Adolf Hitler killed himself on 30th April 1945, and over next two days German garrison in Berlin had surrendered. Soviet army from the east, south and north moved in to occupy Berlin. For next two months, Soviets were the sole occupants, and in July the city was divided into four zones. Eastern half remained with the Soviets, and the western half was divided in French, British and American zones. With Nazi defeat, there was an immediate need to rebuild and restructure, especially in the health sector. This required cooperation of doctors who remained in Berlin till the end of the war.
To survive, as well as grow in Nazi Germany (1935-45) doctors had to be aligned to the political ideology. While some emigrated, others stayed on, at times endorsing and some-times participating in the Nazi atrocities. While, an intensive denazification drive was initiated soon after, healthcare was more about continuity. Soviet-supported communist party quickly recruited Ferdinand Sauerbruch, a German Surgeon, to organize health sector in Berlin.
Born in 1875, Sauerbruch was already 70, when Berlin was liberated in the year 1945. He was richest doctor in Berlin at the time, a surgeon of repute, a pioneer in thoracic surgery, and was also been a personnel physician to a host of politicians, including Hitler. Thus Sauerbruch was a grand old doctor, and was also a chair in surgery at the Charité Hospital in Berlin. As he was held in high esteem by the Soviets, he recommended many of his friends for high positions in the health set-up. One of the person so reccomended by Sauerbruch was Theodor Brugsch, a physician from Berlin.
Born in 1878, Brugsch was only three years younger to Sauerbruch. He had initially worked at the Charité, and in 1927 had moved to another hospital at Halle. In 1935 he had some disagreements with his faculty, and his first wife was of Jewish inheritance. This prompted him to retire from academics, and move to private practice in Berlin. In 1945, he was asked to take-up two responsibilities – to run a Medical Clinic of the Charité, and to be a vice-president of the Soviet zone’s Central Education Administration. The second responsibility was about structuring medical curriculum and medical faculties.
Both Sauerbruch and Brugsch had their Nazi past, and so had numerous others who had worked in Berlin in ten years prior to 1945. In fact Charité hospital was also known as a haven for former Nazis. While the system ensured continuity in health services, medics during the Nazi years had vocally or silently endorsed government policies of racial cleansing, eugenics, and human experimentation. In addition to local initiatives to weed out individuals with hardcore Nazi ideology, in 1946 US organized a Nuremberg Doctor’s trial. A total of 23 individuals (20 of them doctors), were charged with crimes, that were beyond comprehension of humanity at large.
After an American initiative Sauerbruch was dismissed from his office on 12 October 1945 to face a denazification tribunal. He was however asked to continue his surgical services. After several hearings, in 1949 the tribunal cleared him of any charges of wrongdoing. This was despite the fact that he was head of medical section of Reich Research Council. This council approved research projects involving experiments on concentration camp inmates, prisoners and in asylums. Brugsch however was more neutral. While he had issued statements supporting some Nazi policies, this was not good enough to get back his lost professorship.
Sauerbruch passed away in Berlin in 1951, he was 75, and had developed dementia in his later years. Brugsch, continued to work and live till 1963 and continued to build medical education in Germany.
Excellent