Current dissertations

Institute of History, Ethics and Philosophy of Medicine

Doctoral candidate

Caroline Catharina Krüger-Aleidt

Working title of the dissertation

Oral and maxillofacial care of war victims from 1942 to 1962: new challenges, innovative solutions and their influence on oral and maxillofacial surgery, reconstructive surgery and military medicine in the post-war period

Abstract

Background: The Second World War posed new challenges for oral and maxillofacial surgery due to numerous gunshot wounds and jaw injuries. While the dental history of the First World War has been comparatively well researched (e.g. Vollmuth and Zielinski 2014), the dental-surgical past under National Socialism has only been rudimentarily investigated. The existing dissertations on "Karl Schuchardt" (Riemer 2005) and "Erich Lexer" (Dittmann 2003) as well as "Die Kriegschirurgie von 1939-1945 aus der Sicht der beratenden Chirurgen des deutschen Heeres im zweiten Weltkrieg" (Behrendt 2003) deal with oral and maxillofacial surgery only rudimentarily. The research project "Dentistry and Dentists under National Socialism" at RWTH Aachen University did produce an overview of the history of the dental profession under National Socialism, but without a review of oral and maxillofacial surgery.

Objective: The overall aim is to understand how many and which injuries had to be dealt with and how they were treated and, on this basis, to reconstruct the development of oral and maxillofacial surgery from 1942 to 1962 in as much detail as possible and to present it in context. Based on the challenges faced by physicians at the front and in the military hospitals, the new developments in oral and maxillofacial surgery will be traced and their influence on the post-war period identified.

Methodology: Research is planned in the source and literature holdings of relevant archives and libraries as well as visits to selected museums. In addition to journal articles and books, reports from physicians at the front will be consulted. A systematic evaluation of contemporary specialist journals may also prove fruitful.

Structure of the dissertation: Starting with a brief description of the state of development before 1942, the central second part reconstructs the oral and maxillofacial care of war victims and the medical challenges they faced in the Second World War from 1942 onwards. It then examines which developments in oral and maxillofacial war surgery became established in post-war surgery (Part 3) and what has stood the test of time to this day (Part 4).