Gynaecology under National Socialism: Graz 1938-1945

The proposed research project is one of a series of scholarly activities initiated by the working party founded at the Faculty of Medicine in Graz in 1998 on `The Role of Medicine under National Socialism in Styria`. The working party is located at the Institute for Social Medicine and Epidemiology, where the proposed project will also be based. Following the annexation (Anschluss) of Austria (the `Ostmark`) by Germany, Austrian gynaecologists too became involved in National Socialist population policy and racial policy. A hypothesis which this project will explore is that radical changes took place in the clinical practice and research culture of the Graz University Women`s Clinic from 1938 onwards, not only due to the personnel changes brought about there as a consequence of the National Socialist `seizure of power` in the hospital - including the replacement of its `politically unacceptable` director by a `Reich German` SS leader -, but also because of the numerous compulsory sterilizations and terminations of pregnancy that were carried out there. For many of its women patients, the clinic was no longer a source of assistance but a site of danger to life and limb. They were not only exposed to medical interventions carried out against their will, but were also subjected - as preliminary research so far has already shown - to abusive medical experimentation. Those who suffered most from these abuses were women targeted for sterilization, pregnant forced labourers, and Slovene women. There are indications that experiments were carried out on `hereditarily fit` `German` women patients, too. The proposed project intends to use the results of research hitherto on gynaecology in Graz as a basis for further investigation, and to situate its findings in relation to contemporary gynaecology. This will involve an approach to the history of obstetrics and gynaecology under National Socialism that is neither solely a history tracing the progress of scientific knowledge (or, rather, its stagnation or regression as scientists emigrated), nor a history of crimes committed by medicine. Instead, it aims to write a history of the doctor-patient relationship that brings together the different perspectives of the history of medicine, of social history and of contemporary history. The proposed study, conceived in this manner as a social history of gynaecology under National Socialism, is envisaged as emerging from the following key areas of investigation: - an analysis of the production of scientific knowledge by Graz gynaecologists, locating it within the discourse of the contemporary scientific community - the reconstruction of the political, scientific and social networks of the men and women doctors employed in the clinic for obstetrics and gynaecology - the reconstruction of the patient structure through the evaluation of extant hospital records and the gathering of social-historical data on selected patient groups. The project will be carried out by means of the historical-critical analysis of published and unpublished sources, and through the creation and evaluation of a database tailored for the project using archival material.

The proposed research project is one of a series of scholarly activities initiated by the working party founded at the Faculty of Medicine in Graz in 1998 on `The Role of Medicine under National Socialism in Styria`. The working party is located at the Institute for Social Medicine and Epidemiology, where the proposed project will also be based. Following the annexation (Anschluss) of Austria (the `Ostmark`) by Germany, Austrian gynaecologists too became involved in National Socialist population policy and racial policy. A hypothesis which this project will explore is that radical changes took place in the clinical practice and research culture of the Graz University Women`s Clinic from 1938 onwards, not only due to the personnel changes brought about there as a consequence of the National Socialist `seizure of power` in the hospital - including the replacement of its `politically unacceptable` director by a `Reich German` SS leader -, but also because of the numerous compulsory sterilizations and terminations of pregnancy that were carried out there. For many of its women patients, the clinic was no longer a source of assistance but a site of danger to life and limb. They were not only exposed to medical interventions carried out against their will, but were also subjected - as preliminary research so far has already shown - to abusive medical experimentation. Those who suffered most from these abuses were women targeted for sterilization, pregnant forced labourers, and Slovene women. There are indications that experiments were carried out on `hereditarily fit` `German` women patients, too. The proposed project intends to use the results of research hitherto on gynaecology in Graz as a basis for further investigation, and to situate its findings in relation to contemporary gynaecology. This will involve an approach to the history of obstetrics and gynaecology under National Socialism that is neither solely a history tracing the progress of scientific knowledge (or, rather, its stagnation or regression as scientists emigrated), nor a history of crimes committed by medicine. Instead, it aims to write a history of the doctor-patient relationship that brings together the different perspectives of the history of medicine, of social history and of contemporary history. The proposed study, conceived in this manner as a social history of gynaecology under National Socialism, is envisaged as emerging from the following key areas of investigation: an analysis of the production of scientific knowledge by Graz gynaecologists, locating it within the discourse of the contemporary scientific community the reconstruction of the political, scientific and social networks of the men and women doctors employed in the clinic for obstetrics and gynaecology the reconstruction of the patient structure through the evaluation of extant hospital records and the gathering of social-historical data on selected patient groups. The project will be carried out by means of the historical-critical analysis of published and unpublished sources, and through the creation and evaluation of a database tailored for the project using archival material.