Karl Stern

Karl Stern
Karl Stern, 1950s
Born (1906-04-08)8 April 1906
Cham, Germany
Died 7 November 1975(1975-11-07) (aged 69)
Montreal
Occupation neurologist, psychiatrist
Nationality German, Canadian
Period 20th century
Genre memoir, [novel] essays
Subject psychiatry, religion
Literary movement Catholic convert from Judaism
Notable works Pillar of Fire (1951)
Spouse Liselotte von Baeyer
Children Antony, Katherine, Michael

Karl Stern (April 8, 1906 - November 11, 1975) was a German-Canadian neurologist and psychiatrist, and a Jewish convert to the Catholic Church. Stern is best known for his account of his conversion in Pillar of Fire (1951).

Life and career

Stern was born in the small town Cham in Bavaria in 1906, to socially assimilated Jewish parents. There was no synagogue or rabbi in the town, and although regular services and classes were held under the direction of a cantor, Stern's religious education was patchy. As a teenager he sought to re-engage with the Jewish faith, and began attending an Orthodox synagogue, but he soon became an atheist Zionist.

He studied medicine at the Universities of Munich, Berlin and Frankfurt, and came to specialize in psychiatric research. In the course of undergoing psychoanalysis himself, he regained belief in God and returned to Orthodox Jewish worship. He emigrated from Nazi Germany in 1936, finding work in neurological research in England, and later as lecturer in neuropathology and assistant neuropathologist at the Montreal Neurological Institute, under Wilder Penfield.

In 1943, after much soul-searching, and ultimately influenced by encounters with Jacques Maritain and Dorothy Day, Stern received baptism as a Catholic.

Stern married Liselotte von Baeyer (died 1970) and they had three children: Antony, a psychiatrist (1937-1967), Katherine Skorzewska, and Michael. Stern was significantly incapacitated by a stroke in 1970, although he continued working and died in Montreal in 1975.

Writings

Books

Much reprinted, most recently by Urbi Et Orbi Communications, 2001. ISBN 1-884660-12-6.
French translation, Le buisson ardent. Paris: Seuil, 1951.
Dutch translation, De vuurzuil. Antwerp: Sheed and Ward, 1951.
German translation, Die Feuerwolke. Salzburg: Müller, 1954.
French translation, La troisième révolution: essai sur la psychanalyse et la religion. Paris: Du Seuil, 1955.
German translation, Die dritte Revolution: Psychiatrie und Religion. Salzburg: Otto Müller, 1956.
Dutch translation, De derde revolutie: psychiatrie en religie. Utrecht: De Fontein, 1958.
German translation, Die Flucht vor dem Weib: zur Pathologie des Zeitgeistes. Salzburg: Otto Müller, 1968.
French translation, Refus de la femme. Montréal: Éditions HMH, 1968.

Other writings

Works about Stern

External links

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