Renatus (sometimes called René) Hartogs was born in Mainz, Germany on January 22, 1909. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Frankfurt and a medical degree from the University of Brussels Medical School and practiced as a psychologist. Before he fled the Nazis, he was the editor of the journal Der Überlegene. Monatsschrift der Siemens-Studien-Gesellschaft für Psychologische Wissenschaften e.V. He immigrated to the U.S. in 1940. He studied medicine in Montreal and clinical psychopathology in New York City again in order to fulfill the criteria to practice medicine there. From 1951 on, he was the chief psychiatrist at Youth House - an institution for the psychiatric observation of children - in New York City. Among others, he examined Lee Harvey Oswald, who was sent to Youth House in 1953, aged 13, for truancy from school (he later shot President John F. Kennedy. In 1965, Hartogs published a book about his experiences: The Two Assassins. The Warren Report - a Psychiatrist Discusses What it Really Reveals about Oswald and Ruby .
He founded the N.Y. Center for Stress-Coping, Inc. where he offered "training in individual and organizational stress-management." Hartogs died in 1998.
From the guide to the Renatus Hartogs Collection, 1931-1981, (Leo Baeck Institute)
