Richard Schatzki

Who was Richard Schatzki?

Richard Schatzki was a German-American radiologist. He was born in Clafeld, Germany on February 22, 1901. In 1933, Nazi leadership declared that no one of Jewish background could hold a position in German governmental facilities. As a result, Schatzki was forced to leave his University Hospital position. Four months later, Schatzki moved to America with his wife Greta and young son Stefan. They were the first Schatzkis to leave Germany, although other family members would join them in America in the years leading up to the war as conditions in Germany deteriorated further.

He trained in radiology in Berlin with Hans Heinrich Berg who was the leading diagnostic radiologist in Germany at that time. He immigrated to the USA in 1933 and worked as a radiologist physician in Boston at MGH until 1943 where he had a profound effect on the trainees in the radiology department as well as on young internists in the department of medicine.