RT Journal Article
T1 The Doctors and the Party: Medicine, Politics, and the Habitus of Socialist Experts in the German Democratic Republic
A1 Aguilar López-Barajas, Jose Luis
AB This article analyzes the interplay between medicine and politics in East Germany. It analyzes the meetings of the Politburo medical commissions (1958–60) to frame and define the habitus of a generation, the “Tenners” (born 1910–20), which included most of the experts in the Politburo meetings. This generation consisted of politically committed doctors who were also influential medical scholars, many with international reputations. The Politburo meetings revealed major quarrels between these experts and the Party. The communiqué (1960) issued by the Politburo showed a partial victory for the experts, because the Party acknowledged many of their claims, proving that “totalitarian” interpretations do not hold. However, this was not a victory of medicine over politics. The experts formulated their claims by combining medical and political arguments and defended the jurisdiction of their medical expertise over the Party, precisely because they believed it could more decisively contribute to achieving the goals of socialism.
PB Cambridge University Press
SN 0008-9389
YR 2025
FD 2025-09-09
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/132805
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/132805
LA eng
NO Aguilar López-Barajas, J. L. (2025). The Doctors and the Party: Medicine, Politics, and the Habitus of Socialist Experts in the German Democratic Republic. Central European History, 1–18. doi:10.1017/S0008938925101192
NO 2025 Acuerdos transformativos CRUE
DS Docta Complutense
RD 26 feb 2026