The Legacy of Bevölkerungspolitik
Venereal Disease Control and Marriage Counselling in Post-WW II Berlin
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4871602 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Annette F Timm (University of British Columbia, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1998 |
| Volume | 33 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 173-214 |
| Publication date | 1998-08-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0008-4107 • E-ISSN: 2292-8502 |
| Publisher | University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.3138/cjh.33.2.173 |
| OpenAlex | W271280465 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
This paper explores the uneven legacy of German population politics (Bevölkerungspolitik) in the context of the catastrophic conditions of military defeat and Allied occupation in post-WW II Berlin. Its underlying assumption is that state-sponsored pro-natalism in Germany should be evaluated as an ideology. A fundamental policy assumption of the Weimar, Nazi, and post-war German regimes, Bevölkerungspolitik was deeply rooted in nationalist and racialist interpretations of geo-political and economic conditions. Two sites of Bevölkerungspolitik, venereal disease control and marriage counselling, are examined in detail. Retying on previously unused documents, the account compares developments in East and West Berlin and contrasts German and occupation policy. The author argues that while laws and decrees marked the key turning points for health care practice, practitioners at the lowest level often reacted pragmatically to popular demands for sexual freedom and reproductive choice even before laws protected individuals from such invasions of the private sphere as forced V.D. examinations and eugenics-inspired denials of permission to marry. In both East and West, traditions of population policy reaching back into the 1920s coexisted and overlapped with attitudes formed in the Nazi era, and the influence of the occupiers. Yet neither West nor East German health authorities were entirely immune to influences from below. The more democratic system established by West Germany's Basic Law in 1949 eradicated abuses of individual rights more quickly, but fears of excessive emigration and the Cold War political context also prompted East German health authorities to move towards positive incentives and away from coercion in reproductive health care. Bevölkerungspolitik was part of the East German strategy to use the "superiority" of its health care system as an ideological weapon against the West
Context (archaeology · Democracy · German · Ideology · Nationalism · Nazi Germany · Political science · Politics · Population · Sociology · Demography · European history and politics · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · History · Law · Medical History and Research
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,5 |
| Citation span | 2024 - 2024 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |