Karl Stern | |
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Born | Cham, Germany | 8 April 1906
Died | 7 November 1975 Montréal, Quebec, Canada | (aged 69)
Occupation | Neurologist, psychiatrist |
Nationality | German, Canadian |
Period | 20th century |
Genre | Autobiography, devotional |
Subject | Psychiatry, religion |
Notable works | Pillar of Fire (1951), "The Flight from Woman" |
Spouse | Liselotte von Baeyer, (granddaughter of Adolf von Baeyer) |
Children | Antony, Katherine, Michael, John |
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 the account of his conversion in Pillar of Fire (1951).[1]
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 minimal. 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. It was while in London that he began to take an interest in the Catholic faith.
In 1943, after much soul-searching, and ultimately influenced by encounters with Jacques Maritain and Dorothy Day, Stern converted to Christianity and was baptized as a Roman Catholic.
Stern married Liselotte von Baeyer, a bookbinder (died 1970) and they had four children: Antony, a psychiatrist (1937-1967), Katherine Skorzewska, Michael and John. Stern was significantly incapacitated by a stroke in 1970, although he continued working and died in Montreal in 1975.