Ärztliche Standespolitik im Nationalsozialismus: Julius Hadrich und Karl Haedenkamp als Beispiele (review)

Abstract

When the West German Federal Physicians' Chamber (Bundesärztekammer) constituted itself in Cologne after 1945, it carried with it significant baggage from the Nazi period. For instance, it owed its monopoly position in the country to the Nazi centralization of formerly disaggregated organizations from the Weimar Republic—a process completed by April 1936. One originally conservative Weimar physicians' functionary who crossed over to the Nazis early to assist them was Dr. Karl Haedenkamp (1889-1955), whose specialty soon became the removal of Jewish colleagues. After World War II, Haedenkamp was elected as the first leader of the Bundesärztekammer. He was succeeded by Erich Fromm, a physician formerly active in the Storm Troopers, and thereafter by Hans Joachim Sewering, who had been in the SS and responsible for the death of at least one child during euthanasia killings. During its early years the Bundesärztekammer was located on Cologne's Haedenkampstrasse—until, after protests, the name of the street was changed to that of a Holocaust victim. The enduring difficulty engendered by this change eerily manifested the reluctance with which West Germany's corporate physicians acknowledged their extraordinary responsibility in the rise of National Socialism, the erection of the Third Reich, and the Holocaust.1