Military medical service

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The military medical service or the military medical service describes organizations acting in military medicine. The established exclusively for medical support purposes medical personnel of the armed forces is one as well as the military chaplains to the military noncombatants and enjoys the protection of the Geneva Conventions . Medical personnel in the civilian sector in the event of war also fall under this protection.

scope

Military medical personnel include medical officers and non-academic personnel with medical / medical training. Members of the medical troops carry a nationally issued ID card with them during combat or deployment and wear the protective symbol on their left upper arm. The right to wear and the identity card must not be withdrawn from the medical personnel under any circumstances. If they are lost, the staff must be given a replacement. Likewise, the medical staff may not waive their rights, either partially or completely. Medical personnel carry weapons (mostly only pistols, rarely assault rifles) exclusively for the protection of the wounded and for their own protection. Therefore, medical personnel (as a rule) are not trained on infantry machine weapons.

Medical personnel may not be taken prisoner of war , but only withheld for treatment purposes, insofar as this is necessary. To support the medical personnel , members of other branches of the armed forces can be trained to become auxiliary nurses and auxiliary sickness carriers and, if necessary, be temporarily deployed. Conversely, medical personnel - who are reported as such - may not be called upon to engage in combat. An order to do so constitutes a criminal offense under international martial law.

As a rule, the armed forces have their own medical personnel, even in peacetime, who are trained and deployed in military and sometimes also in civilian medical facilities. Further options are the recruitment of reservists or medical personnel from the civilian sector. During the Second World War , for example, in the Wehrmacht's medical services, the majority of the surgical professorships and chief physicians of large surgical clinics acted as advisory surgeons. These were initially hired with low ranks and had no authority .

  • German paramedics rescuing the wounded under the symbol of the Red Cross at the Battle of Monte Cassino (January 1944).

  • Norwegian paramedics during an exercise

  • Bundeswehr medic during IFOR

  • Infantry fighting vehicle medical armed forces

Situation in Germany

In Germany, the tasks of the medical service are carried out by the Central Medical Service of the Bundeswehr and the specialist medical service. To the latter of the board of the medical service include Marine , the airman medical service , the medical corps army and the medical service union Institute of Air Force and Navy. For all soldiers, training to become a first aid worker is compulsory. According to the Geneva Convention, you are protected as an auxiliary sickness carrier in the exercise of this activity, if they are marked accordingly.

Historical

Antiquity

The beginnings of the modern military medical service coincide with the formation of standing armies in the second half of the 17th century. But even in antiquity, healers and their assistants accompanied the armies on their campaigns, for example, according to Homer, the Greeks during the Trojan War . This was often done on one's own initiative, with the prospect of likely making money. Under the Roman emperors Augustus and Vespasian , the medical service was organized militarily. Each Roman legion were mostly six soldiers doctors ( milites medical , sg. Miles medicus ) together with their associated agents. In addition, contract doctors were repeatedly obliged to work for shorter periods of time. At the head of the legionary doctors was the medicus ordinarus with tenfold pay and the rank of centurion (but without his authority), the hospital was led by the optio valetundinarii (in Rome and in the fleet of the optio convalescentium ) with double pay.

middle Ages

With the emergence of the universities in the Middle Ages, a distinction was made between the academically trained medicus and the surgeon , also known as surgeon or field scissors . The latter had learned his trade from a barber or bath . The field officer was responsible for caring for open wounds and shaving for officers until the 18th century. In the department of internal medicine formed Medicus fell Internal Medicine , treatment of diseases and epidemics and the prescription of medicines. The medieval army did not have any medical care organized by the military; doctors, bathers or women from the entourage who had knowledge of healing took over the care of the sick. The wounded mostly stayed with the civilian population on site or in the camp with the women following the army.

Modern times

In the mercenary heap, one field sergeant and one field sergeant each served . It was similar with cavalry and artillery . Senior officers paid their own doctores than trained personal physicians.

In the standing armies of modern times, regimental field shearers and company field shearers as well as their assistants were responsible for the health of the troops, more rarely an academically trained regime medicus.

With the development of modern armies in the 19th century, military welfare also experienced an upgrade. Now, in addition to the doctors, the field shearers were also trained academically and turned into surgeons . The upper medical staff from the Regimentsfeldscher / Regimentmedicus and hospital doctor upwards received officer rank since the middle of the 18th century, initially with civil servant status. Since the 19th century, with the employment of army , corps and division doctors (in Prussia so-called staff doctors , in Austria staff field doctors), a career in the military medical service developed. Around the same time, the previous dichotomy in medical training was abolished, and surgical and internal medicine training were merged. The modern military doctor (at first often “only” a military officer, later a medical officer) replaced Feldscher and Medicus.

Special legal status of medical facilities and medical personnel

Protective symbol

According to the Geneva Conventions , marked wound nests as well as ambulance vehicles and their personnel as well as other medical facilities such as troop formation stations , main formation stations and field hospitals may not be fired at. Reality often looked and generally looks different. Conversely, because of their special status under the Geneva Convention, medical facilities may not be misused as “protective shields” for other military units. Ambulance vehicles may not be used for the transfer of troops and the transport of weapons and ammunition. Medical personnel may not be used in active combat operations. They are also not allowed to carry out any security or security tasks during deployment. It is still not permitted to house hospitals in the same building as active parts of the armed forces that would be a legitimate target for enemy attacks. Failure by one side to comply with protective measures under international martial law does not release the other warring party from complying with the international martial law that is binding on it , as it is a unilateral declaration of commitment.

Web links

Commons : Combat medics  - collection of images, videos and audio files

literature

  • Johannes Backus: The medical troops - the backbone of operational support. In: Christian Willy (Ed.): Worldwide in action - the medical service of the Bundeswehr 2010. Mission, spectrum, opportunities. Bonn 2009, pp. 38–42.
  • Franz Hermann Frölich: military medic. Brief description of the entire military medical system. Braunschweig 1887 (= Wreden's collection of short medical textbooks , 13).
  • Thomas Möller: The German medical service in the two world wars: tasks and services. In: Würzburger medical history reports 8, 1990, pp. 325–349.
  • Hartmut Nöldeke and Volker Hartmann: The medical service in the German fleet in World War II. Heavy naval forces. Organization. Medical science. Experiences and lessons. Mittler & Sohn, Hamburg, Berlin and Bonn 2003, ISBN 3-8132-0803-6 .
  • Rüdiger Döhler and Peter Kolmsee : Prussia's medical service in the wars of unification . Military Medical Monthly 8/2016, pp. 254–258.
  • Markus Tannheimer , Roland Geue, Dorothée Heister, Christian Willy: Range of operations in German medical facilities in Afghanistan in 2008. In: Christian Willy (Ed.): Worldwide in action - the medical service of the Bundeswehr 2010. Mission - spectrum - opportunities. Beta, Bonn 2009, 335 pages, ISBN 978-3-927603-91-2 , pp. 134-143.
  • Ludger Tewes , Red Cross Sisters. Their use in the mobile medical service of the Wehrmacht 1939–1945 , Verlag Schöningh Paderborn 2016. ISBN 978-3-506-78257-1 .
  • Ludger Tewes: Diary (1926 to 1945) of the Red Cross nurse Klara in the Army Medical Service. A construction of reality, (= contributions and miscelles 11) , Verlag Gustav-Siewerth-Akademie, 2nd edition Cologne / Bonn 2020. ISBN 978-3-945777-02-2
  • Ralf Vollmuth : The medical service in the mercenary armies of the late Middle Ages and early modern times: Problems and possible solutions. (Medical dissertation Würzburg 1990) Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1991 (= Würzburg medical-historical research. Volume 51), ISBN 3-88479-800-6 .
  • Ralf Vollmuth: Military medical services. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 990 f.
  • Ralf Vollmuth: Lost in the no man's land in the history of science. The history of the medical service as a desideratum of research. In: Military medicine and military pharmacy. 2012, issue 3, pp. 49–51.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Article 24 I. Geneva Convention
  2. ↑ z. B. ID card for the medical and pastoral staff of the Bundeswehr
  3. ↑ Article 40 I. Geneva Convention
  4. ↑ Article 7 I. Geneva Convention a. Article 7 II. Geneva Convention
  5. ↑ Behrend, K. Ph .: War surgery from 1939–1945 from the perspective of the advisory surgeons of the German Army in World War II (Diss .; PDF; 2.3 MB), Freiburg, 2003.
  6. ↑ See also Reinhard Platzek: Deadly violence and life-saving healing. Considerations for the doctor's activity in the service of the military. In: Specialized prose research - Crossing borders. Volume 8/9, 2012/13 (2014), pp. 455-466.