Did Alzheimer have a dueling scar? Yes! In the summer of 1884, Alzheimer attended his second six-month period at Würzburg, where the left side of his face was disfigured in a fencing duel.

In 2010, a group of German poets including Lars Ruppel brought me to Germany to launch the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project there. That led to working with the U.S. Embassy in Berlin. They funded a series of tours. On one of the tours my host walked me through cobblestone streets of Tübingen and brought me to see the sign marking where Alois Alzheimer’s lived as a student and later showed me the Yellow Tower were Hölderlin lived.

Who is Alois Alzheimer?

In June of 1903, a researcher and pathologist by name of Alois Alzheimer (born Aloysius Alzheimer in 1864) was invited to open up a psychiatric clinic in Munich, Germany as a research assistant alongside another doctor by the name of Emil Kraepelin. The clinic would focus namely on brain research, inspiring Dr Alzheimer with the prospect of linking theoretical and clinical practice.

While also working as a lecturer in the Faculty of Medicine at Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich, it was in 1906 that Alzheimer gave a now famous talk to the 37th Congress of Psychiatrists of Southern Germany held in Tübingen.

Tübingen- After Hölderlin
Glazner

He stares into the distance,
face in the pear sweet sun.
Dips his head at the exact angle of want.
Holding a bouquet of wild orange roses,
anxious petals mirror his
face flush with seeking.
His swan neck tilts into the hope of her.
The train pulls in and shadows our view.
Through the cold windows we see him stalk
the clattering track.
There she is- drunk with kisses.

The first floor of the yellow tower (now known as the Hölderlinturm) was Hölderlin’s place of residence from 1807 until his death in 1843.

The poetry of Hölderlin, widely recognized today as one of the highest points of German literature, was little known or understood during his lifetime, and slipped into obscurity shortly after his death; his illness and reclusion made him fade from his contemporaries; consciousness—and, even though selections of his work were published by his friends during his lifetime, it was largely ignored for the rest of the 19th century.

The clinic was attached to the University of Tübingen and the poet Justinus Kerner, then a student of medicine, was assigned to look after Hölderlin. The following year Hölderlin was discharged as incurable and given three years to live, but was taken in by the carpenter Ernst

Zimmer (a cultured man, who had read Hyperion) and given a room in his house in Tübingen, which had been a tower in the old city wall with a view across the Neckar river. The tower would later be named the Hölderlinturm, after the poet’s 36-year-long stay in the room. His residence in the building made up the second half of his life and is also referred to as the Turmzeit (or Tower)