Ingeborg Dittmer

Ingeborg Anna Klara Dittmer-Poser was born in Hess-Lichtenau (by Kassel) on July 16,1924, where she spent her first years of a happy childhood. She entered public school in Meuselwitz and later the 48 Volkschule in Leipzig where she and her family (with her sister 1.5 years younger) in the house of her paternal grandparents. At age 10, she began attending Max Klinger Schule in Leipzig until she received her Abitur (high school diploma). She was confirmed at the Besshauser in Leipzig on Palm Sunday 1939.

On September 2nd world war broke out and the bombings started soon after. In December 1943 the whole of the City of Leipzig was bombed out and also the home of where the family lived.

She was drafted into the Workcamp in Tribsees near (Stralsund) working on farms. After 1.5 years she was relieved and soon started working in a machine factory on a Drehbank (lathe), alongside two elderly French POW’s.

In May 1945 Leipzig was first occupied by US troops and then handed over to the Russians, who soon installed their own government. She was able to finish her studies and worked as a physician in a hospital in Sassnitz, isle of Ruegen in the Baltic Sea.

In 1951 she interned at the private neurological clinic of Professor Kihn in Erlangen. She married Luther A Dittmer in December 1951, while he was finishing his dissertation in Basel (Switzerland). She then moved to Basel where she worked as a voluntary physician at the Frauenklinik (Women’s hospital) under Prof. Koller.

They left for the USA in January 1953, where she worked as an intern at the Norwegian Hospital in Brooklyn. In 1954 their son, Kalogreant, was born and 1959, Christopher, and bought a house in Brooklyn.

When on a sabbatical in Basel she got a job with Sandoz (in Switzerland) where she worked for 17 years at the Medical Documentation Department becoming a specialist for endourological prolactin inhibitors. She published several papers and lectured in the US.

She served on serval boards in the US and enjoyed her family, the summers at Paradise Falls where she was active with the ladies auxiliary and liked to travel with her husband. After retirement from Sandoz she lived the summers in P.F. and winters in Basel. They left Basel in 2014 to retire in Florida. Luther passed away in July 2017, they were married 65 years.

She is survived by two sons Kaolgreant (Germany) and Christopher (California) and three grandchildren: Ariane, Zofia.and Emery Dittmer.