Frederick (Fritz) C. Redlich, M.D.
Fredrick (Fritz) C. Redlich, M.D. internationally known psychiatrist, 93, of Hamden died January 1, in Yale-New Haven Hospital after a brief illness. He was Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at Yale University and the University of California at Los Angeles. Dr. Redlich was born in Vienna, Austria in 1910, the son of the late Ludwig and Emma Redlich, Reared a Catholic, he discovered his Jewish ancestry at 14. His early education was primarily in psychology and medicine at the University of Vienna, where he was awarded his M.D. in 1935. Following his internship and residency training in neuropsychiatry in Vienna, he emigrated to the United States in 1938 with his wife, Elsa, herself a former student and graduate of the Vienna Medical School. His love of America originated when he was an exchange student at Wittenberg College of Ohio in 1930-31. That attraction and the socio-political implications of the German invasion and Anschluss in Austria prompted their emigration. He became a US citizen in 1943. He completed a Residency in Neurology at the Boston City Hospital in 1942 and finished training in psychoanalysis at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute a few years later. In 1942 he started a 39 year long career on the faculty of Yale, interrupted by a year of duty in the U.S. Army Medical Service during WW II. Seventeen of those years he was a Professor and Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and then was Dean of the Medical School for five years. After returning to the Psychiatry Department for five more years, he retired from Yale and moved on to UCLA for five years. During his Chairmanship of Psychiatry at Yale, he transformed a very small, narrowly focused department into one that was multidisciplinary in orientation, very large and outstanding in the country. It is generally acknowledged that the size, breadth and excellence of the present department began under his leadership. Besides that, he was instrumental in the decision by its founders to locate the Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis in New Haven, and he was president of the Foundations' Fund for Research in Psychiatry throughout its existence. Dr. Redlich was also a serious scholar. He was an author or coauthor of six books and nearly 100 scientific articles. His most well-known books were probably Social Class and Mental Illness (with the Yale sociologist August Hollingshead), textbook, Theory and Practice of Psychiatry (with Daniel Freedman, M.D.) and his biography, Hitler: Diagnosis of a Destructive Prophet. The first of these was a pioneering empirical study of the type of treatment afforded patients of different social classes that significantly influenced the establishment of the sub-discipline, ''Social Psychiatry.'' The Connecticut Mental Health Center, of which he was a co-founder and its first director, is a practical outcome of that development. Dr. Redlich's work elicited numerous honors and awards. To cite a few, he was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine, and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received Distinguished Service Awards from both the American College of Psychiatrists and the American Psychiatric Association. He was given the Salmon Award and the Julius von Wagner-Jauregg award. ''Fritz'' was not all work. He enjoyed the outdoors, especially hiking, skiing and sailing. Also music, art, literature and close friendship. He was a courageous and daring man. Those traits characterized all of his activities: recreation, scholarship and his academic administration. He and his first wife, Elsa, were divorced in 1953. One of their two sons, Erik, died in 2002. His wife of 49 years, Herta Glaz Redlich, and his son Peter J. Redlich of Chester, CT survive him. A memorial service will be held at a future date to be announced. Those wishing any available advance information about that may call Connie Ferguson, Yale Deptartment of Psychiatry, at (203) 785-3220. Arrangements in care of BEECHER & BENNETT, 2300 Whitney Avenue, Hamden.
