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Abstracts fra Bibliotek for Læger 4/2010

14. sep. 2018
7 min.

 

 

Originalartikel: Lægerne i modstandskampen 
Jakob Sørensen

 

Doctors in the Resistance Movement.

Illustrated by a database from The Museum of Danish Resistance in Copenhagen.

Bibl Læger 2010;202:307–324.

Since June 2008 the Museum of Danish Resistance has been working to establish a database of names and information for all persons who participated in the Danish resistance during World War 2. The work comprises the entering of names from membership lists and the reading of extensive literature on the Occupation in order to find names and information. By using the database it is possible to take a closer look at the forms of resistance carried out by Danish doctors and medical students. A brief study shows that the doctors and students were active in a number of different areas, that is in the clandes­tine army, which is not surprising (more than 80 per cent of our entries comes from muster rolls of the clandestine army). Medical aid was – not surprisingly – an area where the doctors and in lesser scale the students were active, whereas medical students tended towards more direct resistance such as sabotage.

Originalartikel: En dråbe i havet
Morten Møller

A drop in the ocean. Mogens Fog and the resistance

Bibl Læger 2010;202:325–349.

The article examines the role of Mogens Fog (1904–1990), communist and professor of neurology in the Danish resistance movement during the German occupation 1940–1945. Fog had been a leading member of the Danish Communist Party (DKP) in the 1920s, but had retired from party duties in order to focus on his successful medical career. However, in 1941, when Germany attacked The Soviet Union and Danish communists were consequently arrested, Fog accepted DKP chairman Aksel Larsen’s offer to participate in the resistance against the occupation force and the Danish policy of collaboration. At the liberation in May 1945 Fog had become one of the central resistance leaders and a member of the Danish Freedom Council. The article emphasizes that in order to understand Mogens Fog’s involvement in the resistance movement it is important to focus on the political ambitions that remained a key issue for Fog. He claimed that he was not involved in communist politics, but in fact he remained in close contact with leading communists and worked intensively to strengthen communist influence prior to the Freedom Government of May 1945. Mogens Fog did not only fight for Danish independence, but also for the development of a communist Denmark. Only if both ambitions are taken into account is it possible to comprehend his major involvement during the occupation years.

Vittighedstegninger

Originalartikel: Danske læger under hagekorset
Lars Schreiber Pedersen

Danish doctors under the swastika. The doctors from Usserød Hospital.

Bibl Læger 2010;202:352–388.

The number of doctors who became members of the Danish National Socialist Workers' Party (DNSAP) was modest. This article highlights two of those who joined the National Socialist movement, Charles Hindborg (1886–1974) and Emil Petersen (1906–1955). Both doctors became members of DNSAP before the outbreak of World War 2 and the German occupation of Denmark on April 9 1940. In 1941 Charles Hindborg was appointed national leader of public health and racial studies in DNSAP and he held the position until the summer of 1944, when he left DNSAP and became a member of another national socialist party, Dansk National Samling. Emil Petersen worked for DNSAP at local level until the spring of 1942, when he joined the Waffen-SS. During the following year he ­worked as a surgeon at SS camp hospitals in Vienna, Krakow and Minsk. He returned to Copenhagen and was employed as a doctor by the SS in Denmark and later with the infamous Schalburg corps, a Danish counterpart to the German SS. Both doctors were arrested immediately after the Danish liberation on May 5 1945. In 1946 Hindborg was sentenced to three years imprisonment, while Emil Petersen the following year was jailed for one year and eight months. With their sentences both doctors lost their right to practice medicine for five years. They both left Denmark to practice in Spain and Brazil, respectively.

Originalartikel: Ole Chievitz - en glemt helt?
Jens F. Rehfeld

Ole Chievitz – a forgotten hero?

Bibl Læger 2010;202:389–99.

Ole Chievitz (1883–1946) was professor of surgery at the University of Copenhagen, and since 1921 head of the department of surgery at the Finsen Institute in Copenhagen. He was known as a cour­ageous and charismatic leader of the Danish Red Cross Ambulance in Finland, first during the Civil War in 1918 and again during the Winter War against The Soviet Union in 1939–1940. After the German occupation of Denmark in 1940 Chievitz immediately engaged himself in the protest against the collaboration with Germany, and he soon became a politically independent key figure in the Dan­ish resistance against Nazism. From February 1944 he was a member of “Frihedsraadet”, the illegal Danish “shadow government”.

Kvartalets genstand
Morten A. Skydsgaard

Originalartikel: Det ondes forklaring
Bøje Larsen

The explanation of evil. Max Schmidt and his role in judging the collaborators

Bibl Læger 2010;202:402–427.

After World War 2, 23,000 Danes were arrested for collaboration with the Germans. Around 14,000 were later sentenced to prison. 46 were executed. A forensic psychiatrist was to examine the accused if the court or the public prosecutor required it. This article highlights the work of Dr Max Schmidt, leader of the Copenhagen Forensic Psychiatric Clinic, who observed around 2,600 of the accused. In his own time he was accused of several forms of non-professional behaviour: He was thought to be biased in his judgement of offenders and therefore classifying more psychopaths than his colleagues. This study is based on hitherto unpublished archive material and tries to establish whether the critique had any empiric validity. This article concludes that it had. Further, it is argued that the main function of the psychiatric examinations was to offer a plausible explanation of “the evil”.

Originalartikel: Danske læger og tyske flygtninge 1945-1949
Kirsten Lylloff

Danish doctors and German refugees 1945–1949

Bibl Læger 2010;202:428–450.

In the final months of World War 2, 250,000 German refugees from the Eastern provinces of Germany were sailed from the war zones to Denmark. The Danes saw the arrival of the refugees as yet another assault by the German occupation authorities and attitudes towards the refugees were generally very hostile. The refugees were in a bad physical condition and because of this the German occupation authorities tried to persuade the Danish Medical Association to provide medical care to the refugees. However, negotiations were unsuccessful, and on March the 25th 1945 the Danish Medical Associ­ation decided to deny all medical help to the refugees. This decision was recalled on May the 5th, but very few Danish doctors actually helped in the medical care of the refugees even after this date. In 1945 more than 13,000 refugees died in Denmark. Of these, 7,000 were children under the age of five. How­ever, not all doctors (or their families) saw the refugees as “the enemy”, some viewed them as human beings in need of help. This article presents three examples of Danes who refuted the decree of the Danish Medical Association – two doctors and one wife of a chief surgeon. Their stories emphasize the vast demonization and maltreatment of German refugees that took place in Denmark in the time around the German surrender in May 1945.

Originalartikel: Dansk Røde Kors-søster i nazitysk tjeneste
Peter Tudvad

A Danish Red Cross sister serving in Nazi Germany

Bibl Læger 2010;202:451–461.

The article tells the story of a Danish nurse, Ebba Mikkelsen, who served as a German Red Cross nurse in Nazi Germany. Prompted by her father (who was a dedicated member of the Danish National Socialist Workers' Party), Ebba volunteered in 1943 and served – together with around 150 other Danish women – at various field hospitals until the end of World War 2. After the war she was captured by the Russians and interned for a few months in Moscow until her return to Denmark in September 1945. She was charged with unpatriotic activities, but all charges were soon withdrawn. Post-war she engaged herself in a broad range of humanitarian work. At the age of 83 she finally decided to tell her dramatic and unfortunate story publicly.

Forside: Som følge af krigens verbelastning af hovedstadens sygehuse oprettedes midlertidige lazaretter rundt om i byen. På billedet ses hospitalsansatte på Bispebjerg Hospital i maj 1945 på et nødlazaret på bryggeriet Carlsberg i Valby. Omslaget er i øvrigt holdt i modstandsbevælgelsens farver, som efter befrielsen kom til syne på armbind og flag. De oprindelige armbind var lavet af blåt militært kappestof med påsyede bånd i dannebrogsfarver (foto: Nationalmuseet).