Herbert Meinhard Mühlpfordt


Herbert Meinhard Mühlpfordt was a German internist, art historian, and cultural historian.

Life

Mühlpfordt was born in Königsberg, East Prussia, to dentist Meinhard Mühlpfordt and Clara Mühlpfordt. He attended the Collegium Fridericianum where he completed his Abitur. Mühlpfordt studied medicine, literature, and art history at Freiburg, Munich, and the Albertina. After serving in World War I from 1914–18, he completed his Staatsexamen in 1920 and received his doctorate in medicine in 1921. Mühlpfordt worked at the Charité in Berlin, in Allenstein , and as chief of dermatology at St. Marien-Hospital in Allenstein. In 1937 he opened his own practice in Königsberg.
During World War II Mühlpfordt served as a physician in the Wehrmacht from 1939 until his discharge for health reasons in 1944. From January 1945 until April he tended to refugees in Pillau and the Vistula Spit during the evacuation of East Prussia. On 16 April he took a refugee transport to Wismar. He settled in Lübeck, where he maintained his practice until 1959.
Aside from his medical practice, Mühlpfordt also wrote about the local history of East and West Prussia, especially his hometown Königsberg, contributing to newspapers, journals, and his own reference works. He also wrote a novel about Wilhelmine Königsberg, Der Goldene Ball, Ein Familienroman unserer Zeit. Mühlpfordt was recognized by the Historische Kommission für ost- und westpreußische Landesforschung in 1969, received the Goldene Ehrennadel of the Landsmannschaft Ostpreußen in 1970, and received the Bürgermedaille of the Stadtgemeinschaft Königsberg in 1977. He died in Lübeck.

Selected works