The Broken Career of Johanna Hellmann, One of the First Women Surgeons in Germany

Abstract

Even today, women in surgery are a minority, so that female role models in surgery are in short supply. One of the first woman surgeons in Germany was Dr. Johanna Hellmann (1889–1981). Hellmann had to fight for her interests throughout her life: at school, in her quest to obtain the qualifications she needed for university entrance; at university, during her studies of medicine; and especially in the medical profession, as she sought to enter surgery, a predominantly male domain. Her career reached a peak in 1932, when she became the head surgeon of a small hospital in Berlin. But in 1933 the relentless Nazi persecution began, and Johanna Hellmann, who had converted to Protestantism, was suddenly considered a Jewess again. Everything she had achieved before the National Socialists came to power was destroyed, and emigration was the only choice left to her.