James Lewin

James Lewin (28 October 1887 in Berlin - 31 December 1937 in Chelyabinsk, USSR) was a German-Jewish psychiatrist and physician.

James Lewin was born the son of the merchant, Nathan Lewin (1852-1909) and Agathe Lewin (née Wedel)(1853-1904), who came from Pomerania, Prussia. He was the third of five children. He attended the Sophien-Gymnasium school in Berlin. He then studied medicine and philosophy at the Friedrich-Wilhelms University from the winter semester of 1907. For one semester, he studied in Leipzig, where he attended lectures by Wilhelm Wundt and Wilhelm Wirth . Lewin received his doctorate in philosophy with a thesis on the subject of the French idealist pantheist Nicolas Malebranche, and his work is still cited today in philosophical works on this subject. In October 1913, Lewin received his license to practice medicine with a rating of "satisfactory". Afterwards, he was employed as an assistant to Ernst Simmerling in the 'lunatic hospital' of the University of Kiel, but then switched to Leipzig. Here, he worked a medical assistant to Paul Flechsig at the University's Psychiatric and Mental Hospital, where he received a second doctorate in 1917. In this work he wrote about situational psychoses

In the same year he married the soprano, Clara Abramowitz, and from the marriage came a son, Adolf Norbert Lewin. At this time James Lewin was drafted for military service, probably in a medical unit . After the war, he opened a practice in Berlin-Schöneberg, specialising in psychiatry and gynaecology. A second practice was located in Berlin-Steglitz. Clara and James Lewin divorced in 1924.

Pursuant to the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, as a Jewish doctor, Lewin lost his insurance license at the end of April 1933, and was finally forced to leave Germany. He initially intended to travel to Abyssinia, but, because of heart problems, decided to emigrate to France. In December 1933, he wrote to ask the German authorities to transfer his finances to France. At that time, he was living in Paris.

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