Hans Kraus
Encyclopedia
Hans Kraus was a pioneer of modern rock climbing
, as well as being one of the fathers of sports medicine
and physical medicine and rehabilitation
. Kraus was elected to the U.S. National Ski Hall of Fame
in 1974.
in the 1920s, against his fathers' wishes, becoming an orthopedic surgeon. Through his subsequent practice he developed a philosophy of treatment at odds with traditional medicine of the time. He would evolve this method, called "immediate mobilization", over his entire medical career. Passing his medical exams in New York, Kraus continued developing unique methods of fracture treatment, applying them to all kinds of athletes. He become especially well known in the skiing circles, performing some amazing cures.
In the 1950s, Kraus was behind a push by the Appalachian Mountain Club
to regulate climbing in the Shawangunks, and to install a safety code to prevent climbing accidents. This safety code led to conflicts with Lester Germer
and The Vulgarians, and was later abandoned.
It was Kraus, based on his landmark research during the 1940s at New York-Presbyterian Hospitalin Manhattan
, who first made the connection between exercise and health. In the 1950s, Kraus became the first to identify the relationship among exercise, fitness, and muscles, and also the first to identify how exercise impacts mental, emotional and physical health. Kraus was also the first to warn Americans that children were not getting enough exercise and were watching too much television. Along with Bonnie Prudden
, he campaigned for better physical exercise programs for children, and authored several books on exercise, sports medicine, and physical therapy. Eisenhower championed Kraus and his campaign to get Americans to exercise. However, by 1957, it was clear that Kraus was unsuccessful. Kraus was broadly opposed by the AMA
and gym teachers (who felt Kraus was disparaging to their leadership) and many Americans, as Sports Illustrated reported in 1957, who worried that mandatory exercise programs for children would "Hitlerize American youth."
Kraus also continued to develop a unique approach to treating back pain in collaboration with another doctor, Sonja Weber. They developed an understanding of the underlying causes of back pain and devised the K-W Test and exercises to alleviate it.
Kraus was an Associate Professor at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center College of Medicine. His studies on children led to President Dwight D. Eisenhower
establishing the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports
. In October 1961, Kraus became President Kennedy’s secret White House back doctor.
The story of Kennedy’s back had never prior been reported, although there was much speculation; but Kraus and Kennedy’s two other White House doctors had sworn confidentiality. In April 2006, over ten years after Kraus’s death, Kraus’s widow donated Kraus’s White House medical records on Kennedy to the Kennedy Library. They are now available to historians as well as the general public.
Additionally, some of author Susan E.B. Schwartz
’s book interview tapes of Hans Kraus are also archived in the Kennedy Library and available for research.
Kraus’s medical records show that by the time of Kennedy’s death in Dallas, using exercise, Kraus had virtually cured Kennedy of his lifelong back pain.
Kraus’s White House medical records also contain several entries about Kennedy’s back corset
, which Kennedy had worn since Harvard. As Kraus wrote in the medical records, Kraus had grown convinced that the corset was impeding Kennedy’s recovery and that Kennedy needed permanently to stop wearing it. Finally, in October 1963, Kennedy told Kraus that he would stop wearing his corset permanently in January 1964. Several leading presidential historians, including James Reston
and Robert Dallek
, have theorized that Kennedy might have survived Dallas if he had not been wearing his corset.
He has also treated other celebrities, including Arthur Godfrey
and Katharine Hepburn
.
Kraus maintained at multi-tiered, elastic billing system; for climbers and people he knew personally, or anyone who he thought would have trouble paying, he charged nothing; he charged partial payment for middle class patients, and regular rates for wealthy patients and celebrities.
s. Among his friends and climbing partners were Emilio Comici and Gino Solda. He would later bring the Dolomite techniques of high-angle face climbing to the United States
In 1940 he met Fritz Wiessner
, who would become a lifelong friend and climbing partner. Wiessner had discovered the Shawangunks in 1935 and together Hans and Fritz spent every spare day developing routes in the area. Wiessner was known for his outstanding free climbing
technique; Kraus' specialty was aid climbing
. Thus, the two men's climbing skills complemented each other. While both men enjoyed climbing with women (notably with Bonnie Prudden
, an accomplished climber in her own right), they continued to climb together, with often spectacular results. One of Kraus' and Fritz' most significant efforts at the Gunks was High Exposure, a bold 5.6
that involves a blind reach around an overhung corner 150 feet up in the air; the route still confounds novice climbers. Done in 1941, with a hemp rope and three soft-iron piton
s for protection, High Exposure was a world-class accomplishment. Other significant Kraus first ascents in the Gunks included: Northern Pillar 5.2
(The first technical rock climb in The Trapps; Three Pines 5.3
; Horseman 5.5
; Madame Grunnebaum's Wulst 5.6
; Easy Overhang 5.2
;Bitchy Virgin5.7R
(the first "R" rated climb in the Shawangunks); and Emilio 5.7
(The first aid climb in the Gunks- Hans and Fritz employed a shoulder stand)
By the end of the 1940s, the Shawangunks had fifty-eight documented climbing routes. 26 of these were first ascents by Kraus; 23 were by Wiessner.
, Austria
and taught English as a youth by James Joyce
. In 1938 the Kraus family fled Europe, just ahead of World War II
, this time to the United States. They settled in New York
. Kraus was not allowed to enlist in the U.S. military because he had been born in Trieste, which had belonged to the Habsburg Empire at the time of Kraus' birth. Therefore, he was technically considered an "enemy alien", even though he was a legal immigrant, and a Jew. He became a U.S. citizen in 1945.
Sometime in the late 1930s (precise date unknown; pre-1938), Kraus married Susanne Simon. The marriage was apparently not a happy one, and they separated in 1944 and were divorced in the 1950s.
In 1951, Kraus made the acquaintance of Jim McCarthy, a young Princeton University
undergraduate and up and coming climber. The two soon became fast friends and climbing partners, and McCarthy would go on to be Kraus' personal lawyer.
In 1959, Kraus married Madi Springer-Miller, a champion skier and the first woman to ski the "Lip" of Tuckerman's Ravine on Mount Washington
. They had two daughters, Ann and Mary.
In 1984 at the age of 79, Kraus stopped climbing completely, due to arthritis
, and the cumulative effects of various injuries. His last climb was Easy Overhang, a route he had done the first ascent of in 1941.
In 1995 Kraus was diagnosed with prostate cancer
. He died peacefully on the morning of March 6, 1996 in his New York City apartment, holding his daughters hand. His ashes were carried up the High Exposure buttress by an old friend and scattered into the air at the top.
Rock climbing
Rock climbing also lightly called 'The Gravity Game', is a sport in which participants climb up, down or across natural rock formations or artificial rock walls. The goal is to reach the summit of a formation or the endpoint of a pre-defined route without falling...
, as well as being one of the fathers of sports medicine
Sports medicine
Sports medicine is a branch of medicine that deals with physical fitness, treatment and prevention of injuries related to sports and exercise...
and physical medicine and rehabilitation
Physical medicine and rehabilitation
Physical medicine and rehabilitation , physiatry or rehabilitation medicine, is a branch of medicine that aims to enhance and restore functional ability and quality of life to those with physical impairments or disabilities. A physician having completed training in this field is referred to as a...
. Kraus was elected to the U.S. National Ski Hall of Fame
National Ski Hall of Fame
The U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame and Museum is located in the City of Ishpeming in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, the birthplace of organized skiing in the United States...
in 1974.
Career
Kraus attended medical school in ViennaVienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
in the 1920s, against his fathers' wishes, becoming an orthopedic surgeon. Through his subsequent practice he developed a philosophy of treatment at odds with traditional medicine of the time. He would evolve this method, called "immediate mobilization", over his entire medical career. Passing his medical exams in New York, Kraus continued developing unique methods of fracture treatment, applying them to all kinds of athletes. He become especially well known in the skiing circles, performing some amazing cures.
In the 1950s, Kraus was behind a push by the Appalachian Mountain Club
Appalachian Mountain Club
The Appalachian Mountain Club is one of the United States' oldest outdoor groups. Created in 1876 to explore and preserve the White Mountains in New Hampshire, it has expanded throughout the northeastern U.S., with 12 chapters stretching from Maine to Washington, D.C...
to regulate climbing in the Shawangunks, and to install a safety code to prevent climbing accidents. This safety code led to conflicts with Lester Germer
Lester Germer
Lester Halbert Germer was an American physicist. With Clinton Davisson, he proved the wave-particle duality of matter in the Davisson–Germer experiment, which was important to the development of the electron microscope. These studies supported the theoretical work of De Broglie. He also studied...
and The Vulgarians, and was later abandoned.
It was Kraus, based on his landmark research during the 1940s at New York-Presbyterian Hospitalin Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
, who first made the connection between exercise and health. In the 1950s, Kraus became the first to identify the relationship among exercise, fitness, and muscles, and also the first to identify how exercise impacts mental, emotional and physical health. Kraus was also the first to warn Americans that children were not getting enough exercise and were watching too much television. Along with Bonnie Prudden
Bonnie Prudden
Bonnie Prudden was a leading American rock climber in the 1940s and 1950s, with 30 documented first ascents to her credit in New York's Shawangunks mountains. Along with Hans Kraus, she was a pioneering advocate of physical fitness and later developed a form of trigger point therapy called...
, he campaigned for better physical exercise programs for children, and authored several books on exercise, sports medicine, and physical therapy. Eisenhower championed Kraus and his campaign to get Americans to exercise. However, by 1957, it was clear that Kraus was unsuccessful. Kraus was broadly opposed by the AMA
American Medical Association
The American Medical Association , founded in 1847 and incorporated in 1897, is the largest association of medical doctors and medical students in the United States.-Scope and operations:...
and gym teachers (who felt Kraus was disparaging to their leadership) and many Americans, as Sports Illustrated reported in 1957, who worried that mandatory exercise programs for children would "Hitlerize American youth."
Kraus also continued to develop a unique approach to treating back pain in collaboration with another doctor, Sonja Weber. They developed an understanding of the underlying causes of back pain and devised the K-W Test and exercises to alleviate it.
Kraus was an Associate Professor at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center College of Medicine. His studies on children led to President Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...
establishing the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports
President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports
The President's Council on Fitness, Sports, and Nutrition , is an American government organization that aims to "promote, encourage and motivate Americans of all ages to become physically active and participate in sport"...
. In October 1961, Kraus became President Kennedy’s secret White House back doctor.
The story of Kennedy’s back had never prior been reported, although there was much speculation; but Kraus and Kennedy’s two other White House doctors had sworn confidentiality. In April 2006, over ten years after Kraus’s death, Kraus’s widow donated Kraus’s White House medical records on Kennedy to the Kennedy Library. They are now available to historians as well as the general public.
Additionally, some of author Susan E.B. Schwartz
Susan E.B. Schwartz
Susan E.B. Schwartz is an American non-fiction writer who is a Partner to the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sportsand writes about the outdoors, fitness and sports. She is also the author of the biography of medical and rock climbing pioneer, Hans Kraus...
’s book interview tapes of Hans Kraus are also archived in the Kennedy Library and available for research.
Kraus’s medical records show that by the time of Kennedy’s death in Dallas, using exercise, Kraus had virtually cured Kennedy of his lifelong back pain.
Kraus’s White House medical records also contain several entries about Kennedy’s back corset
Corset
A corset is a garment worn to hold and shape the torso into a desired shape for aesthetic or medical purposes...
, which Kennedy had worn since Harvard. As Kraus wrote in the medical records, Kraus had grown convinced that the corset was impeding Kennedy’s recovery and that Kennedy needed permanently to stop wearing it. Finally, in October 1963, Kennedy told Kraus that he would stop wearing his corset permanently in January 1964. Several leading presidential historians, including James Reston
James Reston
James Barrett Reston , nicknamed "Scotty," was an American journalist whose career spanned the mid 1930s to the early 1990s. He was associated for many years with the New York Times.-Life:...
and Robert Dallek
Robert Dallek
Robert Dallek is an American historian specializing in American presidents. He is a recently retired Professor of History at Boston University and has previously taught at Columbia University, UCLA, and Oxford...
, have theorized that Kennedy might have survived Dallas if he had not been wearing his corset.
He has also treated other celebrities, including Arthur Godfrey
Arthur Godfrey
Arthur Morton Godfrey was an American radio and television broadcaster and entertainer who was sometimes introduced by his nickname, The Old Redhead...
and Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...
.
Kraus maintained at multi-tiered, elastic billing system; for climbers and people he knew personally, or anyone who he thought would have trouble paying, he charged nothing; he charged partial payment for middle class patients, and regular rates for wealthy patients and celebrities.
Climbing
As a young man Kraus fell in love with the mountains, spending as much time as possible hiking and climbing. In his teenage years, Hans learned to climb in the DolomiteDolomite
Dolomite is a carbonate mineral composed of calcium magnesium carbonate CaMg2. The term is also used to describe the sedimentary carbonate rock dolostone....
s. Among his friends and climbing partners were Emilio Comici and Gino Solda. He would later bring the Dolomite techniques of high-angle face climbing to the United States
In 1940 he met Fritz Wiessner
Fritz Wiessner
Fritz Wiessner was a pioneer of free climbing. Born in Dresden, Germany, he emigrated to New York City in 1929. He became a U.S. citizen in 1935.-Early days:...
, who would become a lifelong friend and climbing partner. Wiessner had discovered the Shawangunks in 1935 and together Hans and Fritz spent every spare day developing routes in the area. Wiessner was known for his outstanding free climbing
Free climbing
Free climbing is a type of rock climbing in which the climber uses only hands, feet and other parts of the body to ascend, employing ropes and forms of climbing protection to prevent falls only....
technique; Kraus' specialty was aid climbing
Aid climbing
Aid climbing is a style of climbing in which standing on or pulling oneself up via devices attached to fixed or placed protection is used to make upward progress....
. Thus, the two men's climbing skills complemented each other. While both men enjoyed climbing with women (notably with Bonnie Prudden
Bonnie Prudden
Bonnie Prudden was a leading American rock climber in the 1940s and 1950s, with 30 documented first ascents to her credit in New York's Shawangunks mountains. Along with Hans Kraus, she was a pioneering advocate of physical fitness and later developed a form of trigger point therapy called...
, an accomplished climber in her own right), they continued to climb together, with often spectacular results. One of Kraus' and Fritz' most significant efforts at the Gunks was High Exposure, a bold 5.6
Grade (climbing)
In rock climbing, mountaineering and other climbing disciplines, climbers give a climbing grade to a route that concisely describes the difficulty and danger of climbing the route...
that involves a blind reach around an overhung corner 150 feet up in the air; the route still confounds novice climbers. Done in 1941, with a hemp rope and three soft-iron piton
Piton
In climbing, a piton is a metal spike that is driven into a crack or seam in the rock with a hammer, and which acts as an anchor to protect the climber against the consequences of a fall, or to assist progress in aid climbing...
s for protection, High Exposure was a world-class accomplishment. Other significant Kraus first ascents in the Gunks included: Northern Pillar 5.2
Grade (climbing)
In rock climbing, mountaineering and other climbing disciplines, climbers give a climbing grade to a route that concisely describes the difficulty and danger of climbing the route...
(The first technical rock climb in The Trapps; Three Pines 5.3
Grade (climbing)
In rock climbing, mountaineering and other climbing disciplines, climbers give a climbing grade to a route that concisely describes the difficulty and danger of climbing the route...
; Horseman 5.5
Grade (climbing)
In rock climbing, mountaineering and other climbing disciplines, climbers give a climbing grade to a route that concisely describes the difficulty and danger of climbing the route...
; Madame Grunnebaum's Wulst 5.6
Grade (climbing)
In rock climbing, mountaineering and other climbing disciplines, climbers give a climbing grade to a route that concisely describes the difficulty and danger of climbing the route...
; Easy Overhang 5.2
Grade (climbing)
In rock climbing, mountaineering and other climbing disciplines, climbers give a climbing grade to a route that concisely describes the difficulty and danger of climbing the route...
;Bitchy Virgin5.7R
Grade (climbing)
In rock climbing, mountaineering and other climbing disciplines, climbers give a climbing grade to a route that concisely describes the difficulty and danger of climbing the route...
(the first "R" rated climb in the Shawangunks); and Emilio 5.7
Grade (climbing)
In rock climbing, mountaineering and other climbing disciplines, climbers give a climbing grade to a route that concisely describes the difficulty and danger of climbing the route...
(The first aid climb in the Gunks- Hans and Fritz employed a shoulder stand)
By the end of the 1940s, the Shawangunks had fifty-eight documented climbing routes. 26 of these were first ascents by Kraus; 23 were by Wiessner.
Personal life
Kraus was born in TriesteTrieste
Trieste is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is situated towards the end of a narrow strip of land lying between the Adriatic Sea and Italy's border with Slovenia, which lies almost immediately south and east of the city...
, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
and taught English as a youth by James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
. In 1938 the Kraus family fled Europe, just ahead of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, this time to the United States. They settled in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. Kraus was not allowed to enlist in the U.S. military because he had been born in Trieste, which had belonged to the Habsburg Empire at the time of Kraus' birth. Therefore, he was technically considered an "enemy alien", even though he was a legal immigrant, and a Jew. He became a U.S. citizen in 1945.
Sometime in the late 1930s (precise date unknown; pre-1938), Kraus married Susanne Simon. The marriage was apparently not a happy one, and they separated in 1944 and were divorced in the 1950s.
In 1951, Kraus made the acquaintance of Jim McCarthy, a young Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
undergraduate and up and coming climber. The two soon became fast friends and climbing partners, and McCarthy would go on to be Kraus' personal lawyer.
In 1959, Kraus married Madi Springer-Miller, a champion skier and the first woman to ski the "Lip" of Tuckerman's Ravine on Mount Washington
Mount Washington (New Hampshire)
Mount Washington is the highest peak in the Northeastern United States at , famous for dangerously erratic weather. For 76 years, a weather observatory on the summit held the record for the highest wind gust directly measured at the Earth's surface, , on the afternoon of April 12, 1934...
. They had two daughters, Ann and Mary.
In 1984 at the age of 79, Kraus stopped climbing completely, due to arthritis
Arthritis
Arthritis is a form of joint disorder that involves inflammation of one or more joints....
, and the cumulative effects of various injuries. His last climb was Easy Overhang, a route he had done the first ascent of in 1941.
In 1995 Kraus was diagnosed with prostate cancer
Prostate cancer
Prostate cancer is a form of cancer that develops in the prostate, a gland in the male reproductive system. Most prostate cancers are slow growing; however, there are cases of aggressive prostate cancers. The cancer cells may metastasize from the prostate to other parts of the body, particularly...
. He died peacefully on the morning of March 6, 1996 in his New York City apartment, holding his daughters hand. His ashes were carried up the High Exposure buttress by an old friend and scattered into the air at the top.