(Vienna, 20 March 2025) In the years from 1938 to 1945, the Vienna Medical School experienced a profound change. The ideology of National Socialism permeated all areas of life and also led to serious consequences in the field of medicine - from the expulsion and persecution of Jewish doctors to forced sterilisations and the killing of patients in psychiatry. For a long time, there was silence about the crimes committed under the Nazi regime, including in the field of gynaecology. One example of this is the implementation of the so-called "Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring" by the SS-Obersturmführer and head of the First and later the Second Vienna University Women's Clinic, Isidor Amreich. A symposium on 28 March 2025 at MedUni Vienna will take an in-depth look at this dark period in the history of gynaecology.
As in the other medical disciplines, the Anschluss of Austria to Nazi Germany in March 1938 initially meant the destruction of the professional existence Jewish doctors. Almost 60 per cent of the gynaecologists working in Vienna (and a few female gynaecologists) were affected by the anti-Jewish persecution, lost their jobs and the right to practise their profession and were only able to save their lives if they managed to flee in time.
In view of the birth policy of the Nazi regime, which aimed to create a "racially pure" and "hereditarily healthy" so-called national body, gynaecology played an important ideological, political and practical role during this time. This is exemplified by the gynaecologist Otto Planner-Plann, who was the most important medical functionary within the NSDAP as Vienna's Gauärzteführer.
In the German Reich, including Austria, specially authorised gynaecological clinics and their staff were responsible for carrying out forced interventions on tens of thousands of women as part of Nazi "racial hygiene". The two university women's clinics in Vienna were no exception. Between 1940 and 1945, almost 230 women had to undergo an involuntary sterilisation procedure at one of the two clinics, in many cases combined with the termination of an existing pregnancy. The vast majority of procedures were carried out due to alleged hereditary diseases on the basis of the "Law for the Prevention of Hereditary Diseases", which was also introduced in the "Ostmark" on 1 January 1940. In addition, there were women who underwent such interventions following authorisation by the "Reich Committee for the Registration of Serious Hereditary and Congenital Diseases", the committee also responsible for "child euthanasia". These were women who lived in Vienna as foreign forced labourers or who were considered "racially undesirable" according to the "Nuremberg Laws" and were to be prevented from having children.
Herwig Czech, Professor of the History of Medicine at MedUni Vienna: "Like many other areas of medicine, gynaecology served a murderous regime and its racist and eugenic aims during the Nazi era. Coming to terms with these entanglements is a step that is long overdue
Herbert Kiss, Co-Head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at MedUni Vienna: "We can only learn from history if we confront it with unwavering honesty. For too long, we avoided fully addressing the Nazi era and the role of leading doctors. Now, we are making a statement—distancing ourselves from the past while taking a firm stand. We must never cease to speak about, recount, and remember what happened."
This symposium marks a milestone in the reappraisal of this dark period in the history of the discipline. It is particularly important to the organisers at MedUni Vienna to draw attention to the fates of those who suffered under the National Socialist regime. Lecturers from the fields of history and medicine will be giving talks.
Symposium: Gynaecology in Vienna during National Socialism
28 March 2025, 9:00 am to 3:00 pm
Lecture theatre, 1st floor
Josephinum of the Medical University of Vienna
Währinger Street 25
1090 Vienna
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