Ernst Kretschmer
Ernst Kretschmer
Born	October 8, 1888 Wüstenrot
Died	February 8, 1964 (aged 75) Tübingen
Nationality	Germany
Fields	psychiatry
Institutions	Marburg University
Known for	typology

Ernst Kretschmer (* October 8, 1888 in Wüstenrot near Heilbronn; † February 8, 1964 in Tübingen) Prof. Dr. med. Dr. phil. h.c., was a German psychiatrist who researched the human constitution and established a typology.

Life[link]

He attended Cannstatt Hochschule, one of the oldest Latin schools in Stuttgart. From 1906 to 1912 he studied theology, medicine, and philosophy at the universities of Tübingen, Munich and Hamburg. From 1913 he was assistant of Robert Gaupp in Tübingen, where he received his habilitation in 1918. He continued as assistant medical director until 1926.

Kretschmer was the first to describe the persistent vegetative state which has also been called Kretschmer's syndrome. Another medical term coined after him is Kretschmer’s sensitive paranoia.[1] And between 1915 and 1921 he developed a differential diagnosis between schizophrenia and manic depression.

Kretschmer is also known for developing a classification system that can be seen as one of the earliest exponents of a constitutional (the total plan or philosophy on which something is constructed) approach. His classification system was based on three main body types: asthenic/leptosomic (thin, small, weak), athletic (muscular, large–boned), and pyknic (stocky, fat). (The athletic category was later combined into the category asthenic/leptosomic.) Each of these body types was associated with certain personality traits and, in a more extreme form, psychopathologies. Kretschmer believed that pyknic persons were friendly, interpersonally dependent, and gregarious. In a more extreme version of these traits, this would mean for example that the obese are predisposed toward manic-depressive illness. Thin types were associated with introversion and timidity. This was seen as a milder form of the negative symptoms exhibited by withdrawn schizophrenics. However, the idea of the association of body types with personality traits is no longer influential in personality theory.

In 1926 he became the director of the psychiatric clinic at Marburg University.

Kretschmer was a founding member of the AÄGP (General medical society for psychotherapy) which was founded on January 12, 1927. He was the president of AÄGP from 1929. In 1933 he resigned from the AÄGP for political reasons, but started to support the SS and signed the "Vow of allegiance of the professors of the German universities and high-schools to Adolph Hitler and the National Socialistic state."^[1] He did not oppose the eugenic laws of Nazi Germany.

From 1946 until 1959, Kretschmer was the director of the psychiatric clinic of the University of Tübingen.

Character styles[link]

Kretschmer divided personality into two "constitutional groups": Schizothymic, which contain a "Psychaesthetic proportion" between sensitive and cold poles, and Cyclothymic which contain a "Diathetic" proportion between gay and sad. The Schizoids consist of the Hyperesthetic (sensitive) and Anesthetic (Cold) characters, and the Cycloids consist of the Depressive (or "melancholic") and Hypomanic characters.

Works[link]

• Wahnbildung und manisch-depressiver Symptomenkomplexe, Berlin, (1914, dissertation) (development of delusion and manic-depressive symptom complex)
• Der sensitive Beziehungswahn, Berlin(1918), 2. Aufl. Berlin (1927), habilitation) (the sensitive relative delusion)
• Physique and Character (International Library of Psychology) (1931), Routledge, ISBN 0-415-21060-7
• Medizinische Psychologie, (1922) (medical psychology)
• Hysteria, Reflex, and Instinct, Leipzig (1923) Greenwood, ISBN 0-8371-5754-4
• Die Veranlagung zu seelischen Störungen, mit Ferdinand Adalbert Kehrer (1883–1966), Berlin (1924) (the disposition for psychic disturbances)
• Störungen des Gefühlslebens, Temperamente, Handbuch der Geisteskrankheiten. Band 1. Berlin (1928) (psychic disturbances and temperaments)
• The Psychology of Men of Genious (International Library of Psychology), Berlin (1929), Routledge, ISBN 0-415-21061-5
• Das apallische Syndrom, in Ztschr. Neurol. Psychiat, 169,576-579 (1940) (the apallic syndrome)
• Psychotherapeuthische Studien, Stuttgart (1949) (psychotherapeutic studies)
• Robert Gaupp zum Gedächtnis, Deutsche medizinische Wochenschrift, Stuttgart (1953) 78: 1713. (in memory of Robert Gaupp)
• Gestufte Aktivhypnose - Zweigleisige Standardmethode, In: V. E. Frankl, V.v. Gebsattel and J.H. Schultz, Hrsg.: Handbuch der Neurosenlehre und Psychotherapie, Band IV, pp. 130–141. Urban & Schwarzenberg, München-Berlin (1959)
• Gestalten und Gedanken (1963) (characters and thoughts)

See also[link]

• Posture (psychology)

References[link]

• Ideology and ethics. The perversion of German psychiatrists’ ethics by the ideology of National Socialism. by L. Singer, Eur. Psychiatry 1998
• Un apercu sur la psychiatrie sociale allemande en 1934. by J. Bieder, Ann. Med. Psychol. 1996
• Priwitzer, Martin, Ernst Kretschmer und das Wahnproblem, (Ernst Kretschmer and the problem of delusion) Dissertation, 2004; published - Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2007, xiv + 314 S.
• Millon, T., Grossman, S., Millon, C., Meagher, S & Ramnath, R. (2004). Personality disorders in modern life (2nd edition). Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

References[link]

1. ^ (In German: "Bekenntnis der Professoren an den deutschen Universitäten und Hochschulen zu Adolf Hitler und dem nationalsozialistischen Staat" Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich. Wer war was vor und nach 1945. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Zweite aktualisierte Auflage, Frankfurt am Main 2005, S. 339.

External links[link]

• Images in Psychiatry: Ernst Kretschmer (1888–1964)

Ernst Jandl and Friederike Mayröcker, public reading in Vienna, Austria, in 1974.

Jandl's Grave on the Zentralfriedhof in Vienna.

Ernst Jandl (August 1, 1925, Vienna, Austria – June 9, 2000, Vienna) was an Austrian writer, poet, and translator.

Poetry[link]

Influenced by Dada he started to write experimental poetry, first published in the journal "Neue Wege" ("New Ways") in 1952.

He was the life partner of Friederike Mayröcker. In 1973 he co-founded the "Grazer Autorenversammlung" in Graz, became its vice president in 1975 and was its president from 1983 to 1987.

In his poems are characterized by German language word play, often at the level of single characters or phonemes. For example, his famous univocalic poem "Ottos Mops" (in English, "Otto's Pug") uses only the vowel "o". Of course, poems like this cannot easily be translated into other languages.

Most of his poems are better heard than read. His lectures were always known as very impressive events, because of the particular way he pronounced his poems. Poems like "schtzngrmm" (his version of the word "Schützengraben" which describes the trenches of the World War I) can be understood only if read correctly. "schtzngrmm" is an experimental poem in which he tells the sounds of war only with combinations of letters, which sound like gunfires or detonating missiles.

He has translated Gertrude Stein, Robert Creeley's The Island, and John Cage's Silence.

Some other of his best known poems are "lichtung" (also known as "lechts & rinks", in English "left and right") and "kneiernzuck".

An example of a short poem, written in English:
three wives^[1]

i never remember my second wife
i never remember my third wife
i always remember what i always remember
ain't ever even had a first wife

Notes[link]

1. ^ three wives, from Ernst Jandl, stanzen. 1992. ISBN 3-630-86784-7

Awards[link]

• 1974: Georg-Trakl-Preis (see Georg Trakl)
• 1982: Anton-Wildgans-Preis
• 1984: Georg-Büchner-Preis (see Georg Büchner)
• 1984: Großer Österreichischer Staatspreis für Literatur
• 1987: Kassel Literary Prize
• 1988: Deutscher Kleinkunstpreis
• 1993: Kleist-Preis
• 1995: Friedrich-Hölderlin-Preis (see Friedrich Hölderlin)

Poems[link]

• "Ottos Mops" 20. November 1963;
• "Laut und Luise" 1966;
• "sprechblasen" 1968;
• "der künstliche baum" 1970;
• "idyllen" 1989;
• "Aus dem wirklichen Leben" 1999;
• Reft and Light (Providence, RI: Burning Deck, 2000); translated from the German by various American poets, ISBN 1-886224-34-X

Books[link]

• lechts und rinks. gedichte, statements, peppermints; Luchterhand, ISBN 3-630-62043-4, in a poor translation: "light and reft. poems, statements, peppermints"
• laut und luise; Luchterhand, ISBN 3-630-62030-2
• Interpretationen, Gedichte von Ernst Jandl; Reclam, ISBN 3-15-017519-4
• ernst jandl, aus dem wirklichen Leben: gedichte und prosa, with 66 drawings by Hans Ticha, Büchergilde Gutenberg 2000, ISBN 3-7632-4970-2

Literature[link]

• Theo Breuer: Ernst Jandl (1925–2000); in: T.B.: Aus dem Hinterland. Lyrik nach 2000, Edition YE, Sistig/Eifel 2005.

External links[link]

• A collection of web links
• Ernst Jandl on Find-A-Grave
• Writing is the food of the gods Friederike Mayröcker's poem about her companion at signandsight.com
• Ernst Jandl at UbuWeb sound files to download and discussion of his concrete poetry at UbuWeb
• author page at Lyrikline.org, with audio, text (German, one translation into English).

Herbert Ernst Groh (27 May 1905 – 28 July 1982) was a popular Swiss tenor.

Groh was born in Lucerne and subsequently studied in Zurich and Milan. One of his teachers was Carl Beines, who also taught Richard Tauber.

He began his operatic singing career in Darmstadt in 1926, with engagements following in Frankfurt and Cologne and a successful tour of Italy in 1927, where he also began to make his first recordings using the name of Ernesto Groh. He then started to appear on German radio and devoted himself to developing a career as a recording artist - also making films, but soon giving up the stage - a career than lasted well into the LP era of the 1950s.

He died in 1982 at Norderstedt near Hamburg.

Critical appreciation[link]

Like Marcel Wittrisch, Groh is inevitably compared to his contemporary Richard Tauber. According to Alan Blyth: "Groh . . . is fonder yet than Tauber of unwritten touches of quite exceptional delicacy, and surpasses his older coeval in sheer technical control."

Recordings[link]

A selection of Groh's recordings were released in 1990 by Pavilion Records on Pearl (GEMM CD 9419).

Films[link]

References[link]

• Blyth, Alan (1990), 'Herbert Ernst Groh' (liner notes) for Pavilion Records Limited

Liang Wang (born 1980) is the current principal oboist of the New York Philharmonic. He was born in Qing Dao, China, and studied at the Beijing Central Conservatory and at California’s Idyllwild Arts Academy. He received his bachelor’s degree from Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Richard Woodhams. He was a fellowship recipient at the Aspen Music Festival and School and at the Music Academy of the West.

Upon graduation from Curtis in 2003, he was offered a position as principal oboe of the Richmond Symphony Orchestra, but turned it down in favor of the same position with the orchestra of the San Francisco Ballet. Shortly after that, he was appointed to the Associate Principal oboe chair of the San Francisco Symphony. Two weeks later he won an audition for principal oboe in the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. While in that position, he was a finalist in auditions for principal oboe in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Cleveland Orchestra. He won an audition for the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra, but turned that down after winning an audition for principal oboe in the Santa Fe Opera.

He has won awards at the Spotlight Competition of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, as well as the Pasadena Instrumental, Fernard Gillet International Oboe, and Tilden Prize competitions. He has twice received the Los Angeles Philharmonic Fellowship.

He was hired as principal oboist of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in 2006 by Lorin Maazel. In this same week that he won this audition, he won an audition for principal oboe in the orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera, but turned down this position in favor of the Philharmonic.

External links[link]

• New York Times article, April 8, 2007
• Liang Wang's Biography on the New York Philharmonic Website
• Liang Wang and Eugene Izotov play oboe duets