[2] His mother was the daughter of Gustav Samson, owner of a large cloth mill in Cottbus, and Anna Goldschmidt, whose family was of Jewish origin.
[1][2] In 1933, Kuenssberg turned down an invitation to join the SS and migrated to Britain, in the guise of a sports student, carrying a hockey stick and a tennis racquet.
[1] At the time of his graduation, being a German in Britain limited the medical work Kuenssberg could take on, and in May 1940, with the ending of the Phoney War, he was interned and held until October.
[1] In February 1944, Kuenssberg was commissioned into the Royal Army Medical Corps,[1] but for his wartime military service he changed his name to Edgar Valentine Kingsley.
[2] He remained in uniform for two years, becoming assistant to the Director of Hygiene in British East Africa and rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel.
Active in the British Medical Association, he was elected as chairman of its Scottish General Medical Services Committee, and in that role was one of four physicians who in the mid-1960s spent two years negotiating a new "GP Charter" with Kenneth Robinson, the minister of health in the Labour government of Harold Wilson.
During the two years, Kuenssberg made many trips to London by British Rail sleeper and on occasions flew back to Edinburgh for an evening surgery.
In these roles he visited Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States, South Africa, parts of the Middle East, and some other European countries.
[1] Before the disastrous side-effects of thalidomide on the unborn child became clear, with Doctors Simpson and Stanton of the Northern General Hospital Kuenssberg pointed out some disorders in patients who were taking the drug.