Bridging the Baltic Sea

Abstract

This article examines the international contacts of German medical historians in the first decade of the Cold War, using the example of Heinz Goerke (1917-2014), who worked as a physician and medical historian in Sweden in the 1950s. Using unpublished source material from Goerke’s estate, the article traces Goerke’s stay in Sweden and his interactions with Scandinavian and German scholars. The analysis of an extensive correspondence allows insights into the research network in which Goerke was embedded. The origins of this network lay in the pre-war period, when Goerke’s mentor Paul Diepgen (1878-1966) established the first connections to Scandinavia, from which Goerke benefited 20 years later. The article also reconstructs the motives for the move from Berlin to Sweden, Goerke’s research interests in medical history, and the influence of the Cold War on life courses and careers in the early postwar period.