How important was the Hippocratic oath in the Third Reich?
This poster has factual aspects, the symbolism of the rod and the snake, the flag of Lebensborn and what it represents, and two key individuals and the view it represents.
The poster starts with explaining the flag in the background. When conducting my research, I came across this powerful image that had much significance and relation to my topic. The white flag and the red dot in the middle would represent buildings called Lebensborn which means ‘wellspring of life’ or ‘fountain of life’ where ss officers would visit to procreate with racially pure young women who were happy to give birth. The more children the women would give birth to they would receive a badge called the mothers cross. Women who wore the mothers cross were respected in society and envied upon by other women. Furthermore, Hitler wanted women to procreate to create a strong racially pure country. His ideology in racial hygiene sprung from social Darwinism which is also in the poster. This theory assumed that nations, like animal species, fight for the survival of the fittest. The fittest nation would be the one that is genetically the ‘purest’. This theory was then supported by doctors and medical professionals. This changed the identity of the doctor after 1933 as medical professional did not respect or care for human life unless their patients were racially pure.
In addition to in the image it can also be seen there is a rod with a snake curled around it. This is a universal worldwide symbol for medical services that can often been seen on ambulances. This symbol dates to 400 BCE and is often identified with Hippocrates. There are many interpretations of this. The interpretation I resent with the most is that the stick is staff members carried by the god Olympian. And that the stick is what used to help these old knowledgeable medical professionals walk as they spent a long time walking to their patients by foot. And the snake represents Asclepios the Greek healing demigod in medicine who sheds skin like snakes do and their skin has special healing powers.
On the side of the poster are two medical doctors who had interesting and powerful quotes I scam across in my research and I find these quotes best reside with the identity of these so-called medical professionals. On the top is Josef Mengele who was also known as the angel of death. He disregarded his identity as a medical professional to be beneficial to patients but rather deemed Jew and the other undesirables such as Gays and chose whether to keep them in labour houses or exterminate them. The second quote is by Dr Fritz Klein who compared the Jews to be the appendix of mankind. Upon my research of Dr Klein and his character it brought great sadness as a historian we often come across past autocracies and see how terrible these events were but comparing a disease to a whole religion is vile. And shows how vastly the identity of the doctor changed for the worst in Nazi Germany.
