Medizingeschichte und Politik: Karrieren des Fritz Lejeune in der Weimarer Republik und im Nationalsozialismus (review)

This detailed biography of Fritz Lejeune (1892-1966) will be of interest to historians of medicine and of German culture, not so much for his contributions as a medical doctor or a historian of medicine, which were minor, but for the fact that he is an example of what happened to talented people in Germany when right-wing völkisch beliefs permeated their professional careers. As a man of ability, energy, and ambition, Lejeune pursued activities in several arenas in his lifetime: he was a practicing medical doctor, university teacher, and historian of medicine, an active participant in numerous professional and quasi-professional organizations, and an advocate of right-wing völkisch causes. He joined the Nazi party in 1925, left it the following year, rejoined in October 1932, and remained a loyal member to the bitter end in 1945. At the University of Cologne, where he taught, he held no offices until the Nazis came to power; he then had a prominent role in the university, especially as director (1934-38) of the Portuguese-Brazilian Institute, a cultural exchange program which he used for National Socialist propaganda.

Lejeune's biggest advance came after the Anschluss: in 1939 he was appointed director of the Institute of the History of Medicine at the University of Vienna. Yet despite the eminence of that position, he never realized his ambition to be a major figure in the history of medicine or to achieve the rank of Ordinarius. After the Second World War, although burdened by his Nazi past, he began to reestablish himself in the early nineteen-fifties in Germany, particularly as a founding member of the German Association for the Protection of Children (1953) and as its president until 1964. Despite his long list of publications and organizational accomplishments, specialists in the history of medicine viewed his work skeptically.

Klaus Schmierer's substantive account of Lejeune's ideas does much to explain his lack of influence in the history of medicine. The heroic individual is the common thread that runs through Lejeune's historical thinking: medical advance is always the result of "leader personalities" ("Führerpersönlichkeiten," p. 196), the most important of whom were German. In the early twenties he incorporated this heroic thesis into an overarching framework that viewed the history of medicine as a dualism between dogmatic tradition and innovative "liberalism"—a curious choice of words for a person who embraced right-wing beliefs and, except for an emphasis on the individual, had nothing in common with political liberalism. He soon abandoned that approach. Later, in 1942, he argued that the dualism between the male and female principles provided the best structure for interpreting the history of medicine. In elaborating this approach, he employed commonplace notions and prejudices about the differences between men and women: males were superior and they embodied, with only a few exceptions, positive and heroic qualities; females were identified with negative characteristics that justified the subordination of women.

Schmierer makes an effort to narrate the career of Lejeune with detachment and balance, and in this he is quite successful. He patiently investigates discrepancies in the evidence, such as the contrast between Lejeune's statements in 1938—when he claimed, falsely, to have been a member of the Nazi Party as early as 1923, and expressed his deep devotion to National Socialism—and what he wrote in self-justifying petitions after 1945. Schmierer seeks to give Lejeune credit when it is deserved, but he repeatedly exposes misleading statements and falsehoods, and notes that Lejeune did not shy away from "crude oversimplifications and historical forgeries" (p. 212).

Had Schmierer included more discussion of the state of the history of medicine at the time, readers...