Men without a past? (Honorary) Presidents of the German Neurological Society and their NS past

Abstract

This paper aims at reconstructing the biographies of six German neurologists during and after the "Third Reich". Between 1957 and 1976, five of them were presidents of the German Neurological Society (DGN), the sixth was appointed honorary president in 1981. They all joined the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) or Storm Troopers (SA) as young doctors between the ages 20 and35 years. According to the current state of research they thus have to be classified as formally incriminated, yet none of them developed significant (health) political activities, with the slight exception of Eberhard Bay (1908-1989), who once acted as expert witness in an Hereditary Health Court trial. Gustav Döhring (1909-1963), NSDAP member since 1937, Pette student and co-founder of the DGN, was secretary of the Society for many years and editor of acommemorative publication. Johannes Hirschmann (1910-1991), also aparty comrade since 1937, served as an army and military hospital doctor from 1939 to 1945. Richard Jung (1911-1986) had joined the SA in 1934. This entailed his immediate dismissal after the war from the University of Freiburg but benefitting from the support by the dean he could pursue his career not long thereafter. RobertCharles Behrend (1919-1996) became aparty member at the age of 20 years and with his time in office in 1975-1976 he was the last of the post-war presidents of the DGN connected to National Socialism in Germany. Older than these five was honorary chairman Gustav Bodechtel (1899-1983) a member of the SA, NSDAP and other Nazi organizations. He was dismissed in 1946 but reinstated just 1 week later due to the interventions by the Medical Academy Düsseldorf and the Mayor of the City. New findings on these personalities are exclusively based on archival research. This underlines the necessity of resorting to sources previously neglected when investigating biographies of twentieth century neurologists.