ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the postwar lives of physicians mainly from the region of Dresden and Leipzig through a series of case studies: each example exposes diverse negotiation strategies and life narratives that were employed by doctors to cope with the new socialist system. For comparison purposes, these people are split into four age cohorts (born between 1886–1895, 1896–1905, 1906–1915, and 1916–1925). It will be argued that the smooth transition of medical personnel from war to postwar was based on an individualised compromise between the doctor and local or state authorities. Both their medical memories could directly affect the career prospects of an individual. Therefore, medical memories describe the obtained medical career and skills of a doctor in the past, which were used, altered, or enhanced by the individual, mnemonic community, or state after 1945. These reassembled life, institutional, and state narratives affected not only the professional life of the doctor, but also the relationship with, and the treatment of, the patient. This intertwined relationship between the state and its medical staff often enabled a person to mitigate membership of the NSDAP and even the involvement in war-crimes and atrocities and will be explored in this chapter.
