History

How it all began: Otto Buchinger – A pioneer of medical fasting

As a doctor, philosopher, and pioneer of medical fasting, Dr. Otto Buchinger lived an eventful life in turbulent times. Born in 1878 in Darmstadt to Johann Buchinger, a civil servant, and his wife Amelie, née Busch, he grew up at a time when the Lebensreform (“back to nature”) movement in Germany was in full swing. In the light of growing negative social and health consequences of advancing industrialization and urbanization, the representatives of this movement propagated a return to a less materialistic and more natural way of life. Against the wishes of his father, who had envisaged a legal career for his son, Otto Buchinger studied medicine. After being awarded a doctorate, he joined the Imperial Navy, serving as an officer until in 1917, shortly before the end of the First World War, he was thrown off course in by severe rheumatoid polyarthritis.

An expert in fasting through personal experience

His mobility was soon so severely restricted that he was forced to retire from the navy an invalid. The personal psychological strain and the powerlessness of conventional Western medicine led him to consider alternative forms of treatment. In 1919, he started fasting with Dr. Riedlin in Freiburg, who prescribed fasting therapy with tea and water. It was a resounding success and saved his “life and existence”, which he devoted from then on to developing a method for a medically sound fasting therapy.
As a doctor, he focused on all aspects of holistic medicine. As a spiritual person, he concerned himself with the correlation between the body’s emotional and physical self-healing powers. As the founder of medical therapeutic fasting, he combined the two to create a holistic form of therapy – Buchinger therapeutic fasting – which he successfully applied and continued to develop from 1920 in his own fasting clinic, Kurheim Dr. Otto Buchinger in Witzenhausen.

Committed to the whole person

In 1935, the “pioneer of fasting” published his most important work, “The Therapeutic Fasting Cure”, which is still being printed today. It contains the first systematic description of the physiology of fasting, and lists a number of illnesses that respond to therapeutic fasting. In the same year, Dr. Otto Buchinger moved to Bad Pyrmont, where he opened a larger and more modern fasting clinic. It now employed a team of doctors, physiotherapists and artists. He not only concerned himself with the physical aspects of convalescence and health care, but also the spiritual side, holding “collective consultation sessions,” among others, in which music by Beethoven was played or poems by Goethe and Rilke recited. He was convinced that equal importance as material sustenance for humans is spiritual and cultural nourishment.

The true path of the art of healing

Following his convictions, Dr. Otto Buchinger regarded fasting under experienced medical supervision and in an inspiring atmosphere not simply as a one-time corrective measure for an imbalanced state of health. Rather, he considered it to be the “true path of holistic medicine” that can help us to achieve a more responsible lifestyle and lead us to the source of our self-healing powers.

In 1953, he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit for his pioneering work. In the same year, together with his daughter Maria and son-in-law Helmut Wilhelmi, he set up a new clinic in Überlingen on Lake Constance, which he continued to manage for several years as a senior physician. Throughout his lifetime, he continued to fast regularly. It gave him strength for a long, healthy and active life in which he achieved great things before he died in 1966 aged 88.

Dr. Otto Buchinger’s immediate successors were Dr. Heinz Fahrner and Dr. med. Hellmut Lützner as well as Dr. Gisela Falzone and Dr. Karl Spieske. Both Dr. Heinz Fahrner and Dr. Hellmut Lützner published numerous articles in naturopathic and medical journals.

The second generation: Maria Buchinger – the Grande Dame of fasting

In 1973, Dr. Otto Buchinger’s daughter Maria and son-in-law Helmut Wilhelmi opened a second fasting clinic in Marbella, Andalusia. After her husband’s death in 1985, Maria Buchinger received international acclaim as the “Grande Dame” of therapeutic fasting. Convinced that the fasting method developed by her father worked particularly well under the Mediterranean sun in Marbella, she continued to expand Clínica Buchinger Wilhelmi. Her credo was, “We give people back their quality of life.” As a result, under her management, the clinic grew to be one of the most successful foreign companies on the Costa del Sol.
Maria Buchinger Wilhelmi was presented with the Federal Cross of Merit for her work in 1995. In 2003 she was even nominated “Entrepreneur of the Year” by Marbella’s trade association – the first woman and foreigner to receive this accolade.
In 2011, a year after she died, the family set up a foundation in her name to promote scientific research into and documentation of therapeutic fasting.

The third generation

In Marbella, Maria’s daughter Jutta and her son-in-law Claus Rohrer continued the work started by their mother and grandfather. Maria Buchinger’s son Raimund Wilhelmi and his wife Dr. Françoise Wilhelmi de Toledo took over management of the clinic on Lake Constance after 1985.
Dr. Françoise Wilhelmi de Toledo is one of the most esteemed fasting experts worldwide, has published countless articles on the topic of fasting, and forged international partnerships with clinics and universities all over the world. Under her leadership, the research department at Buchinger Wilhelmi continues to work on several extensive studies.

Effectiveness of therapeutic fasting backed by scientific studies

In early 2019, the world’s largest scientific study to date was published on the effectiveness of Buchinger therapeutic fasting. A total of 1,422 fasting subjects were observed. The study revealed that therapeutic fasting according to the Buchinger method is safe and therapeutically effective as well as boosting emotional and physical well-being. In another study, the team confirmed that Buchinger therapeutic fasting prevents the pathological accumulation of fat in the liver, preventing liver cirrhosis. Other studies deal with the effectiveness of the Buchinger Wilhelmi fasting programme on muscle function and on the microbiome.

The fourth generation

After running the clinic in Marbella for 35 years, Jutta and Claus Rohrer decided at the end of 2017 to retire from day-to-day business and hand over management to their daughter Katharina Rohrer-Zaiser and nephew Victor Wilhelmi. In March 2019, Raimund Wilhelmi also passed on the baton and transferred management of Buchinger Wilhelmi on Lake Constance to his son, Leonard Wilhelmi. As the great-grandchildren of Otto Buchinger, all three feel closely committed to the tradition of the family-owned business. Aware of the importance of shared values, they have developed a unifying mission statement for both clinics at numerous family get-togethers.

2020: One hundred years of Buchinger therapeutic fasting

In 2020 Buchinger Wilhelmi celebrated its 100th anniversary as a family-owned company: On 2 August 1920, Dr. Otto Buchinger welcomed his first patients to his sanitorium in Witzenhausen.