Erich Geiringer

Erich Geiringer (31 January 1917 – 24 August 1995)[1] was a New Zealand writer, publisher, broadcaster, Fulbright scholar 1953, a leading member of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), and the founder of the New Zealand Medical Association. George Salmond described him in a memorial tribute as, 'one of the most significant public health figures in New Zealand in the last half century'.[2]

Born in Vienna in 1917, Geiringer escaped Nazi Germany in 1938, going first to Belgium and later the United Kingdom, attending medical school in Edinburgh and Glasgow. He gained a PhD in adreno-cortal transplantation from the University of Edinburgh in 1954.[3] In New Zealand he became a researcher at Otago Medical School in the 1960s.[4] In the same period his pamphlets on advocating cervical smears were banned by a University for, 'being obscene'. According to The Independent he dragged New Zealand medicine into the modern world. He was the founder of the New Zealand Medical Association.[5] Geiringer held a radical stance in the pro-abortion lobby, campaigning in the early 1970s for solidarity with jailed abortionists.[6]

Geiringer was the author of a book on nuclear disarmament entitled Malice in Blunderland.[7] He was instrumental in the IPPNW's campaign in seeking an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice questioning the legality of nuclear weapons.[8] He died the same year in which the IPPNW managed to gain a hearing at the International Court of Justice.[9]

Erich Geiringer died in Wellington on 24 August 1995, and is survived by his wife Carol (the daughter of Tom Shand), his daughter Claudia and his sons Karl and Felix.[1][10]