Streitfall Ferdinand Sauerbruch. Aufarbeitung und Erinnerungskultur

In the organizer's words:

Dealing with people who were involved in the National Socialist state remains a challenge to this day. Despite extensive work on so-called perpetrator research, an assessment is often not easy. However, this assessment becomes directly relevant, for example, when it comes to understanding and, if necessary, reconsidering tributes to these people in street names, the naming of prizes or medical eponyms.

One controversial figure is the surgeon Ferdinand Sauerbruch. He is one of the most famous figures in the history of modern surgery. For a long time, his contributions to the development of thoracic surgery and prosthetics ("Sauerbruch arm") were at the forefront of the memory of the long-standing Charité doctor. However, Sauerbruch was also a top manager of the Nazi science system as head of the medical division in Hitler's Reich Research Council.

The medical and contemporary historian Richard Kühl, who together with Heiner Fangerau (both Heinrich Heine University) has presented an expert opinion on Sauerbruch's Nazi involvement on behalf of the Charité, will summarize the current state of research, place the Sauerbruch case in the context of debates on the culture of remembrance and will then be available for questions and discussions together with the historian Timo Baumann (Heinrich Heine University).