In Memoriam: Claus Walter, MD

Claus D. Walter, MD, died on September 11, 2016, in Switzerland after a year-long illness. He was born in 1927 in Gleiwitz, Upper Silesia, now part of Poland. Dr Walter started medical school at the University of Breslau, Germany, in the spring of 1944. He was drafted into the German Navy in August 1944 at the age of 17 and was assigned to a coastal artillery battery defending the north coast of Germany. In May 1945 he was released from a British prisoner of war camp at the Danish border: "I had a uniform, a pair of shoes, underwear and 20 Marks. I could not go back to my home since the Russians were there and I did not know to whom I should go. I loitered on trains, etc. hoping to find my parents. I finally found them. With their help I was able to continue to study medicine at the University of Wurzburg. Life was miserable because the city and the environment had been 80% destroyed by air raids. I passed the university medical exams [in 1950] and went to Essen."

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