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Background: A good 30 years ago general medicine fought for the status of a separate specialty against extensive resistance. Characteristic for the previous state of the "lessness syndrome" was, among other things, that there was no separate terminology, no defined territorial boundaries and no academic tradition in the old federal states of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). The aim of the present analysis was to present hypotheses for the development of the specialist in general medicine in Germany as an essential step out of the "lessness". Methods: General practitioners from the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the FRG were interviewed on the development of the specialist in general medicine using a partially standardized interview guide. The interviews were analyzed deductively and inductively according to Mayring. Results: In total, interviews were conducted with 28 participants. The average age of the participants was 75 years (minimum 50 years, maximum 91 years), 18% were female and 64% originally worked in the FRG. The participants saw, among other things, the blurred boundaries to other fields,which characterized the cooperation with specialists at that time and the lack of acceptance of the independence of the discipline as inhibiting factors in the development of a separate field. An accompanying symptom of this situation was the lack of and slow progress in establishing the discipline at universities. There was an important influence of the general practitioners qualified in the GDR for the introduction of an all-German specialist in general medicine. Conclusion: The specialist status for general medicine has been influenced by the self-image for the discipline in the former GDR. The development in the areas of optimization of further training and in research, which continues to this day, ensures that the field of general medicine can develop with increasing self-confidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]