Haustein was born and died in Berlin. , a teacher of Hans Hausteins, was a senior doctor at Rudolf Virchow Hospital in Berlin. He died in 1943 in the concentration camp in
Theresienstadt. Hans Haustein studied medicine in
Freiburg im Breisgau and Berlin from 1913 to 1918. In 1920, he completed a
Doctorate in Berlin. Afterwards, he received his
medical licence and became a
medical assistant. His teachers in the fields of
dermatology and
venereology were
Abraham Buschke, at Rudolf Virchow Hospital, as well as
Georg Arndt, at the dermatology clinic of the
Charité – Berlin University of Medicine. In 1924, soon after Haustein was made a
consultant in
skin diseases and
sexually transmitted diseases, he opened a
surgery on
Kurfürstendamm. This afforded him an affluent clientele of high
social status. He gained a reputation as a fashionable doctor, who also treated
prostitutes and supplied them with
pessaries for
birth control. As a
consultant, he was both a colleague and a rival of
Gottfried Benn, who practised on Belle-Alliance-Street, today
Mehringdamm. He lived in a large house on 4 Bregenzer Street in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, which was a centre for high society. In these rooms, he hosted lavish parties at which writers, composers, painters and patrons gathered. At the time of the
Weimar Republic, a large proportion of
Wilmersdorf's population was Jewish. Numerous Jewish artists and writers lived in this district. Haustein, who was known for his intellectual and erotic permissiveness, was regarded as a lounge lizard. He was in a relationship with a model called Sonja, who he is said to have been sexually dependent on. Among his closest friends were the writer
Lion Feuchtwanger, the composer
Fred Raymond and the painter
Christian Schad, who painted a portrait of him in the style of
magical realism in 1928. Haustein's lover Sonja can also be seen as a shadow on the wall in this painting. Haustein was also an academic and was considered one of the leading experts in combating venereal diseases. From 1916 on, he published over 70 works, including, his seminal works such as
Venereal Diseases inclusive of Prostitution and
The Early History of Syphilis. From 1921 until 1923, he worked for the magazine
Social Hygiene, Welfare and the Hospital System. From 1932 he led the historical section of the Department of Genetics at the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research in
Buch, Berlin. When the
National Socialists Machtergreifung in 1933, Haustein suddenly lost his upper-class status and faced discrimination and persecution. His medical license was revoked and he had to endure house searches and interrogations. On 7 July 1933, he was arrested along with other Jewish and politically unpopular doctors and was severely maltreated in a provisional
concentration camp. After these experiences, Haustein had no illusions over his fate as a Jew. When the
Gestapo attempted to arrest him on 12 November 1933, he killed himself with
cyanide. == Background ==