Israel Medical Association Journal

Background: On 7 April 1933, the Nazi Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service was enacted. The law triggered the dismissal of most Jewish medical staff from German universities. A few Jewish professors in Berlin were permitted to continue their academic activity with restrictions. Those professors were gradually dismissed as laws and restrictions were enforced.

Objectives: To identify the last Jewish medical professors who, despite severe restrictions, continued their academic duties and prepared students for their examinations in Berlin after the summer of 1933.

Methods: We reviewed dissertations written by the medical faculty of Berlin from 1933 to 1937 and identified Jewish professors who mentored students during those years.

Results: Thirteen Jewish tutors instructed dissertations for the medical examinations after the Nazi regime seized power. They were employees of different university hospitals, including the Jewish hospitals. We did not identify Aryan students instructed by Jewish professors. The professors were active in different medical disciplines. Half of the reviewed dissertations were in the disciplines of surgery and gynecology. The last Jewish tutors were dismissed in October 1935. However, some of their studies were submitted for examination after that date.

Conclusions: After the Nazi regime seized power, academic activities and medical research by Jewish professors declined but did not stop. However, these professors worked with only Jewish students on their theses. Most dissertations were approved and examined after the Jewish academics were dismissed by the university, in some cases even after they left Germany.

Background: In April 1937 it was forbidden for German Jewish students to sit for examinations. However, a few Jewish medical students were able to continue studying at Berlin University. The order to expel all Jewish students from German Universities was published on the morning after Kristallnacht (November 1938) and was strictly imposed.

Objectives: To identity the last Jewish medical students who managed, in spite of the severe restrictions, to continue their study and apply for the examinations in Berlin from summer 1937 through 1938.

Methods: Reviews of the dissertations written in the medical faculty of Berlin during 1937–1938 identified the Jewish students. We presented their demographic and academic characteristics.

Results: Sixteen Jewish students were identified: six Germans, six Americans, and four Eastern Europeans. Their average age was 18.7 ± 1.0 years, 22.5 ± 2.0 years, and 20.8 ± 2.5 years, respectively. The last Jewish student took the exams in July 1938 and submitted a thesis one month later. One German student was half Jewish. Five gained the rights to take the examinations as foreign students by renouncing their German citizenship. They were the main group affected by the government’s restrictions. The American and the Eastern European students were more protected by law.

Conclusions: Each of those groups had different academic careers. The Americans were the last Jewish students allowed to study in Germany. It seems that they were less aware of the national socialist atmosphere in the medical faculty in Berlin during 1937–1938.