One in 20 East German doctors spied on patients or colleagues
BMJ 2007; 335 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.39412.492836.94 (Published 29 November 2007) Cite this as: BMJ 2007;335:1113
- Annette Tuffs
- Heidelberg
About 5% of doctors in the former East Germany spied on their colleagues or patients as unofficial members of the East German secret police (the Staatssicherheit or Stasi), a new report has shown.
The study, by the Hannah Arendt Institute for Research on Totalitarianism, Dresden, and commissioned by the German Medical Association and the German medical journal Deutsches Ärzteblatt, showed that the percentage of unofficial members of the Stasi among doctors was higher than in the East German population as a whole.
“Doctors were one of the main targets of the Stasi …
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