Driving school of the German medical profession

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Memorial stone in the park of Alt Rehse

The Driving School of the German Medical Association was an institution of the National Socialist German Medical Association (NSDÄB) in the Alt Rehse district of the city of Penzlin near Neubrandenburg , which existed from 1935 to 1943 . According to the ideas of the NSDÄB, it served the "ideological training" of doctors , dentists , pharmacists and midwives and was the central institution of the NSDÄB for the ideological instruction of the German medical profession during the National Socialist era .

Importance and activities

Manor house in the park of Alt Rehse

According to the plans for its establishment, the leadership school in Alt Rehse was to have the character of a model for comparable institutions such as the NS-Ordensburgen . The school's task was not to provide specialist training and further education for doctors and other professional groups in the medical field, but to provide ideological training for selected managers in the healthcare system and thus to develop an “elite” among the National Socialist section of the medical profession. This should serve the implementation of the National Socialist health policy, including racial hygiene . The school and the town of Alt Rehse, which was structurally redesigned accordingly, had a pronounced ideological and architectural symbolic character. The founder and first head of the facility was Hans Deuschl . Deuschl's successor and last manager was Johannes Peltret at the turn of the year 1940/1941 .

The eugenicist and SA doctor Hermann Boehm trained doctors from 1937 to 1942 on the instructions of the Reich Chamber of Physicians in the field of "genetic and racial care" at the genetic research institute in Alt Rehse, which he directed at the school . In addition, a promotion of young talent was to be established: By the end of 1939, however, only three doctors had received this instruction in the field of young talent: Richard Espenschied, Friedrich Ruttner and Gerhard Schubert. One of Boehm's employees in 1939 was the Austrian NSDAP member Ruttner, who later headed the Institute for Apiculture in Oberursel ; however, the employee positions were cut after the start of the war.

The courses and courses, including the lecture program and the lecturers, were published in magazines such as the Deutsches Ärzteblatt until 1937 , after which the publication in the specialist press was only sporadic and without giving details. Initially they were aimed primarily at the Gau and Kreisamtsleiter of the Office for Public Health and later at university professors and medical officers as well as other doctors, pharmacists and midwives, especially in various management positions. Participation was usually not based on an application, but rather after selection by superiors, which should emphasize the elitist character of the institution. Minimum requirements were membership in the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) and “political reliability”.

Village street from Alt Rehse

Between June 1935 and the end of August 1939, at least 73 courses, training sessions, conferences and courses took place in the driving school . The majority of the courses were aimed at doctors and (medical, but also political) functionaries, with a focus on courses for young doctors from 1936 onwards. The German Medical Association's driving school was also used for courses for midwives, pharmacists, dentists and lay associations. Other school documents such as course plans and lists of participants are considered lost. It is unclear whether they were destroyed after 1945 or confiscated by the Red Army . It is estimated that around 14 training courses with around 100 or later around 130 participants took place each year, resulting in an estimated total of around 12,000 participants, including around 10,000 doctors. In relation to around 59,000 licensed doctors in Germany in 1939, this means that around every sixth doctor took part in a training course in Alt Rehse, and around every fourth of the doctors who were licensed after 1935.

The courses lasted seven to ten days. For so-called “young doctors” there were also four-week courses from 1936 onwards, which were counted towards the practical year as part of their training. The content of the courses included, among other things, legal topics, the role of the doctor in National Socialist education, the Nuremberg Laws , military-medical aspects such as gas protection and medical tactics, racial biology and heredity, as well as natural medicine and nutritional problems. Part of the course program was also a labor service, so "young doctors" were called in to build roads in the area. The daily routine, including morning exercise and roll call, was strictly regulated and included wearing uniform clothing.

None of the lecturers and functionaries of the NSDÄB working at the leadership school of the German Medical Association was called to legal responsibility after 1945. As part of the Nuremberg medical process , the doctor Kurt Blome was also asked about Alt Rehse, but he played down the importance of the facility for the ideological training of doctors. School played no role in the judgments of the trial. Its founder, Hans Deuschl, was classified as “less polluted” as part of the denazification process . In 1947, the eugenicist Boehm was questioned as part of the investigation into the Nuremberg medical trial. His colleague Friedrich Ruttner was dismissed from university service in 1945 due to the denazification policy of the Allies .

History and architecture

Community house in Alt Rehse

The Alt Rehse estate , which had first come to the Hartmannbund through expropriation in 1934 and after its dissolution two years later became part of the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians, was gradually redesigned from 1935 by the architect Hans Haedenkamp . He decided in favor of a rural, peasant style and thus consciously against the monumental buildings erected in other places. In addition to the training camp, a so-called model estate and a model village were also built, for the construction of which were made of half-timbered houses with thatched roofs, the old houses in the village of Alt Rehse were almost completely demolished. The topping-out ceremony took place in October 1934, the first training courses in May 1935 and the official opening on June 1, 1935. Completion was essentially complete in 1937.

The central location of the school was the community center, in which the training courses were held, the catering was provided and the library was housed. It was dimensioned for up to 300 people and therefore also intended for representative events with the participation of the National Socialist party and state leadership from the start. There were also four houses to accommodate the training participants, of which a total of 32 people could live in four rooms with eight beds each. A house of their own was built in 1938 for the staff of the school, who were initially housed on the top floors of the communal house and the residential buildings. The head of the school, his deputy and the administration were based in the former manor house of the estate, which was called the "New Castle" after it was redesigned, as well as the sick bed, the laundry and rooms for guest lecturers. The permanent teachers lived in their own buildings. A gym and a sports stadium as well as boathouses and two bathing establishments on Lake Tollensesee were built for recreational purposes .

Old Rehse

From September 1939 to the beginning of 1941 and from the beginning of 1943 to the end of the war, the school served as a military hospital . After the Second World War , the area was used by the Red Army until 1947, from 1948 to 1952 it was used as a children's village of the People's Solidarity for war orphans and, after the children's village moved to Schwerin, as an institute for teacher training until 1955 . From 1955 to 1958 the Ministry for State Security of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) used the area for its guard battalion as a leisure facility, from 1958 it belonged to the National People's Army (NVA). After the political change in the GDR and German reunification , the Bundeswehr took over the facility in 1990 and, after a corresponding renovation of the buildings, used it as a residential complex for officers until they moved out in 1998 . In 1996, a lawsuit brought by the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians against the Federal Republic of Germany to surrender the property and the land was dismissed; an appeal was waived.

Since 2002 there has been an exhibition in the manor under the title "Alt Rehse and the broken oath of Hippocrates" on the history of the village of Alt Rehse and the driving school. At the end of 2009, a non-profit company was founded, the aim of which is the renovation of the manor house and its expansion into an exhibition, culture and study center to deal with the history of Alt Rehse and the driving school.

literature

  • Wilhelm Boes: Dr. med. Hans Deuschl - the founder of the "leadership school of the German medical profession" in Alt-Rehse (Alt-Rehser Wissenschaftsforum; Vol. 2). Kontur-Verlag, Fredersdorf 2014, ISBN 978-3-944998-02-2 .
  • Rainer Stommer (ed.): Medicine in the service of racial ideology. The "Leadership School of the German Medical Association" in Alt Rehse. Christoph Links Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 3-86153-477-0 .
  • Rainer Stommer: Alt Rehse. Idyll and crime: what we can learn from evil places . In: Deutsches Ärzteblatt , vol. 112 (2015), January, pp. 30–32, ISSN  0012-1207
  • Martin Rüther: Medical status under National Socialism 1933–1945. In: Robert Jütte (Hrsg.): History of the German medical profession. Deutscher Ärzte-Verlag, Cologne 1997, ISBN 3-7691-0345-9 , pp. 145 and 177f.
  • Thomas Maibaum: The leading school of the German medical profession Alt-Rehse , University of Hamburg, Hamburg 2007. Dissertation ( pdf )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ J. Zapnik: Driving school of the German medical profession in Alt Rehse
  2. ^ A b Thomas Maibaum: The leadership school of the German medical profession Alt-Rehse , University of Hamburg, Hamburg 2007, p. 125.
  3. ↑ a b Steffen Rückl: Ludwig Armbruster. A beekeeper from Berlin University who was forced to retire by the National Socialists in 1934 . Berlin 2015. p. 53.
  4. ↑ Thomas Maibaum: Die Führerschule der Deutschen Ärzteschaft Alt-Rehse , University of Hamburg, Hamburg 2007, p. 82. During the war, training came to a standstill because a reserve hospital was set up on the premises.
  5. ^ Statements by Hermann Boehm from the medical trial at the Nuremberg Trials Project at Harvard Law School
  6. ↑ Alt-Rhese: KV was defeated before the administrative court . In: Deutsches Ärzteblatt , 1996; 93 (13): A-805 ( pdf )

Coordinates: 53 ° 29 ′ 42.5 "  N , 13 ° 9 ′ 51.4"  E