The Reich Physicians’ Ordinance and Reich Medical Association
The Lawyer of Germany’s Medical Profession: Clemens Bewer
Clemens Bewer (1894–1972), born in Greifswald, became in-house counsel for the Hartmann Association in 1927. Starting in 1933, he played a key role in drafting the new Reich Physicians’ Ordinance, which came into effect on 1 April 1936. Later, in 1960, he tried to claim a pension for his work during the Nazi era. In a letter to KBV chairman Dr Friedrich Voges, he boasted he had been the main author of the Reich Physicians’ Ordinance, but claimed that the “overtly Nazi, particularly the anti-Jewish” parts did not originate from him. It was in 1934 that Bewer also became in-house counsel for the Statutory Health Insurance Physician Association of Germany (KVD), a public body that came under the umbrella of the Reich Medical Association two years later.
After the Second World War and the dissolving of the KVD, the trustee handling its assets engaged Bewer as legal advisor. It was in this capacity that, when it came to assets wrongfully taken from previous Jewish owners, he worked to claim them for the successor organizations of the KVD. In 1949, he resumed his work as in-house counsel, this time for medical associations including the Berlin Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians.
Confidentiality Undermined
The major doctors’ organizations had been striving for a national legal framework for the medical profession since the 1880s. But even as late as the Weimar period, this had yet to be achieved. It was the Nazi takeover—and the “Gleichschaltung” or “forced conformity” of all professional bodies—that created the conditions for a reorganization of healthcare under Nazi auspices. By March 1933, work had begun on the legal architecture of the Reichsärzteordnung (RÄO) or “Reich Physicians’ Ordinance”, with the final draft of 13 December 1935 published by the Reich government in its official gazette.
The RÄO established a Reich Medical Association, which regulated and disciplined Germany’s physicians according to the dictates of the Nazi regime. This included a significant weakening of doctor–patient confidentiality. From now on, the seal of confidentiality could be broken if required by “healthy popular sentiment”. This is how the RÄO laid the legal foundations for a great many Nazi medical atrocities.