Karl-Otto Liebmann, MTheol, MD, Yale psychiatrist, died at peace and with family on May 7 at what he considered a not yet venerable age of 87. Professor Liebmann’s career in the Department of Psychiatry at Yale spanned more than fifty years, first as a resident, then fellow, assistant professor, and clinical professor. His interests in community and geriatric psychiatry led him to be the founding chairman of a Yale-affiliated Psychiatry Department at Griffin Hospital and the medical director of Harbor Health Services, a mental health clinic serving the Branford shoreline.
Along the way he started the first sleep disorder clinic in Connecticut and maintained a small private practice for particularly challenging patients. He spent a year at the University of Mannheim Psychiatry Department, establishing the principles of community-based psychiatric practice in a new program there. In addition, he served for many years on the Connecticut Psychiatry Ethics committee. He was loved and respected by the many residents, fellows, and medical students whom he taught, many of whom are practicing and teaching all over the United States and Europe.
Dr. Liebmann was born in Heidelberg, Germany. His father, Professor Heinrich Liebmann, was Dean of Heidelberg University and a world renowned mathematician (cf. The Liebmann Rule). Because his father was one quarter Jewish, Hitler personally fired him from his position at the University. The Max Planck Institute in Munich invited him to join their faculty, and it was in Munich that Dr. Liebmann grew up. After graduating from the Maximilian High School, he studied theology at Heidelberg University and the University of Basel, where he was greatly influenced by the psychiatrist and philosopher Karl Jaspers. Directly after receiving his degree, he began medical school in Munich, graduating in 1961.
In 1962 he met his future wife Judith, who had just graduated Barnard College and had been awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to study comparative medieval literature at the University of Munich. Dr. Liebmann maintained it was “love at first sight” when they met at a party. When she returned to study for a PhD at Yale University, Dr. Liebmann followed within a year and began his residency in psychiatry. They were married in November 1964 in Branford Chapel at Harkness Tower on the Yale Campus.
After a childhood of personal and national tragedy, Dr. Liebmann learned how to wrangle the most out of life. As a young man he climbed the highest Alps with an ice pick, and when he settled on the Connecticut shoreline, he became the avid captain of his green-and-white sunfish. He played the violin in chamber groups and later with his children and grandchildren. He swam in the Sound every morning summer or winter and once saved a dog who had fallen through the ice at Young’s Pond by jumping into the freezing water.
Besides his wife, he is survived by three cherished children, Anya, Theo, and Otto; two beloved daughters-in-law, Barbara and Rebekah; and six grandchildren, Allie, Risa, Ruby, Ava, Tal, and Juniper.
From the time of his theological studies, Dr. Liebmann felt a strong affinity for the Hebrew Bible and the philosophical and ethical world view of Judaism. In 1994 he formally converted to Judaism, guided by his good friend James Ponet, the founding rabbi of the Slifka Center at Yale University. In honor of Dr. Liebmann, the family is inaugurating the Liebmann Family Fund for the study of Jewish Art and Literature at the Slifka Center. Donations in his memory can be made to The Slifka Center, 80 Wall St., New Haven, CT 06511, with a note that it is intended for the Liebmann Family Fund. As the times dictate, the burial will be private. A memorial celebration will follow when possible.
