a.o.Doz. Dr. med. habil.
Born 1920
Taken from an obituary notice by J. Wendler, Ann. Bull. UEP 7 (1989/90), 55
When he started this work, he already had an academic education at the Institute of Physiology and a full ENT training, both at the University of Halle. Besides, he had studied singing and was performing professionally in concerts and also on stage. In close cooperation with the director of the University Institute of Speech Sciences, Prof. Dr. Hans Krech, he formed the basis for the development of phoniatrics in the Eastern part of Germany. I myself am very happy and grateful that I had the opportunity to work and study with Wolfgang Pfau for a year in Halle, where I got acquainted with the fundamentals of phoniatrics. His scientific interest was, at first, concentrated on the physiology of voice production, in particular with reference to the so-called neurochronaxic theory of voice from Husson which Pfau no reason saw to accept (although he appreciated Husson as a nice person very much). Thus, he carried out a series of fundamental experiments that clearly disproved Husson’s ideas. Later on, he focused on problems related to the classification of the singing voice, and his monograph „Zur Klassifizierung der menschlichen Stimme“ is, still, one of the competent standard publications on this subject. The only congress of the UEP he attended was the first one in Prague, 1973. Afterwards, he withdrew himself from the public more and more. He found himself unable to compromise - even in a moderate way - with a political system which was going to overrule all areas of life. Inner emigration, that was his response to the conditions of life he had to cope with, and he died shortly before the great change that nobody of us had expected at that time. Let us remember Wolfgang Pfau as one of the pioneers of phoniatrics in Germany in gratefulness and in deep regret of the oppressing destiny of his life.