Post-War Modernity and Medical Reform. The Project of the Foundation of Medical Academies in West Germany, 1950-1970

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Heiko Stoff
• Subject Area: History of Science
• Term: from 2018 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 389683492

On the basis of comprehensive archival material the research project will reveal, that the foundation of medical academies in West Germany in the 1960s was associated with the suspension of the anthropological crisis and the discontent in medicine through the reconciliation of holistic with technological and scientific practices. Medicine was supposed to be realigned through anthropology, social medicine and psychosomatics (in strict distinction from natural medicine); hierarchical structures at medical schools were supposed to be replaced by a department system according to the US-American model. The ideals of medical anthropology (Viktor von Weizsäcker) and university reform both were of major importance for the projects of medical academies in Hannover, Lübeck, and Ulm. Important actors in the foundation of medical academies like Fritz Hartmann (Hannover) and Thure von Uexküll (Ulm) were deeply influenced by medical anthropologist thought and, in the case of Uexküll, important protagonists of psychosomatics. The establishment of these medical academies in the 1960s was a complex project of university reform, medical anthropology, architecture, and city planning and therefore has to be analyzed in an integrative manner. Categories of Contemporary History like americanization, democratization, and modernization are able to describe aspects of planning like department system and teamwork, participation and strengthening of the middle level at medical schools, but they are not adequate to explain the importance of medical anthropology and holistic discourses.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants