ON INHUMAN PRACTICES IN GYNECOLOGY AND TH EIR VICTIMS IN GERMANY DURING NATIONAL-SOCIALIST RULE - A STUDY OF CONCRETE EVENTS

In our opinion German gynaecology has failed to adequately face what c ame to pass during the Nazi period. This can be proved objectively, fo r there is no evidence that, after 1945, gynaecology had in any way ca red to take notice - either thematically or medically of the thousands of victims of inhuman practices such as forced termination of pregnan cy, compulsory sterilisation and the like. During the past 50 years re collections of enforced sterilisations, compulsory abortions, delibera te and hence criminal negligence and problematic approaches in researc h and teaching were almost completely banished from the area of consci ous awareness and largely suppressed or silently ignored. Most of the medical directors of Departments of Gynaecology of German universities shared this view whenever they were questioned on the connections bet ween gynaecology and Nazism. Now that two generations have passed it s eems possible to examine and explore with less guilt feelings and sham e the immensely fateful role of gynaecology in that context. Accent sh ould be on the fate of the victims of that period. To bring back these events to memory, however, does not permit to conceal the part played by the physicians committing of these inhuman Nazi crimes. Data colle cted from a psychosomatically oriented examination of victims exemplif y that to concretely recall gynaecology during Nazism also offers a ch ance in several respects. One of the possibilities in this context is to signal 'late apology'' and regret to patients who had been victims, in one's own area of work, after one has psychically worked over thei r fate. Besides, a gynaecological psychosomatic expertise will help e. g. that compulsorily sterilised women are granted financial aid that has at long last become a legal possibility and can be applied for sin ce 1980. However, the relevant patient records do show very clearly th at the inhuman practice of gynaecology during the so-called ''Third Re ich'' was not only a collective problem but equally due to a failure o f the individual conscience of numerous gynaecologists. Working over t his complex may enhance our own sensitivity for psychosomatic and ethi c problems and counteract any likelihood of a recurrence of an inhuman gynaecology.