[The background of the hardships of Moabit Hospital; an aspect of German medicine under the National-Socialistic rule].

Abstract

Under the National-Socialistic (Nazi) rule, Moabit Hospital (City Hospital of Berlin at Moabit) met various hardships. In the present communication, their sufferings and backgrounds are described as an aspect of German medicine during the Nazi regime. 1. Around April 1st, 1933, the day of an anti-Jewish boycott, the Jewish doctors, co-medical and non-medical personnel were banned from the hospital. 2. At the hospital, they were forced to perform involuntary sterilization on psychiatric patients and patients with hereditary disease, by an inhuman law. 3. Dr. Georg Groscurth, a chief physician of the hospital, was executed because of his anti-Nazi activity. His act came from his patriotism and righteous indignation against the cruelty of Nazism. 4. In comparison with the inhumanity of the Nazis and in relation to the origin of the name of the area, Moabit, the author comments on "the Prussian tolerance" realized by Elector Friedlich Wilhelm of Brandenburg. The author believes this tolerance was one of the important causes of the flourishing of German medicine in the ninteenth century.

• Authors: H Izumi
• Journal: Nihon ishigaku zasshi. [Journal of Japanese history of medicine] (Nihon Ishigaku Zasshi) Vol. 41 Issue 4 Pg. 497-521 (Dec 1995) ISSN: 0549-3323 [Print] Japan
• PMID: 11618869 (Publication Type: English Abstract, Historical Article, Journal Article)

Topics

• Genetic Diseases, Inborn (history)
• Germany
• History, 20th Century
• Hospitals (history)
• Humans
• Intellectual Disability (history)
• Jews (history)
• Mental Disorders (history)
• Political Systems (history)
• Race Relations (history)
• Sterilization, Involuntary (history)