General · EdgepediaOctober 10, 20264 min read

Ferdinand Adalbert Kehrer

Ferdinand Adalbert Kehrer (19 July 1883, Heidelberg – 9 March 1966, Münster) was a German neurologist and psychiatrist who held the chair of neurology and psychiatry at the University of Münster from 1925 until his retirement in October 1953, and who is remembered today for his work on hereditary nervous disease and pupillary pathology and, more darkly, for his documented participation in the Nazi-era forced sterilization program¹. He was the son of the obstetrician Ferdinand Adolph Kehrer (1837–1914)².

Key fact	Detail
Born / died	19 July 1883, Heidelberg; 9 March 1966, Münster¹
Training	Studies at Heidelberg, Berlin, Munich, and Kiel; doctorate 1908 in Heidelberg²
Münster chair	Professor at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität from 1 October 1925; emeritus October 1953¹
Nazi-era role	Judge at the Hereditary Health Court of Appeal (Erbgesundheitsobergericht), Landgericht Hamm; participant in forced sterilizations from 1934 as expert, petitioner, and surgeon¹
Signature publications	Zur Pathologie der Pupillen (1923); parkinsonism causes (1925); Ursachen und Erblichkeitskreis von Chorea, Myoklonie und Athetose (Monographien vol. 50, 1928)³^•⁴^•⁵

Life, training and academic career

Kehrer studied medicine at Heidelberg, Berlin, Munich, and Kiel and took his doctorate in Heidelberg in 1908². He served as an assistant at the medical faculties of Freiburg and Kiel from 1908, was adjunct professor in Kiel from 2 June 1913 to 1914, and adjunct professor in Freiburg from 1914 to 31 December 1918¹.

The location of his 1914 habilitation is disputed. Whonamedit states he was habilitated for psychiatry and neurology in Breslau in 1914 and became professor extraordinary there in 1918²; the German biographical account places the habilitation in Kiel, on the topic of word amnesia (Wortamnesie). The habilitation thesis itself, Beiträge zur Aphasielehre mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der amnestischen Aphasie, appeared as a 197-page special print from Archiv für Psychiatrie und Nervenkrankheiten, Band 52⁶.

Breslau and Münster. The two accounts again diverge on the Breslau sequence: Whonamedit has habilitation in 1914 and a professorship extraordinary in 1918², while the German account and the Nazi-era medical actors database have him as deputy medical director at the Breslau Psychiatric and Nerve Clinic from 1 January 1919 to 1925, with an associate professorship from August 1921¹. What both agree on is the endpoint: in 1925 he was called to the University of Münster as ordinarius, where he led the clinic until his emeritus status in October 1953². A historical review identifies a small cohort of four neurological chairs: Frankfurt (1914), Heidelberg (1919), Breslau (ca. 1922), and Hamburg (1925)⁷.

Scientific contributions and publications

Kehrer's published work centered on heredity and clinical neurology. His 1923 paper Zur Pathologie der Pupillen appeared in the Zeitschrift für die gesamte Neurologie und Psychiatrie in December 1923, written from the Breslau psychiatric and nerve clinic³. In 1925 he published on the causes of parkinsonism, covering heredity, trauma, and syphilis, in Journal of Neurology 83(4–6):201–225⁴. His monograph Ursachen und Erblichkeitskreis von Chorea, Myoklonie und Athetose appeared in Monographien aus dem Gesamtgebiete der Neurologie und Psychiatrie, volume 50, edited by O. Foerster and K. Wilmanns, 136 pages; the publisher record dates it 1928, while Whonamedit dates it 1927⁵^•². He also co-authored Die Veranlagung zu seelischen Störungen with Ernst Kretschmer (1924), contributed chapters to Bumke's Handbuch der Geisteskrankheiten (1928), published Die Allgemeinerscheinungen der Hirngeschwülste (Leipzig, 1931) and Der Veitstanz der Schwangeren (sog. Graviditätschorea) (Leipzig, 1942)², and wrote a Karger monograph linking choreiform and tic-like movements with obsessive ideas, from the Münster clinic⁸.

Whonamedit lists "Adie's syndrome" among the eponyms related to his entry².

Kehrer under National Socialism

Kehrer was, by the German biographical account, a convinced supporter of National Socialist health policy and served for a time as a medical assessor (judge) at the Erbgesundheitsobergericht in Hamm¹. The program sterilized more than 400,000 people until 1945 and targeted among others neurologic patients with epilepsy and psychiatric patients; from 1939–41, the Nazis resorted to "euthanasia" of many of the same patients⁷^•⁹.

The sources disagree on his party membership: the Nazi-era medical actors database lists him as a member of the NSLB and the NSDAP¹, while the German biographical account states he was not an NSDAP member. Springer's note on his pre-1945 monograph, that it reflects its period-typical political-ideological orientation and is not promoted by the publisher, marks the same context⁵.

By the numbers

The two indexed papers carry modest counts: 13 citations for the 1923 pupillology paper and 16 for the 1925 parkinsonism paper³^•⁴. He is likewise absent from modern reviews of the meningeal signs: a historical review of Kernig's and Brudzinski's signs, which reports modern sensitivities as low as 5 percent for those classic signs in 297 adults with suspected meningitis, does not mention Kehrer's sign at all¹⁰.

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Life and health › Life and health scientists › Medical and health researchers › Researchers in clinical neuroscience, neurology, and psychiatry research

Initially written Oct 10, 2026 · Edited: Oct 11, 2026; Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026

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