Documented Statements and Activities Reflecting the Support or Resistance of Ernst Ferdinand Sauerbruch to the Nazi Regime.*
Documented Statements and Activities Reflecting the Support or Resistance of Ernst Ferdinand Sauerbruch to the Nazi Regime.*
| Date | Documented Activity of Professor Sauerbruch |
|---|---|
| 1918–1927 | Chief of Surgery, University of Munich; becomes acquainted with Karl Gebhardt and Karl Brandt who trained under his leadership46 |
| 1918–1919 | Makes numerous public statements calling for “German unity, to regain the place that the German fatherland deserves after all the humiliations”43(p203) |
| 1920 | Introduced to the future Führer by Dietrich Eckart (first editor-in-chief of Volkischer Beobachter after coming under NSDAP) in Munich, asked to spread anti-Semitic propaganda among students43 |
| 1923: November 11 | States that although the future Führer had good qualities and that he believed in him, he would always resist him politically43 |
| 1923: January 20 | Mentions a recent conversation with the future Führer in a letter43 |
| 1923: September/October | Meets with the future Führer in private clinic43 |
| 1923: November 8–9 | Treats the future Fuhrer’s injured left shoulder after the failed Beer Hall Putsch (attempt to overthrow the current government); fully informed on the course and outcome of the putsch43 |
| 1923: November 10 | Sends an assistant to the future Führer in Uffing43 |
| 1927–1949 | Director of Surgery, Charité in Berlin |
| 1933: March–November | Oversees the dismissal of 13 Jewish physicians in accordance with the Professional Elimination47 |
| 1933: September | Publishes an open letter to the medical professionals of the world; regarding his cooperation, states that he is “seriously concerned about the initial side effects” … [but that] “hard and difficult interventions that accompany every revolutionary act” should not obscure the “‘greatness’ of this (‘our’) revolution”43(p211–12) |
| 1933 | Publicly supports the National Socialist rise to power in multiple speeches43,44 |
| 1934: March | Dismisses a Jewish surgical associate for no known reason47 |
| 1934: December | Joins the main committee after dissolution of the Emergency Association of German Science43 |
| 1935 (throughout) | Dismisses 11 Jewish associate professors and doctors of surgery following passage of the Nuremberg Laws47 |
| 1937 | Becomes a member of the Reich Research Council; from 1941 onward, one of his tasks is signing documents approving medical research on humans in concentration camps or asylums44 |
| 1937: January 30 | Receives the German National Prize for Art and Science |
| 1937: September 18 | Publicly expresses gratitude for the award from the Führer43 |
| 1939: March 5–7 | Main speaker at the Reich Conference on Public Health and Genetic Poisons43 |
| 1942 | Becomes a General Physician Inspector of the German Military Health Services, a member of the Academy of Military Physicians42,44 |
| 1942: End of May | The Führer and Himmler urge K. Gebhardt to call in Sauerbruch to treat Heydrich (did not happen)43 |
| 1943: February | Visits Mussolini who was ill43 |
| 1943: May | Attends a meeting of the Berlin Military Medical Academy43 |
| 1943: Late Autumn | Receives the Knight’s Cross to the War Merit Cross at a meeting of the German Society for Surgery |
| 1943: November 9 | Thanks a Reichsleiter of the NSDAP for congratulations on the award43 |
| 1943: December | Goebbels’s Propaganda Ministry plan a “non-political anti-Bolshevik united front” involving Sauerbruch (the event was never held)43 |