The Third Reich in the pages of the American Journal of Nursing, 1932-1950

Nursing History Review

Volumn 14, Issue , 2006, Pages 59-87

  Lagerwey, Mary D ^a  

^a WESTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; CRIME; HISTORY; HISTORY OF MEDICINE; HUMAN; INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION; JEW; MASS MEDIUM; POLITICAL SYSTEM; PUBLICATION; PUBLISHING; UNITED STATES; WAR;

EDITORIAL POLICIES; HISTORY OF NURSING; HISTORY, 20TH CENTURY; HOLOCAUST; HUMANS; INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL OF NURSES; JEWS; MASS MEDIA; NATIONAL SOCIALISM; PERIODICALS; PUBLISHING; UNITED STATES; WORLD WAR II;

EID: 33644869845     PISSN: 10628061     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1891/1062-8061.14.59     Document Type: Review

References (145)

1. See Hilde Steppe, "Nursing in Nazi Germany," Western Journal of Nursing Research 14, no. 6 (1992): 744-753;
2. and Hilde Steppe, "Nursing Under Totalitarian Regimes: The Case of National Socialism" (paper presented at the Congress on Nursing, Women's History and the Politics of Welfare, Nottingham, England, 23 July 1993).
3. See Bronwyn Rebekah McFarland-Icke, Nurses in Nazi Germany: Moral Choice in History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999) for a discussion of the ordinariness of many Germans directly involved in killing fellow citizens.
4. See also Henry Friedlander, The Origins of Nazi Genocide (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995);
5. Michael Burleigh, Death and Deliverance: "Euthanasia" in Germany, c. 1900-1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994);
6. Susan Benedict and Jochen Kuhla, "Nurses' Participation in the 'Euthanasia' Programs of Nazi Germany," Western Journal of Nursing Research 21 (1999): 246-263;
7. and Mary D. Lagerwey, "Nursing Ethics at Hadamar," Qualitative Health Research 9, no. 6 (1999): 759-792.
8. Brigid Lusk, "Historical Methodology for Nursing Research," Journal of Nursing Scholarship 29, no. 4 (1997): 355.
9. Deborah E. Lipstadt, Beyond Belief: The American Press and the Coming of the Holocaust, 1933-1946 (New York: Free Press, Simon and Schuster, 1986), 3.
10. Mary M. Riddle, "Reminiscences of Early Days of the American Journal of Nursing," AJN 25, no. 10 (1925): 838.
11. Jay Lippincott, "An Enduring Partnership: AJN and Lippincott Enter Another Century Together," AJN 100, no. 10 (2000): 11;
12. "More About the Journal," AJN 46, no. 1 (1946): 2.
13. See Mary M. Roberts, American Nursing: History and Interpretation (New York: Macmillan, 1954), chapter 5;
14. and Vera L. Bullough, Olga Maranjian Church, and Alice P. Stein, American Nursing: A Biographical Dictionary (New York: Garland, 1988), 253.
15. Riddle, "Reminiscences," 846.
16. See Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religions Life, trans. Joseph Ward Swain (New York: Free Press, 1965[1912]).
17. Maurice Halbwachs, On Collective Memory, ed. Lewis A. Coser (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950).
18. See Diane Hamilton, "History: Historical Consciousness as Collective Memory," Journal of Professional Nursing 12, no. 1 (1996): 5.
19. See Maurice Halbwachs, On Collective Memory, trans. Lewis A. Coser, Heritage of Sociology Series (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).
20. See David D. Brown, "On Narrative and Belonging," in Paul Ricoeur and Narrative: Context and Contestation, edited by Morney Joy, 109-120 (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 1997);
21. and Henry Isaac Venema, Identifying Selfhood: Imagination, Narrative, and Hermeneutics in the Thought of Paul Ricoeur (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000) for analyses of Ricoeur's contributions to an understanding of collective identity.
22. See Sioban Nelson and Suzanne Gordon, "The Rhetoric of Rupture: Nursing as a Practice with a History?" Nursing Outlook 52 (2004): 255-261.
23. Gayle Greene, "Feminist Fiction and the Uses of Memory," Signs 16, no. 2 (1991): 293.
24. Deborah Lipstadt, Beyond Belief: The American Press and the Coming of the Holocaust, 1933-1945 (New York: Free Press, 1986).
25. Lawrence Baron, "The Holocaust and American Public Memory, 1945-1960," Holocaust and Genocide Studies 17, no. 1 (2003): 62-88.
26. See Robert H. Abzug, America Views the Holocaust, 1933-1945: A Brief Documentary History (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999), for a collection of original documents regarding events of the Holocaust and American reactions to them.
27. William E. Seidelman, "The Path to Nuremberg in the Pages of JAMA, 1933-1939," JAMA 276 (1996): 1693.
28. For example, the January 1932 "Department of Red Cross Nursing" section reported on a visit from a nurse who trained in Germany and practiced in several countries, noting her "sympathetic understanding of social problems," that is, those in need due to fire, flood, or unemployment. "Visitors to National Headquarters," AJN 32, no. 1 (1932): 86.
29. See David J. Hogan, ed., The Holocaust Chronicle: A History in Words and Pictures (Lincolnwood, IL: Publications International, 2000) for an in-depth analysis of factors leading to the Nazi rise to power.
30. Blanche Pfefferkorn, "The Good Nurse," AJN 32, no. 9 (1932): 985.
31. Michael Burleigh and Wolfgang Wippermann, The Racial State: Germany, 1933-1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 44.
32. Hogan, Holocaust Chronicle.
33. Steppe, "Nursing in Nazi Germany," 744-753.
34. Hogan, Holocaust Chronicle, 52-71.
35. The term "eugenics" was introduced into public discourse in 1883 by Sir Francis Gallon as a "science of racial improvement through controlled breeding"; see Carole R. McCann, Birth Control Politics in the United States, 1916-1945 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994), 209.
36. Repressive or "negative" eugenics urged sterilization of the physically and mentally "unfit." "Positive" eugenics called on the healthy (and frequently the more prosperous) to have larger families, and lobbied for programs to support these children through adolescence and into adulthood. See also Mary Lagerwey, "Nursing, Social Contexts, and Ideologies in the Early United States Birth Control Movement," Nursing Inquiry 6, no. 4 (1999): 250-258, for a discussion of nursing's relationship to eugenic theory in the early birth control movement in the United States.
37. See Henry Friedlander, The Origins of Nazi Genocide (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995);
38. and Burleigh and Wippermann, The Racial State, for in-depth historical analyses of the eugenics programs of Nazi Germany and their direct connections with the Holocaust.
39. Suzanne Hahn, "Nursing Issues During the Third Reich," in Medicine, Ethics, and the Third Reich: Historical and Contemporary Issues, edited by John J. Michalcyk, 143-150 (Kansas City: Sheed and Ward, 1994).
40. Friedrich Bartels, quoted in Hahn, "Nursing Issues During the Third Reich," 143.
41. See Claudia Koonz, "Ethical Dilemmas and Nazi Eugenics: Single-Issue Dissent in Religious Contexts," Journal of Modern History 64 (1992): S17.
42. Paul Weindling, Health, Race and German Politics Between National Unification and Nazism, 1870-1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
43. See Koonz, "Ethical Dilemmas"; and Steppe, "Nazi Germany."
44. Koonz, "Ethical Dilemmas," 42;
45. Hahn, "Nursing Issues."
46. For Belgium, see, for example, J. Parmentier, "The National Federation of Belgian Nurses 1922-1932," AJN 33, no. 2 (1933): 119-120;
47. and "Nursing Education and Public Health in Brussels," AJN 33, no. 3 (1933): 225-227.
48. For Brazil, see "The Rockefeller Foundation and Nursing Education in Brazil, " AJN 33, no. 2 (1933): 163.
49. For Holland, see "Hospitals and Nursing in Holland," AJN 33, no. 5 (1933): 450-452.
50. For Japan, two examples are "A College of Nursing: St. Luke's International Medical Center, Tokyo," AJN 33, no. 10 (1933): 930-933;
51. and "An Ounce of Prevention: 'Schicking' a Child in Kobakwan Settlement House in Tokyo," AJN 33, no. 9 (1933): 900.
52. For South Africa, see J. Evelyn Fox, "From South Africa," AJN 33, no. 9 (1933): 900.
53. For example, the July 1933 "Notes from Headquarters: American Nurses Association" was devoted to "Some Achievements in Nursing." A section subtitled "Achievements in International Relations" takes up almost a column of the two-page article, and enumerates eleven specific contributions, including being "one of three charter association members" of the ICN, and assisting with opening and developing schools of nursing in various countries. "Some Achievements in Nursing," AJN 33, no. 7 (1933): 707.
54. "In Paris and Brussels: Congress of the International Council of Nurses: July 10-15, 1933," AJN 33, no. 9 (1933): 904-905.
55. "In Paris and Brussels: Congress of the International Council of Nurses: July 10-15, 1933," AJN 33, no. 9 (1933): Ibid., 902.
56. "In Paris and Brussels: Congress of the International Council of Nurses: July 10-15, 1933," AJN 33, no. 9 (1933): Ibid., 903.
57. "Who Attended the I.C.N. Congress?" AJN 34, no. 12 (1934): 1134.
58. See Barbara L. Brush and Joan E. Lynaugh, eds., Nurses of All Nations: A History of the International Council of Nurses, 1899-1999 (New York: Lippincott, 1999) for a detailed discussion of the Council's choice to be politically neutral.
59. Steppe, "Nursing Under Totalitarian Regimes."
60. Hahn, "Nursing Issues," 146.
61. "Assembly of German Red Cross Nurses," AJN 37, no. 1 (1937): 99.
62. Lulu K. Wolf, "An American Student in London: At the Florence Nightingale International Foundation," AJN 38, no. 6 (1938): 642.
63. I am grateful to Susan Benedict for obtaining an English translation of this document.
64. Gertrude Kroeger, "Nursing in Germany: Recent Changes in Organization and Education," AJN 39, no. 5 (1939): 483-485.
65. "Our Contributors," AJN 39, no 5 (1939): 532.
66. Kroeger, "Nursing in Germany," 483.
67. Kroeger, "Nursing in Germany," Ibid., 485.
68. See Israel Gutman, ed., Encyclopedia of the Holocaust (New York: Macmillan, 1990).
69. Friedlander, Origins, 151.
70. See also Burleigh and Wipperman, Racial State;
71. and Benedict and Kuhla, "Nurses" for more detailed descriptions of decentralized killings.
72. Jane Foster, "A State of War Exists! An American Nurse in a British Hospital," AJN 40, no. 1 (1940): 3-7.
73. Calista Banwarth, "The ICN Comes to the States," AJN 40, no. 4 (1940): 363-38.
74. "Nursing in Other Lands: England," AJN 40, no. 10 (1940): 1169.
75. Bonnie Bullough, "The Lasting Impact of World War II on Nursing," AJN 76, no. 1 (1976): 119.
76. Julia Stimson, "Do We Know Enough About Democracy?" AJN 41, no. 1 (1941): 93.
77. "News from Polish Nurses," AJN, 41, no. 1 (1941): 92.
78. "Palestine Nurses in Egypt," AJN 41, no. 7 (1941): 857.
79. "New State Regulations in Germany," AJN 41, no. 5 (1941): 623.
80. Karin Huppertz, "Preparation for Nursing in Germany," AJN 41, no. 11 (1941): 1276.
81. "Our Contributors," AJN 41, no. 11 (1941): 1305.
82. "Iranian Nurses Carry On," AJN 43, no. 6 (1943): 591n.
83. "Mobile gassing units, disguised as Red Cross vans" were used to kill at least 15,000 Jews at the Sajmiste camp in Yugoslavia. Hogan, Holocaust Chronicle, 279.
84. "Meetings of the Board of Directors: American Nurses' Association," AJN 42, no. 8 (1942): 951.
85. Jose Pearce as told to Celia Benson, "A Front Line Nurse with the Free French," AJN 42, no 10 (1942): 1160-1163.
86. See Gutman, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, for a complete account of the Jewish ghettos and their liquidation.
87. See Susan Mayer, "Amelia Greenwald: Pioneer in International Public Health Nursing," Nursing and Health Care 15, no. 2 (1994): 74-78, for the story of this school.
88. Hazel A. Goff, "Preparing for Postwar Work Abroad: Suggestions Drawn from Experience in European Schools of Nursing," AJN 43, no. 2 (1943): 170.
89. "English Nurses Plan for Reconstruction," AJN 43, no. 4 (1943): 406.
90. "Increased Enrolment in Palestine," AJN 43, no. 2 (1943): 227.
91. "Licensing Foreign-Trained Nurses," AJN 43, no. 12 (1943): 1141.
92. See also "Nursing Legislation, State Boards, and the War," AJN 43, no. 3 (1943): 398.
93. Theodore F. Harris, Pearl S. Buck: A Biography (New York: John Day, 1979).
94. Pearl S. Buck, "A Center of New Life," AJN 43, no. 5 (1943): 494.
95. The editors noted in pride in their "Our Contributors" section, "Yes, it's the real Pearl Buck whose article we publish in the Student Nurses Page this month. We are indebted to Mary Pauline Harry, R.N., Director of Nurses at Harlem Hospital, New York City, who shared Mrs. Buck's paper with us." AJN 43, no. 5 (1943): 476.
96. "The Health of Children in Occupied Europe," AJN 44, no. 6 (1944): 620.
97. Ann Conlev, "UNRRA Refugee Camp," AJN 44, no. 10 (1944): 988.
98. "Henrietta Szold School of Nursing: A Middle East School Marks Its Silver Anniversary," AJN 44, no. 4 (1944): 364.
99. "ICN Conference Held in New York," AJN 44, no. 11 (1944): 1096-1097.
100. "Let's Look at the Record," AJN 45, no. 1 (1945): 3.
101. Frances Payne Bolton, "Home from ETOUSA [European Theater of Operations, United States Army]," AJN 45, no. 1 (1945): 8.
102. Vincoe M. Paxton, "With Field Hospital Nurses in Germany: Army Nurses Serve Forward Combat Units," AJN 45, no. 2 (1945): 131-133.
103. Marguerite Cornet-Auquier, "The Bordeaux School Carries On." AJN 45, no. 2 (1945): 149.
104. "With Army and Navy Nurses: Army Nurses Released from Manila Prison Camp," AJN 45, no. 3 (1945): 238;
105. Alice R. Clarke, "Thirty-Seven Months as Prisoners of War," AJN 45, no. 5 (1945): 342-345;
106. "Army Nurses Home Again," AJN 45, no. 4 (1945): 315-316;
107. Jessie Fant Evans, "Release from Los Baños," AJN 45, no. 6 (1945): 462-463.
108. Isabel H. Needham, "UNNRA at Home, Somewhere in Italy," AJN 45, no. 6 (1945): 485;
109. Ruth S. Faust, "Nurse's Aides: Trained at a Yugoslav Refugee Camp," AJN 45, no. 7 (1945): 549-553;
110. Emilie Willms, "Working with UNRRA," AJN 45, no. 1 (1945): 61.
111. "What Is UNRRA?" AJN 45, no. 9 (1945): 713.
112. For example, Anna Lisa Moline, "U.S. Army Nurses in Russia," AJN 45, no. 11 (1945): 904-906;
113. "Visiting Nurses in Russia," 973.
114. Catheren M. Schneider, "The Displaced Person as a Patient," AJN 45, no. 9 (1945): 690.
115. Schneider, "Displaced Person as a Patient," 691.
116. Catheren M. Schneider, "Caring for Displaced Persons," AJN 45, no. 12 (1945): 960.
117. Preface to Dorothy E. Curtis. "Nurse, There's Typhus in Camp," AJN 45, no. 9 (1945): 714.
118. Dorothy E. Curtis. "Nurse, There's Typhus in Camp," AJN 45, no. 9 (1945): 714, Ibid.
119. Ann Franklin, "An Army Nurse at Dachau," AJN 45, no. 11 (1945): 901.
120. Lorraine Setzler, "Nursing and Nursing Education in Germany," AJN 46, no. 12 (1945): 993.
121. Lorraine Setzler, "Nursing and Nursing Education in Germany," AJN 46, no. 12 (1945): 993, Ibid.
122. See Lagerwey, "Hadamar," for an analysis of transcripts from the first Hadamar trial.
123. "Army Nurses Survey Nursing in Germany," AJN 49, no. 11 (1949): 963-964.
124. "ICN Offers Information of Postwar Planning," AJN 45, no. 1 (1945): 72.
125. Anna Schwarzenberg, "Activities and Program of the ICN," AJN 45, no. 9 (1945): 718-719.
126. "ICN Announces Bulletin," AJN 45, no. 10 (1945): 863.
127. "German Schools Are Re-established," AJN 46, no. 3 (1946): 208;
128. and "Eighty-Two Schools Opened in Germany," AJN 46, no. 5 (1946): 209.
129. "Courage Mounteth with Occasion," AJN 46, no. 4 (1946): 440-441.
130. "Report from Czechoslovakia," AJN 46, no. 4 (1946): 226.
131. Sister Bergljot Larsson, "Norway's Nurses Carry On," AJN 46, no. 5 (1946): 308-309.
132. Ellen Albin, "Nursing in the U.S.S.R," AJN 46, no. 8 (1946): 525-527.
133. Mary Frances Frazier, "International Guests on Welfare Island: Nurses from Europe and China Have Experience in New York Hospitals," AJN 47, no. 1 (1947): 27-29.
134. Mary Stypul, "Nursing Aboard a D.P. Ship: A U.S. Army Nurse Tells of Her Experience in Caring for European Refugees 'in a dozen different languages,'" AJN 48, no. 8 (1948): 493.
135. See "Displaced Persons, Jewish" in Gutman, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 337-389, for details on the millions of people displaced by the war and the U.S. response.
136. "Rebuilding Europe's Children: America's Overseas Aid and the United Nations Appeal for Children Offer a Unified Program of Hope and Health for the Future," AJN 48, no. 8 (1948): 512-513.
137. "Nursing in Other Countries: DP's Have Practical Nurse Training in Paris," AJN 48, no. 10 (1948): 673.
138. "For Your Stamp Album," AJN 48, no. 12 (1948): 770.
139. Neville M. Goodman, "Nursing and the WHO," AJN 49, no. 3 (1949): 134-136.
140. Elizabeth Kankel Wiegand, "Nurses of the German Red Cross," AJN 49, no. 4 (1949): 218-219.
141. "Congress Considers Nursing: Displaced Persons," AJN 49, no.7 (1949): 429.
142. Jessamine C. Fenner, "Baltic Refugee Girls Begin Nurse's Training in Holland: A Project to Help Displaced Persons Aids Also in Meeting the Nurse Shortage in Holland," AJN 49, no. 9 (1949): 564-565.
143. "ICN Will Maintain Register of Refugee Nurses," AJN 50, no. 8 (1950): 478.
144. Erna Von Abendroth, "Nursing in Germany and Austria," AJN 50, no. 11 (1950): 728-730.
145. Helen French, "Displaced Children in Germany," AJN 52, no. 12 (1952): 1471-1474.