Kremlin cardiologist who became the first victim of Stalin's Doctors' Plot
He suffered twenty-nine heart attacks in custody, ten of them during interrogations in Ryumin's office.
Born into a prosperous Jewish merchant family in Minsk and educated in medicine in Germany, Etinger was a pioneering Soviet cardiologist. As a longtime consultant to the Kremlin medical administration, he treated Soviet and international communist leaders including Kirov, Ordzhonikidze, Dimitrov, and Togliatti, and was a pioneer in electrocardiographic diagnosis; in 1950 he was discussed as a possible Nobel Prize candidate. Arrested in November 1950 as the first victim of the Doctors' Plot, he was tortured by MGB investigator Ryumin and died in Lefortovo Prison in March 1951; Ryumin then used his death as the lever to accuse Minister Abakumov of covering up a conspiracy, expanding the case into a full-scale antisemitic campaign.
Career Timeline
- 1913M.D., University of Berlin
- 1914–1917Military doctor, Imperial Russian Army field hospital
- 1918–1920Chief of a major military hospital, Red Army
- 1922–1932Assistant, then privat-docent, Internal Medicine, 1st Moscow University
- 1929–1950Consultant, Kremlin Medical Administration
- 1932–1949Chair of Internal Medicine, Pediatric Faculty, 2nd Moscow Medical Institute
- 1950–1951Arrested by MGB, died under torture in Lefortovo Prison