Viktor Emil Frankl

Here's a time line of Victor Frankl:

• March 26 1905 - Viktor Emil Frankl is born in Vienna as the second of three children
• 1914-1918 - During the first World War his whole family experiences bitter deprivation; sometimes the children would go begging to farmers.
• 1918-1923 - In his high school years Frankl attends public lectures on Applied Psychology."
• 1921 - At the age of 15, Frankl offers his first public lecture, On the Meaning of Life.
• 1925 - Frankl's article Psychotherapy and Weltanschauung is published in the "International Journal of Individual Psychology".
• 1926 - Frankl presents public lectures on congresses in Duesseldorf, Frankfurt, Berlin. For the first time he propounds the idea of a meaning-centered approach to mental healing, using the term Logotherapy, based on the Greek word logos for meaning.
• 1933-1937 - Frankl becomes chief doctor of the "Suicidals Pavilion for Women" at the "Steinhof" Psychiatric Hospital in Vienna.
• 1937 - Frankl opens a private practice as Doctor of Neurology and Psychiatry. Only a few months later he will have to close it down due to the Nazi annexation of Austria and the ensuing restrictions for Jewish doctors.
• 1938 - Following the Annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany Frankl must adopt the middle name "Israel" and call himself "Fachbehandler" instead of physician. His office is "aryanized", and he has to move his practice into his parent's home.
• 1940 - Frankl becomes director of the Neurological Department of the Rothschild Hospital, a clinic for Jewish patients. In spite of the danger to his own life he sabotages Nazi procedures by making false diagnoses to prevent the euthanasia of mentally ill patients.
• 1940 - He obtains an immigration visa to America but decides to let it expire, not wanting to desert his old parents.
• 1941 - Frankl marries Tilly Grosser, a nurse he had met at the Rothschild Hospital. A short time later, the Nazis force the young couple to have their child aborted.
• 1942 - In September Viktor and Tilly are arrested and together with Frankl's parents are deported to the Terezin Ghetto, north of Prague. His sister Stella has shortly before escaped to Australia, his brother Walter and his wife are trying to escape via Italy. After half a year in Theresienstadt his father dies of exhaustion.
• 1944 - Viktor and Tilly, and shortly later his 65 year old mother, are transported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. His mother is immediately murdered in the gas chamber, and Tilly is moved to the Bergen-Belsen camp. After a few days Frankl is selected for transfer to a labor camp.
• 1945 - On April 27 the camp is liberated by U.S. troops. Frankl is made chief doctor of a military hospital for displaced persons. Anxious to find out about the fate of his wife he embarks on the arduous journey to Vienna. Within a span of a few days, he learns about the death of his wife, his mother and his brother who has been murdered in Auschwitz together with his wife.
• 1945 - Full of despair about the realization of his losses, Frankl finds support in his friends and in the determination to rewrite his book. His friend Bruno Pittermann, who has become a member of the new government, organizes an apartment and a job for him - as well as a typewriter..
• 1946 - Frankl becomes director of the Vienna Neurological Policlinic, a position he will hold for 25 years. His reconstructed Aerztliche Seelsorge, with an added chapter on the "psychology of the concentration camp," is one of the very first books published in postwar Vienna. The first edition is sold out within a few days.
• 1946 - Within nine days he dictates the book Ein Psycholog erlebt das Konzentrationslager, which will later be published in English as Man's Search For Meaning.
• 1947 - Frankl marries Eleonore Schwindt; in December their daughter Gabriele is born.
• 1950 - On the basis of a lecture series he writes the book Homo Patiens with its central theme of how to give support and comfort to suffering human beings.
• 1954 - Universities in England, Holland and Argentina invite Frankl to give lectures. In the USA, Gordon Allport promotes Frankl and the publication of his books.
• 1961 - Frankl becomes guest professor at Harvard University. Further he is invited to give talks in contries around the world.
• 1971 - Frankl starts taking flying lessons. In 1973 he acquires his Solo Flight Certificate.
• 1988 - At the Memorial Day commemorating the 50th year after the annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany, Frankl speaks out against the concept of "collective guilt."
• 1997 - Frankl's last book is published: Man's Search For Ultimate Meaning. On the same year Viktor Frankl dies of heart failure on the 2nd of September.