Hans Wolfgang Maier. Eduard Einstein's Doctor (PDF)

Document from the year 2023 in the subject Biographies, , language: English, abstract: Hans Wolfgang Maier was born in Frankfurt in 1882 as the youngest of three sons of Gustav and Regina Maier-Friedlaender. In 1892, the family moved to Switzerland, mainly to escape the professional barriers erected for Jews in Germany, who were not allowed to work in public service. There, Gustav Maier declared Judaism a family secret and joined the liberal reformed Zwingli church with his family; he retired from banking and became a writer, ethicist, and pacifist. In fall 1895, the 16-year-old Albert Einstein was a guest at the Maier home in Zurich and Gustav assisted the gifted young man to be accepted at the Federal Polytechnical School, ETH to study physics (see the book Gustav Maier. Sponsor of the young Albert Einstein, published by the same author). Hence, since 1895 Hans was acquainted with Albert Einstein; 38 years later, Albert's son Eduard, a brilliant medical student, started having mental problems and became the patient of Hans, who had become director of the Psychiatric University Clinic at Zurich, the "Burghölzli". This book illustrates the life of the psychiatrist Hans Wolfgang Maier and his family with documents and images from a private Maier family archive.

More information about the history of the Maier, Meierhofer and Anner families can be found on this website: https://www.themaierannerfiles.ch/