Wolfgang Springer, homeopath who set extraordinarily high standards for himself and those he mentored, dies at the age of 72.
“First comes the craft, then the arts and crafts and then the art, and in exactly this order and not the other way around!”
–Wolfgang Springer
And so it goes, another great healer from our clan has departed. Dr. med. Wolfgang Springer, due to complications from kidney disease, crossed the threshold on January 3, 2025, after having practiced classical homeopathy for some forty years.
Springer, born on the first of October 1952, began his clinical training in internal medicine, surgery, gynecology and urology, eventually finding his way to homeopathy as he could not obtain satisfactory results using allopathy to treat chronic disease. He studied at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, wrote his doctoral thesis, ‘Acute Upper Gastrointestinal Bleeding’ (1981), and received his medical degree from that institution in 1982. During his college years, he did hear several homeopathy and acupuncture lectures but felt drawn to homeopathy as he was influenced by Kunzli and, even more so, by Vithoulkas. He began practicing homeopathy in 1984.
Dr. Springer was one of the first 25 diplomates of George Vithoulkas’s Athenian School of Homeopathic Medicine:
“Dr. Wolfgang Springer was one of my early students who came to Alonissos to deepen his understanding of homeopathy. Over the years, he attended most of the seminars I offered, and I can confidently say he was an exceptionally dedicated and conscientious student. His commitment to helping patients was unwavering, and he consistently adhered to the principles of classical homeopathy. Dr. Springer was among those rare practitioners who remained true to the teachings I defined as classical homeopathy, never straying from its core tenets. I am certain his soul will find eternal peace.”
– Prof. George Vithoulkas, email -January 28, 2025.
Springer presented countless lectures and seminars to colleagues across Europe, Mexico, the USA, Japan and New Zealand. Springer created a video, ‘Video Tours through the Materia Medica,’ a popular teaching aid, and for 25 years provided live supervision to homeopaths in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Besides publishing articles in German language journals and yearbooks he wrote for Homoeopathic Links, Documenta Homoeopathica, Homeopathy in Austria and the Journal of the American Institute of Homoeopathy.
He was co-founder and long-time 2nd Federal Chairman of the Hahnemann Society (an association of classical homeopathic doctors). He was a certified lecturer of that Society, which included 23 years of teaching at the ‘Augsburg’—a 3-month course for doctors). For 20 years, he served as sole lecturer at the ‘Lindau Homeopathy Days’ seminars for colleagues from Germany, Austria and Switzerland using the video teaching tool he created. He served as homeopathy supervisor for five years in Bern (Switzerland) for Swiss colleagues and eleven years as supervisor in Vienna (Austria) for Austrian colleagues. He was a former lecturer for the Homeopathy student group at the Free University of Witten/Herdecke, an Honorary Chairman of the Tiedemann Foundation for Classical Homeopathy, a founder and former board member of ‘Omöon’ (an association for the promotion of homeopathy teaching), and was a former member of the Federal Board of the Deutsche Zentralverein homöopathischer Ärzte e.V. (German Central Association of Homeopathic Doctors, DZVhÄ) in the area of health policy.
In 1999 or 2000, he received the “Samuel Award” for the best scientific lecture during the DZVhÄ annual conference held in Münster that year. In 2017, he was awarded an Honorary Diploma from the DZVhA and, in 2018, awarded an Honorary Membership in the DZVhA. He was also an Honorary Member of the Liga Medicorum Homoeopathica Internationalis (LMHI). Springer received diplomas from the DZVhÄ and from the European Association of Homeopathic Doctors (ECH).
Wolfgang was responsible for coordinating the “200 Years of Homeopathy” celebration in 1996 in the Paulskirche in Frankfurt, Germany. He was a former Board Member for political affairs of the DZVhÄ and, in 2005, was the first to win the association’s newly created “Globular Politics Award,” which honored those homeopathic doctors who became involved in social and political activities for the advancement of homeopathy. In that same year, 2005, Springer served as president of the 60th LIGA Congress which was held in Berlin, Germany.
“In Wolfgang Springer we have lost a special person and a great homeopath. He was an outstanding teacher, supervisor and fighter for homeopathy like no other. We bow to his life’s work.”
– Beate Wetzel and Marieluise Schmittdiel.
Aside from articles, he supervised and edited an innovative work with co-editor, Heinz Wittwer, entitled Kombinierte Arzneimittel in der Homöopathie (2008) [Combined Remedies in Homeopathy], available only in the German language).1,2
This long-time Munich, Germany practitioner, was feted on his 70th birthday:
“If Springer were not a homeopathic doctor but a pianist, then one could – with a grain of salt! – place him close to Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. What both undoubtedly have in common is a certain tendency towards perfectionism. But while the Italian cancelled numerous concerts due to often minor defects in the room or instrument, Springer was always present – despite, or perhaps because of, many difficulties in the professional political environment and some inconsistencies in the homeopathic community! He never shied away from tackling hot topics and fighting for homeopathy with stringency and verve.3
“And just as the world-famous pianist Martha Argerich found an exceptional teacher in Michelangeli, numerous currently active medical homeopaths also owe their special ‘polishing’ to the person celebrating the anniversary: just imagine it, more than two decades of teaching at the Augsburg three-month course or 20 years of the Lindau Homeopathy Days (‘With video through the Materia Medica’), or more than two decades of supervision for colleagues in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Anyone who diligently took notes in Lindau, for example, can still find important pointers or confirmations for the correct choice of medicine in his or her notes today.”
– Ulf Riker, MD.
A patient’s review, was most likely of greater significance and satisfaction to him than any of the honors or awards which he received. Most, if not all reviews he received, were five stars. Here is one from an anonymous patient:
“Dr. Springer is one of the leading homeopathic doctors in Europe. Our family (parents and four children) has been treated by Dr. Springer for 30 years. We have gone through all childhood illnesses and other serious illnesses together with Dr. Springer. At all ages, we have always accepted all of Dr. Springer’s suggestions with the utmost trust and have therefore almost always been able to avoid allopathic remedies. Our children, all grown up now, are still Dr. Springer’s patients. A big compliment to his extraordinarily good diagnostics with the simplest of means and the consistent homeopathic care ‘through thick and thin.’”
Springer set high clinical and quality standards in homeopathic teaching and training. This characteristic caused him, in 2012, to be awarded the Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon from the Federal President and presented by Dr. Marcel Huber, then Bavarian Minister for Health and Environment. The laudation read: “Dr. Wolfgang Springer is an internationally known and respected doctor and supervisor. Through his commitment to homeopathy in Germany, he has earned outstanding merit.
“He was my teacher in homeopathy, and he was a teacher for many, many others also at the LIGA meetings. I am not the one to give statements, but he was a great teacher, for me he was an authority since 1986 when I met him in his lectures, mostly in Lindau/Bodensee. He brought the revival of homeopathy, started by Vithoulkas in Greece, to Germany.”
– Andreas Gaertner (email January 7, 2025).
“Dr. Wolfgang Springer has left us forever after a desperate struggle for the supremacy of life force over the dynamics of complex chronic illness. We accompany Wolfgang Springer in thoughts and prayers on his way to another world.
“Many of us remember 20 years of seminar training in Lindau under the motto ‘Through the Materia Medica with Video.’ Dr. Springer took us by the hand and showed us the breadth and depth of numerous homeopathic remedies using authentic video recordings of anamnesis. The most valuable thing was his uncompromising precision in taking anamnesis, case analysis and the incorruptible assessment of the course of even the most difficult cases, which was something we could experience first hand.” (See www.dzvhae.de/wir-nehmen-abschied-von-dr-wolfgang-springer/)
– Ulf Riker and Karl-Wilhelm Steuernagel
In the January issue of DZVhÄ-News, Dr Ulf Riker (2nd Chairman of the DZVhÄ) interviewed the Berlin dermatologist Dr. Karl Grunow, who participated in Dr. Springer’s supervision seminars for over ten years.
“For me, he set the gold standard of homeopathic work,” commented Dr Grunow. Grunow continued, “I went to these seminars regularly for over ten years, with joy and enthusiasm! The intensive working atmosphere was unique. I was particularly touched by the deep humanity with which Mr. Springer met the patients, which was sometimes hidden behind a subtle sense of humor. His anamnesis technique was very instructive for me, he worked out the peculiarity of the symptom in the case through his meticulous inquiries. There was something artistic about it, similar to how a sculptor forms a sculpture from a piece of stone. He then leafed through the repertory in the presence of the patient, through his experience he knew which rubrics offered surefootedness. And, of course, it was exciting to see how he started the case analyses: always under the premise of not theorizing, but referring to the materia medica…” (www.dzvhae.de/)
Apart from his 1997 Homoeopathic Links article, I learned little from Wolfgang as I am not a clinician, did not attend his lectures and, since I don’t read German, couldn’t enjoy his excellent book. However, what I did learn from him concerned a certain alcoholic beverage, as during the 1999 LIGA congress in Salvador da Bahia, Brasil, we became friends over a bottle of wine.
I had been wandering about the congress hotel one evening and, down the corridor into the hotel’s tavern, sat Herr Doctor Springer. Our eyes met and he enthusiastically waved me in. “Welcome! Let us share a bottle of wine,” he commanded. “Oh gosh,” I hesitantly responded, proceeding to explain that I wouldn’t be able to drink so much and besides I don’t care for wine. “Nonsense,” he responded and called the waiter over to request a bottle of Cabernet sauvignon from the Cousino Macul vineyard. Now, he quickly continued, what is it about wine that you don’t like?”
The good doctor had me cornered. “Because it doesn’t taste good,” I matter-of-factly responded, to which he quickly rejoined, “That is because you probably never had good wine.”
He was right and proceeded to give me a comprehensive educational lecture covering a libation which was soon to become a favorite of mine (however, at the current time I eschew alcohol and caffeine, by the way). Upon my return to the States, I ordered a case of that aforementioned inebriant and, as ‘like cures like,’ introduced my parents and several friends to what ‘good wine’ should taste like.
Though I learned much about Aurum from his 1997 article, that short evening enjoying wine and Wolfgang’s company was a golden memory never to be forgotten.
–Jay Yasgur
The following is from one of his old-time acquaintances, Dr med. Beat Spring:
“El Lobo (The Wolf): Wolfgang and I met for the first time when we served as assistant doctors in a holistic hospital in Lahnhöhe, Germany. From 1983 onward, Wolfgang and I attended the Vithoulkas Seminars in Alonissos, which were held in an old workroom on a small bay next to two tiny restaurants. Soon after, he became involved with teaching,; i.e., for 23 years he was an advanced teacher at the ‘Augsburger 3-Monatskurs’ for MD’s and for 20 years he conducted the ‘Lindauer Homöopathietage’ using patient videos.’ He gave many lectures and seminars throughout the world.
“He was a great and in-demand Supervisor. He was a master in subtle prescribing. He was a prescriber of the ‘old school’—after a painstaking interview, he selected a few most characteristic symptoms (mostly on the physical level) and searched the rubrics in the Repertorium. Not rarely [often] he came up with a very small remedy which cured. He was eager to follow these cases over the next seminars, something which is unfortunately not always the case in today’s supervisions. He held Supervisor Seminars in Munich (25 years), Berne (5y.) and Vienna (11y.).
“Politically, he was full-heartedly engaged in promoting Homeopathy. He used his contacts with very prominent people, wrote articles in reputable newspapers, etc. For all these engagements [efforts] he received, in 2012, the ‘Bundesverdienstkreuz am Bande’ by the President of Germany, a rare and highly renowned award.
“Privately he also was master in finding the §153 (the striking, uncommon, peculiar symptom reference – ed.)—places to visit on this planet: Be it the very remote museum in the woods of Japan, the grave of Gaugin in the Marquesas, or the best, and expensive, restaurant in a hidden road; he dreamed of having his own travel agency, the name of which, perhaps, would be ‘Go bankrupt with a smile!’4
“His knowledge and memory were phenomenal. He seemed to know really everything in art, literature and music. Poor guys who had to move the thousands of books (which he all has read!!) and his Steinway grand piano…
“Now Wolfgang, you have left us.
“We will miss you—your charisma, your charming and often grim look, your subtle wit, the excitement and joy of new discoveries we experienced thanks to you.
“In deep gratefulness for our long, long friendship.”
– Beat Spring, MD (email communication, January 25, 2025)
“Springer, during the early part of his homeopathy studies, would travel to Alonissos (Greece). He went together with his good friend, Beat Spring, MD, a Swiss homeopathic doctor from Bern to study with George Vithoulkas for some months. At that time it was quite an adventure—flight to Athens and then finding out how to get to the island where Vithoulkas lived and practiced. Springer quickly gained a reputation as a good practitioner and had many famous clients. He initially worked in Pasing, an urban district of Munich, where he had a group practice with nine other homeopathic doctors.
“Once a well-known symphonic conductor called him from a European city complaining that he was suffering from a pain in his right hand which prevented him from using his baton. His case was taken over the phone and then Wolfgang Springer told him what remedy to get at the local homeopathic pharmacy: the conductor was pain free the next day. By the way, Wolfgang loved classical music.
“As he became a more formidable force he began teaching and supervising and for many years held a three-day seminar on materia medica in the city hall of Lindau at the southern end, “the Happy End,” of Germany. Lindau is a small town and island on the eastern side of Lake of Constance (Bodensee). He would show the case on video and then explain in detail all the materia medica of the remedy prescribed. Some of these cases were released as a book entitled, Kombinierte Arzneimittel in der Homöopathie (Wolfgang Springer, Heinz Wittwer). This book contained cases and the detailed materia medica of 23 different salt-remedies (combined remedies as he called them) starting from Alumina phosphorica and ending with Natrum silicicum. Later, Wolfgang began conducting “Supervision-Seminars” in Munich. Here, homeopathic practitioners would bring in unsolved cases and Wolfgang did the anamnesis in front of the audience. He asked the audience what they suggested as a prescription after taking the case and put all the remedies mentioned on the black-board—usually a great bunch of different remedies were proposed and, in the end, he told us the remedy he prescribed. Generally, supervision seminars took place in spring and autumn and the patients had to come back after six months to tell about the progress achieved. In between, they were taken care of by the homeopathic doctor that had brought the unsolved case.
“During his daily consultations he used the same clock used by tournament chess players; he entered into no small talk and charged considerably more money per time than his colleagues.
He was one of the first to have a computerized repertory, which cost a fortune at that time and was bigger than a sewing machine. The money for it was generously provided by a client. He had all the repertories that existed, knew where to find all the rubrics, and always based his prescriptions on an accurate study of the materia medica. Dr Springer loved to travel; he has been all over the world. He loved to dine out and enjoy life and, when he did travel, he resided always in the most fancy hotels, enjoying the luxury.
“My dear friend Wolfgang was for many decades the most important homeopathic doctor in Germany as a practitioner as well as a teacher. The world has lost an important great personality.”
–Heinz Wittwer (email January 11, 2025).
Notes
“Interestingly, Kent mentions ‘provers’ a few times in his Calcarea silicata text, as he also does in Alumina silicata and Natrum silicata, leaving one to wonder if a proving might have been actually performed. Yet no written record of a proving is extant.”
– George Guess, MD (‘Calcarea silicata: A Review with Cases.’ American Journal of Homoeopathic Medicine, 104:2, Summer 2011, pp. 84-90).
In ‘Zirconium sulphuricum : A Case’ (The Homeopath, #89, 4/2003, p. 246), Peter Alex explains his selection of Zirconium based on information from a dream proving (see Jan Scholten’s Homoeopathy and the Elements ) and the Sulphur component of which there is much reference material.
Luepker discusses this topic in ‘Music, Homeopathy, and Healing: Cello Virtuoso Finds Relief from Epileptic Seizures’ (Homoeopathy Today, 31:3, Autumn, 2011, pp. 26-31):
“I felt there were enough qualities of both Sulphur and Aurum metallicum in Thomas’s case to merit looking for a remedy prepared from a mineral salt that included both Sulphur and Aurum. In fact, such a remedy exists–Aurum sulphuratum, prepared from the mineral salt auric sulfide. Auric sulfide is naturally occurring–the two component minerals being brought together by an ionic bond–and it is proven as one homeopathic remedy. Choosing a remedy in this way is called a ‘synthetic prescription,’ and it’s used when there are two mineral remedies that both share a resonance with the patient’s symptom profile and happen to have been proven as a single mineral salt. This is different from giving two remedies at the same time in combination (which is not considered classical homeopathy).”–p. 30. Luepker mentions Terje Wulfsberg’s Three Pieces of Gold as a splendid reference for studying the Aurum remedies.
You might want to consult the works of Jan Scholten to see how he “…develops a synthetic understanding of the remedies and uses these concepts to predict the curative possibilities of unknown remedies.”
– Julian Winston, The Heritage of Homoeopathic Literature, p. 43. Scholten’s first book, Homoeopathy and Minerals, would be especially useful in this regard as well.
In no particular order, Mr Yasgur wishes to thank the following for providing material for this tribute: Beate Wetzel, Marieluise Schmittdiel, Carl von Klinkenberg, Beate Schleh (IGM), Ulf Riker, Harry van der Zee and Karl-Wilhelm Steuernagel, with a special appreciation to Beat Spring, Heinz Wittwer and Andreas Gaertner.
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