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The intention of the authors is the recognition and critical analysis of efforts to study the history of the German Radiological Society during the time of National Socialism from 1933 to 1945 with the goal of determining existing desiderata and identifying the resulting research prospects. There is a need to study concrete individual biographies of radiologists (members of the German Radiological Society, perpetrators, and victims) and their careers before and after 1945 as well as the importance of the interdisciplinarity of the discipline and the lack of institutional involvement during the "Third Reich". Moreover, the comparatively difficult starting situation of the study of the history of the German Radiological Society is discussed., (© Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.)

The long-term aim for the German public health service during National Socialism was a hereditary and racial welfare. Several following legal regulations contributed to the implementation of a specific national socialist population policy on the basis of racial hygiene and gave immense power to health officers. Especially with the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Sick Offspring, compulsory sterilisation was legalised and caused about 400,000 victims up to 1945. The central force in this new system was the public health office. The work of two health officers in neighbouring offices in upper Bavaria is compared. Results show that health officers had a large flexibility in their individual estimation. The restrictive interpretation of their duties did not necessarily cause any sanctions by the superior authority., (© Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.)

Special policing measures in Nazi Germany required centralisation in the public health service which was mainly achieved through the Law for the Unification of Municipal and State Health Administration in 1934. The long-term aim for public health officers was now hereditary and racial welfare. Several following legal regulations contributed to the implementation of a specific national-socialist health and social policy on the basis of racial hygiene and gave immense power to the health officers. Especially with the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Sick Offspring, compulsory sterilisation was legalised and resulted in about 400,000 victims up to 1945. The central force in this new system was the public health office. The most extreme variation of public health administration was launched in Thuringia, where professional powers and state authority implemented an extensive institutional machinery which managed to reinforce Nazi population policy almost to perfection. After the invasion of western Poland the Germans built up an inhumane regime in the annexed and occupied regions, persecuted and murdered the Polish population and tried to exterminate the Jewish people. Here the health officers of the Warthegau could promote a rigorously racial dominated population policy of segregation., (© Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.)