Erna von Abendroth

Erna von Abendroth was a pioneering German nurse and nursing teacher, born on 4 February 1887 and died on 26 February 1959. She was born in Ostritz, trained as a teacher in Dresden and completed nursing training with the Red Cross Albertines at the Carola Hospital in 1910. After serving as a volunteer nurse in the First World War she took a doctorate in 1921 with a dissertation on the nursing profession, becoming the first German nurse to earn a PhD for a nursing theme. In 1922 and 1923 she co-founded the Dresden City Sisterhood and became its matron, and she later helped establish the nursing academy at the Johannstadt Hospital in Dresden. After the Second World War she led the reconstruction of the Otto Werner Red Cross Nursing Academy at Goettingen from May 1946 until her retirement in 1951.