History: Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin

With increasing knowledge about social predictors of diseases, social hygiene developed from the already independent science of "hygiene" towards the end of the 19th century (Schagen 2006). At the same time, the term "social medicine" was born. The independent profile received this subject by Alfred Grotjahn (Schallmeyer 1914). Grotjahn, born in 1869 as the son of a physician family from Lower Saxony, studied medicine at the Universities of Greifswald, Leipzig, Kiel and Berlin from 1890-1896 and initially worked as a practicing physician in Berlin. Here, as well as traveling to London and Paris in 1902, he gained impressions of the health of the urban population. Grotjahn understood as the goal of social hygiene especially the prevention of diseases. He integrated the then popular ideas of practical eugenics into his concept of a population policy application of prevention (Ferdinand 2007). In 1912 Grotjahn became Privatdozent for Hygiene and Head of the Department of Social Hygiene at the Hygiene Institute of the University in Berlin. In 1920, despite the opposition of the overwhelming majority of the Faculty Council, which considered a professor of social hygiene to be superfluous, he obtained the title of professor and was thus the first and only ordinary social hygiene professor in Germany (Grotjahn 1932, Kaspari 1989).

National Socialism interrupted the scientific development of social hygiene for many years. After Grotjahn's death in 1931, the Ministry of Science, Arts and Popular Education vacated the professorship, but gave a teaching assignment to Benno Chajes to continue teaching (Neither 2000). Until the leave of Chajes in 1933 by the ministry, the tribe of Grotjahn students quickly disappeared in the course of political development in Germany. With the law for the restoration of the professional civil service from 7 April 1933 and the "German official law" 1937 officials could be dismissed for political or racial reasons (Reichsgesetzblatt 1, Berlin 1933, 5). As a result, one third of all teachers were replaced by 1938, 45% by 1945, almost all of whom were subsequently forced to emigrate (Samuel and Hinton 1949, Pross 1955). A large part of the participants were members of the Jewish religious community or politically belonging to the left camp. With increasing influence of the National Socialists many of them were arrested, murdered or exiled, as were the Grotjahn students.

In 1933, Franz Schütz was appointed Associate Professor of Social Hygiene and Head of the Social Hygiene Seminar, and until 1940 he took over the courses. Also in 1933 Fritz Lenz was appointed professor of racial hygiene and set up the Institute of Racial Hygiene in the rooms of the Social Hygiene Seminar. He also took over the Department of Racial Hygiene of the "Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology" (KWIA). Racial hygiene became a key science with the seizure of power by the National Socialists.

The Jewish scientists Franz Goldmann, Miron Kantorowicz, Alfred Korach and Georg Wollf, former employees of Alfred Grotjahn, worked in various public health areas in the USA and had relatively successful careers.

Goldmann was a Fellow at the "Dept. of Public Health" at Yale University, where he established a new teaching method, recognized as "Medical Care in Modern Social Society and Economic Aspects in Medicine" from 1941. In the United States, he was one of the first to undertake a complex analysis of health care and proposed statutory social security contributions.

Alfred Korach began his teaching career at the "Massachusetts Institute" in Cambridge, USA, and in 1939 joined the University of Cincinnati, Ohio as "Assistant Professor" for Public Health. He published on social and economic factors influencing human health.

Miron Kantorowicz worked in the United States from 1940 as a "research fellow" in the field of "biostatistics" of the "Milbank Memorial Foundation" in New York. In 1942 he moved to the "American University" in Washington, later to the army as "Head of the Slavic and Balkan Unit" at the Department of Preventive Medicine of the "Office Surgeon Generals of the US Dept. Army" and from 1954 as head of the "East European Section, Med. Information and Intel. Div. "

Georg Wollf started public education in the US with a teaching and research job at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. From 1941 he worked at the National Institute of Health, NIH in Washington, later at the Carnegie Institution at the Department of Genetic Research at Cold Springs Harbor, Long Island, New York. From 1949 to 1952 Wollf worked for the "Medical Intellegence Branch of the Army Surgeon General's Office". Wollf published in 1952 under the title "The Social Pathology as a Medical Science" a comprehensive analysis of American public health development by taking up Grotjahn's legacy (Willich et al., 2007, Etzold 2007).

Literature:
Schagen U, Schleiermacher S. 100 Jahre soziale Medizin in Deutschland. Gesundheitswesen. 2006;68:85-93
Schallmayer W. Sozialhygiene und Eugenik. Z Sozialmed 1914;V.
Ferdinand U. Der Weg Alfred Grotjahns (1869-1931) zum "faustischen Pakt" in seinem Projekt der Sozialen Hygiene. Gesundheitswesen 2007;69:158-164
Grotjahn A. Erlebtes und Erstrebtes: Erinnerungen eines sozialistischen Arztes/Alfred Grotjahn. Berlin: Kommissions-Verlag. 1932: 284
Kaspari C. Alfred Grotjahn (1869-1931) - Leben und Werk. Dissertation. Bonn. 1989
Weder H. Sozialhygiene und pragmatische Gesundheitspolitik in der Weimarer Republik am Beispiel des Sozial- und Gewerbehygienikers Benno Chajes (1880-1938). In: Winau R, Bleker J (Hrsg.) Abhandlungen zur Geschichte der Medizin und Naturwissenschaft, Heft 87. Husum: Matthisen Verlag. 2000.
Samuel RH, Hinton T. Education and Society in Modern Germany. London. 1949
Pross H. Die deutsche akademische Emigration nach den Vereinigten Staaten 1933-1941. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. 1955
Willich SN, Etzold K, Berghöfer A. Emigration von Sozialmedizinern der Berliner Charité in die USA - Karrieren der Schüler Alfred Grotjahns. Gesundheitswesen 2007;69:694-698
Etzold K. Dissertation "Exodus der Sozialmedizin in den dreißiger Jahren von Berlin in die USA - das Erbe Alfred Grotjahns". Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, 2007