Franz Lust married the soprano Lily, who had known each other for a long time since they had lived with their families in Frankfurt. After the marriage, they moved to Heidelberg, where the couple had a large circle of friends. On the one hand he consisted of colleagues from the Medical Faculty, on the other hand from friends who shared their love for the music. In 1911 son Walter came into the world, 1917 daughter Hilde.

Franz Lust also had great success in his career: In 1913, the university appointed him a private lecturer, and in 1919 he became an extraordinary professor.

In 1914, a great incision took place in the private and professional life: Grand-Duke Luise called Franzlust as a senior physician to the Prussian-Baden cadet school in Karlsruhe, where he was stationed during the First World War in the Kadettenkrankenhaus. Because of his extensive expertise, Franz Lust received high awards during the First World War, according to the Honorary Cross for the war veterans, the war service cross and the knights cross of the imperial-Austrian Franz Joseph Order. After the end of the war, the physician, who was respected and esteemed, was appointed Managing Director of the Association of Infants and Infants, and in the same year he wrote the textbook "Diagnostics and Therapy of Children's Diseases". Here, too, one can see the close connection between the two spouses. In medical literature there is still the "Lust'sche phenomenon". When Grand Duchess Luise provided the Viktoriapensionat at Durlacher Tor in Karlsruhe in 1920 for the establishment of an urgently needed children's hospital, Professor Franz Lust became the head of this clinic. The transformation of the girls' boarding school into a well-equipped children's clinic was only possible thanks to its great commitment. He made the clinic one of the leading in Germany. His scientific experience, but also his careful handling with his patients and their parents, were widely known. He was especially popular with the mothers. One of his ideas included the establishment of the House of Health. There, mothers were able to take part in nursery courses, as well as a crib for children whose mothers were employed.

Together with his wife and children, Franz Lust lived in the mansard flat at the Kinderklinik at Durlacher Tor. In his short free time the enthusiastic pianist and organ player sneaked into the still existing chapel of the Viktoriapensionat and played on the Voitschen organ. This was due to the volume but not always appeal to the nurses.

In 1926 Lust married a house in Karlsruhe Bachstraße 19. During this time, the couple joined together in the Christian faith and were baptized because they no longer had any relations with Judaism. The family felt so more integrated into the Karlsruhe society, although according to later statement by Lily Lust no reservations of the non-Jewish doctors Franz Lust existed. For the sake of the parents, however, the couple had not made this step before marriage.

At that time the chamber music tunes were known in the Haus der Familie Lust, where Lily sang and Franz accompanied them on the piano. Both also contributed to church concerts in the Protestant and Catholic city church as well as in the Protestant church church. Franz Lust was also a member of the theater committee and a member of the Rotary Club. The family was friends with Viktor and Paul Homburger, the Strauss and Courtin. After the establishment of the National Socialists in 1933, friends of the family Franz Lust asked several times to leave Germany in view of the political situation. But he was of the opinion that the sick children needed him and it was his duty as a doctor to stay in Karlsruhe and look after her.

On the 1st of April, 1933, the letter, incomprehensible to Franz Lust, lay on the breakfast table in Bachstrasse. The content: "From today on you can not enter the hospital anymore." Franz Lust was suspended for his Jewish descent because of the "Reichsgesetzes zur Wiederherstellung der Berufsbeamtentums" by the office of the director of the Kinderklinik, although he was neither an official of the city nor of the country , Franz Lust was shocked. His pride, however, forbade him any attempts to reverse the termination. Apparently there was no effort by the colleagues to keep him, perhaps also for fear of his own reprisals. To his wife Franz Lust said this morning: "I do not enter the house anymore, please arrange the things. Get what is still there, but please, before witnesses. "Also an entry of the lawyer Alfred Bopp to suspend the suspension was rejected without comment. Franz Lust continued his work at the apartment in Bachstraße 19. Private practice was always very well attended, also by non-Jewish patients. Furthermore, he was highly respected for his professional skills. The attempts to prevent him from his work however increased. In 1938, he also had to give up the private practice and was forbidden to work. The family was also forced to sell the house. A move to Baden-Baden followed in a vacant apartment of a friendly emigrated couple, Lust had now also requested emigration. Franzlust still brought sick children, even to Baden-Baden, but he refused treatment. He was only too aware of the danger in which the patients were treated with their parents when they were treated by a Jewish doctor. He said to the visitors, "They are punishable, I do not want you to go to prison, I can not do it." But the inaction was hard for Franz Lust. In 1938, the Gestapo arrested Franz Lust in Baden-Baden and took him to the Dachau concentration camp. Lily Lust described the arrest decades later:

"Are you the professor's pleasure?" "Yes, I am." "Then you must come with me!" "Why, I did not do anything!" "All must come today. Do you have a revolver in the house? "" Yes ":" Give it away! "

In Dachau, Franz Lust stayed from 10 November to 12 December (Lily Lust says 9.11 to 3.12). He was released on the basis of an input from the director of the Badische Bank, which stated that Franz Lust had saved the child of a high official of Mussolini during a stay in Italy. Having returned to his wife, Franz Lust could not speak to her about the experiences in the concentration camp, but only said: "When we are out of Germany, I will tell you what was. Now I say nothing. "

But it should not happen. Franz Lust had repeatedly announced the decision to put an end to his life. The reason was the great fear that at the age of 59 a new career would start abroad. He also had difficulties with the English language. "I can not make it through," he said to his wife, because he could not imagine a life that was supposedly useless abroad. Again and again he was held back by her and friends, "try again", they said. When Lily Lust visited her mother-in-law in Frankfurt in March 1939, she received a letter in which her husband announced his suicide. She immediately called the neighbors in Baden-Baden, but it was too late. Already the night before, Franz Lust had put an end to his life. In another letter he took leave of his wife:

"My love! Baden-Baden 22 March 1939 There were thirty happy years, happy in the sense of our bond, happy in the sense that one lived for the other. My strength diminishes. I see more and more every day how little I could handle all that was outside us. You are the more courageous and the stronger. I would be no help to you and no support. You will learn to master life again. One can no longer hang on to it if one has experienced it as I do; If it was felt as filled only where it meant work, duty and care, and where it was possible to sympathize with his beauties. Today it is dead and I see that it is no longer arouse. What am I still and what can I start? I can only fall to the burden, you, the children and the friends who want to help. There can be no more upwards, and the further descent I will not see with my eye. Do not hang up, what was-and once it was beautiful-look like so often when it was cloudy around us, some little blue sky. For you, it will and must be bright again. I thank you for your love. If she had not been, I would have done this step a long time ago; it was all the more to me than I thought you would be. The thought of you has always remained the same in these 30 years, it is also in this last hour as on the first day.

Greet my children, who were always kind and good, and who can help you to endure this worst.

Greetings my good, kind-hearted mother. - I know what I am doing to her, but in a few weeks she would have lost me and be aware that I would be less comfortable as I hope it will be soon. Then you may all think; I will soon be lighter!

I leave nothing written, except a brief letter to the prosecutor, hoping that this will not hinder your departure. Everything is in order and regulated. Let me burn and do not worry where the ashes are buried. We do not both depend on such things. And now, for the last time: good-bye! I love you, as long as I breathe. Your Franz "

Lily Lust managed to escape to New York via Switzerland. She lived there until 1990, then returned to Karlsruhe, where she died in 1992 at the age of 103 years.

Their children had already left Germany in 1933, the son to France, the daughter to Switzerland and later to France to the USA.

In 1950, the Kinderklinik Karlsruhe was given the name Franz-Lust-Kinderklinik. Since 1995, the Franz-Lust-Straße, which precedes the important hospital of Karlsruhe, reminds us of the city hospital.

Many information on Franz Lust has already been compiled by Josef Werner in long talks with Lily Lust and published in his book Hakenkreuz und Judenstern, The Fate of Karlsruhe Jews in the Third Reich 1988.