On the first day of August in 1961, the Health Ministry of the German Democratic
Republic (GDR) announced the closure of the German-German border permanently,
accusing the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) of neglecting its citizens and failing to
properly administer vaccinations against poliomyelitis.1 This accusation sparked the ire of
the West German and United States media, and the Federal Republic denied that there
were outbreaks. The episode raises questions about common perceptions of healthcare in
East Germany. The thought that East Germany might have an epidemic disease under
control, which still caused problems in West Germany, contradicts the perception that
East Germany lagged behind its western neighbor in every realm.
While recent histories of international relations and healthcare emphasize
collaboration between the US and the USSR, and their Cold War allies in this period, this
dissertation presents a less constructive relationship. Despite the shared goal of polio
control and eradication, East and West Germany used epidemic control as evidence of the
successes of one system of healthcare governance, or the faults of the opponent’s system.
The Berlin Wall announcement was the culmination of almost 15 years of government
competition, speckled with individual collaboration, in the field of healthcare.
This dissertation contributes to literature on healthcare in divided Germany,
narratives which present the history of polio as an “American story,” and scholarship on
healthcare and international relations. It shows how two separate healthcare systems were
1 “East Germany Curbs Travel: Blames Polio,” Chicago Tribune, 1 August 1961, 11.
v
constructed by Soviet and American occupiers with German collaborators between 1945
and 1947. These separate systems, established before the official division of Germany,
laid the foundation for two separate states. During the first postwar polio epidemic in
1947, the United States showed its affluence and experience with polio through a robust
response centered on technological solutions. The USSR, conversely, could not match the
United States’ response due to inexperience with polio and lack of economic resources,
garnering criticism from German citizens and US occupiers. In 1955, the introduction of
Jonas Salk’s injected polio vaccine gave doctors and civilians in the US hope that polio
would soon be a memory, but European responses were much more ambiguous. Albert
Sabin’s forthcoming oral polio vaccine appeared to be a much more promising option to
many physicians due to its ease of administration and cost-effectiveness. When Sabin
chose to field test his vaccine in the USSR, his decision to collaborate with the US’s Cold
War opponent demonstrated significant potential for collaboration. Nonetheless, the
Soviet connections of Sabin OPV led to a crisis in divided Berlin.
The history of polio is not an American story and recognizing the ways in which
the fight against this disease went beyond the national, complicated by political
boundaries but involving recognizable collaboration across those boundaries, helps
expand the historical narrative of poliomyelitis. While vaccine diplomacy was indeed a
form of soft power used in the context of the Cold War, promises of vaccines were not
always received without question, and incorporating a deeper examination of recipient
countries’ discourses helps complicate our understandings of diplomacy and hesitancy. / Thesis / Candidate in Philosophy / This thesis outlines the ways in which an infectious disease, poliomyelitis, was
treated and prevented in divided Germany between 1945 and 1965, contextualizing
medical history with the political context of the Cold War. The first two chapters examine
the period from 1945 to 1953, when no vaccines against polio were available and
Germany was occupied by the Allied powers. The German healthcare system was
reconstructed differently in the Soviet and American zones. The political beliefs of each
occupying power shaped the resulting systems: socialized and centralized medicine was a
hallmark of the Soviet zone’s healthcare, while the American zone pursued a free market
approach. Chapters three and four explain the introduction of two different vaccines, both
developed in the United States: an injected vaccine created by Jonas Salk, and an oral
vaccine developed by Albert Sabin. The United States championed the Salk vaccine,
while the USSR was an early adopter of the Sabin vaccine. These chapters explain how a
vaccine created in the US became known as a Soviet vaccine, and how this reputation
affected western countries’ adoption of the medical innovation. The thesis concludes that
doctors are not separate from the political contexts in which they live and shows how
political ideology and cross-border rivalry affect healthcare provision.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:mcmaster.ca/oai:macsphere.mcmaster.ca:11375/27553 |
| Date | January 2022 |
| Creators | Clarke, Samantha |
| Contributors | Swett, Pamela, Horn, Martin, History |
| Source Sets | McMaster University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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