Otto Braun-Falco and his scholarship
3rd Congress “Dermatology, Venereology and Allergology”, Gdansk, Poland 2018

Today’s session and the meeting after a long time with the former Otto Braun-Falco scholarship holders is for me a moving moment, and I thank Professor Nowicki – I thank you, Roman – on behalf of our “Förderkreis”, my colleagues and myself for the invitation, but above all for the idea and organization of this session, dedicated to the memory of one of the most important dermatologists of our time, Professor Otto Braun Falco (fig. 1).
Professor Christophers, who was particularly close to him, has already appreciated his life, his work and his great merits. I want to express today that Professor Otto Braun-Falco supported our group very much and that we are really grateful to him.
I miss him today, because I’m sure he would have loved to attend today’s meeting with his scholarship students. He always took part in the events with his scholarship students, if he could. He accompanied them with his sympathy and he made all these events into special events with his personal charisma, his enthusiasm, his profound knowledge, his brilliant accuracy, his independence, his quick wit and humor.
With him we have lost a significant part of our support, and it’s painful that we today and in the future have to get along without him.
Our circle of German-Polish Dermatologists is now almost 30 years old, old enough to look back from a distance.
From the beginning until today three people have been of particular importance to our project: Professor Enno Christophers, Professor Stefania Jablonska and Professor Otto Braun-Falco.
In a difficult moment when in 1989 we were undecided about whether we should really found this German-Polish circle of Dermatologists or not, Professor Christophers – at that time President of the German Dermatological Society – wrote us a letter and promised us his full support. I quote:
“I would like to support your intentions and can assure you I shall, as far as I can, give them all my help” (fig. 2).
This letter provided crucial support, and so Professor Christophers became the mentor and the coach of our project and the Association of German and Polish Dermatologists was founded on 24.11.1989 – 2 weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall (figs. 3–5). He was the link to the German Dermatological Society, received and reviewed the applications of all scholarships and supported us with considerable funds over a period of nearly 30 years. For this we owe him our very special thanks.
The second...


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