The Development of Medical Ethics Institutions in West Berlin

Abstract

During the years of my medical studies (1939 to 1944), there was no talk of “ethics in medicine.” Hippokrates and his oath, to be sure, surfaced under the heading of “history of medicine.” But this was only a matter of professional self-understanding, a basis of rules for professional conduct among colleagues and for dealing with patients. Medical students at that time were ignorant of the serious ethical failures of a group of physicians during National Socialism. Even the Nuremberg Trial against physicians and its verdicts of 1947, and the so-called Nuremberg Code that was developed as a response to that trial, were widely disregarded among the physicians with whom I, working as a young resident at that time, had contact. We were all preoccupied with the consequences of the war, above all, with the struggle against epidemics, and with the difficulties involved in coping with the challenges presented by daily living.