Walther Ahrens

Biography

Walther Ahrens was the son of psychiatrist Wilhelm Ahrens. His father served as director of the Neuruppin State Institute and tried to protect his family from National Socialism. When he was released in November 1933, he moved to Halle (Saale).

Walther himself studied since 1919, receiving his Studentexamen from the Gymnasium in Sorau in 1930. After that he began to study medicine at the University of Gottingen. There he was active in the Corps Hildeso-Guestphalia Gottingen. He also studied at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and University of Innsbruck, where he was an inactive member. He temporarily went back to Gottingen, then to the University of Breslau and finally to Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg. In 1936, he took his medical examination there. Then he had internships in Berlin and in Oranienburg. Subsequently, he was certified and by 1937 he was an assistant at the Universitatsklinikum Leipzig. From 1938 he served as an assistant at the Research Office of the Hygiene Institute at Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg. In 1939, he received his doctorate in Halle.

From 1940 he served as a Gefreiter in the medical corps of the Wehrmacht, in the Sanitary Department of Leipzig. During that same year he joined the Nazi Party. He was also a member of the National Socialist Flyers Corps (NSFK) and the National Socialist People's Welfare (NSV). From 1942 he worked as a senior platoon leader for the air-raid medical readiness in Halle-Nord. During the war, he developed a way to quickly diagnose typhus. Nevertheless, he did not belong to the networks of researchers of the Schutzstaffel (SS) and the Wehrmacht. After the war in Europe ended, he was allowed in December 1945 by the Soviet military administration to continue working informally. In 1946, he received his Habilitation of Microbiology and Hygiene.

Then Ahrens was first assistant to hygienist Paul Schmidt (1872–1950). In 1947, he was promoted to docent, and in the next year he began to lecture, eventually becoming a professor with tenure. In 1952, he became a professor of Hygiene at the Dresden University of Technology. In addition, he was appointed director of the Institute of Microbiology/Hygiene. In 1954, he started working part-time at the Medizinischen Akademie Dresden Hygiene, Mikrobiologie und Epidemiologie. He was a professor there until 1975.

Ahrens found new methods to diagnose epidemics. He also saw to it that it would be easier to detect germs of epidemic diseases. He used lactose from dairies as a breeding ground. He discovered a new disinfectant against tuberculosis.