The cherry tree grew noticeably straight.

As if wind and weather hadn't tugged on him all these years.

It is firmly rooted in the atrium of the Provadis Group in the Höchst industrial park.

In the place where it was planted as a small seedling in 1976.

Marie Lisa Kehler

Deputy head of the regional section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

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    It was the year in which René Gottschalk began his training and studies at the location. The later head of the Frankfurt health department, who will retire this Monday with a celebration in the Paulskirche, is still deeply rooted in the training location. Here he discovered his passion for science and teaching. Here he made mentors and close friends, and here he learned that it is sometimes necessary to look for worm eggs in sheep feces in the service of science. “I still did that by hand and nose,” says Gottschalk. He has chosen a place in the shade of the tree to chat about his professional life.

    Similar to the tree, it also stays noticeably straight.

    As if the past few years hadn't harmed him.

    Gottschalk knows what it feels like when a storm blows in your face and it takes all your strength not to buckle.

    It is more of a "German oak" type than a "Japanese ornamental cherry".

    He doesn't care who rubs against his statements.

    Gottschalk remains true to itself - and steadfast.

    A trait that has earned him both praise and criticism over the past few months.

    For Gottschalk you need facts

    Because the head of the Frankfurt health department has repeatedly questioned decisions made by politicians in connection with the pandemic - and was often sharply criticized for them himself. "Schools are not breeding grounds for infections," he repeated this morning. “We have carried out investigations, but they have not been read.” Many of the measures that have been ordered in the past few months are, in his opinion, “violating fundamental rights and in the long run not acceptable”. Gottschalk keeps his word. With your back straight, always looking for direct eye contact. “In my life I have always tried to justify my opinion.” Changing them takes more than a little headwind. It takes facts for him.

    At the end of his career, Gottschalk consciously returned to the place where it all began. After Höchst, to the training service provider Provadis. You know him here. He is expected here. Here, the man who has headed Hesse's largest health department for ten years is just "René". One of them. Many who once learned and taught here with him still work here. “That was a great time”, Gottschalk remembers the beginning of his professional life. He was young then. But also a bit haphazard when it came to questions about the future. At Provadis, he was given the opportunity to combine two apprenticeships, namely as a biology laboratory assistant and a biotechnologist, with an engineering degree at the same time. What would put off others because of the expected study load, seemed to him the easiest choice.Because Gottschalk didn't want to leave Frankfurt. He didn't have a real plan for life. At that time he, the hobby glider pilot, could only imagine becoming a pilot. But for that he would have had to go to the armed forces, recalls Gottschalk. And that was out of the question for him at the time. There he had his principles. And Gottschalk is no one who lightly throws them overboard. Not then - and certainly not today.who carelessly throws them overboard. Not then - and certainly not today.who carelessly throws them overboard. Not then - and certainly not today.

    "Discovered a passion without looking for it"

    So he buried his dream of flying and signed in Höchst.

    He has never regretted it.

    “I could see my workplace from the bedroom.” His later mentor Vollrath Hopp advised him to study again.

    Or rather, he ordered it.

    No contradiction possible.

    Gottschalk had been working as a trainer for a long time and had already got used to a certain standard of living.

    He already had his engineering degree under his belt.

    Start all over again?

    Gottschalk was not very enthusiastic.

    “I didn't want to leave.

    That's why I chose a place at university that I was sure I wouldn't get. ”He signed up for medicine.

    And was taken.