Ernest Beutler - Early Life and Education

Early Life and Education

Born in Berlin, to a Jewish family, his family home was located on Reichskanzlerplatz, renamed “Adolf Hitler Platz” after Hitler’s ascent to power, and then Theodor Heuss Platz after the Second World War. Both of his parents (Alfred and Kaethe, née Italiener) were physicians. His mother, a pediatrician, was in pre-war times the physician to the children of Magda Quandt née Rietschel, later Magda Goebbels, wife of the German propaganda minister. The second of three children, Beutler was preceded by an older brother, Frederick (b. October 3, 1926, later a professor of mathematics at the University of Michigan), and followed by a younger sister, Ruth (b. November 23, 1932, later a clinical psychologist; d. July 14, 1993). In 1935, when Beutler was seven years of age, the family emigrated to the United States to escape Nazi persecution. Beutler was raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

At 15, Beutler enrolled in a special program at the University of Chicago, founded by Robert Hutchins, then President of the University. He completed his undergraduate, medical school and residency training at the University of Chicago, receiving his doctorate in medicine in 1950 at the age of 21. He was the valedictorian of his graduating class.