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Western Front on the Somme 1916: A military doctor vaccinates German soldiers in World War I (the person on the right has been traced)
Photo:
Collection Berliner Verlag / Archive / SZ Photo
SPIEGEL:
Mr. Thießen, authorities are preparing mass vaccinations, anti-vaccination campaigners are mobilizing, and MPs are arguing about infection protection in parliament.
Does that sound familiar to you?
Thießen:
Vaccinations are always a test for the solidarity community and therefore always a political issue.
Vaccination was hotly debated in the German Empire, often with similar arguments as today and also excited.
Much of what we experience is not that new, even if it sometimes seems that way in view of the hysterical tone.
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Historian Thießen in a former vaccination facility in Hamburg: "Farm with medical officer"
Photo: Jörg Müller / DER SPIEGEL
SPIEGEL:
What was it about then?
Thießen:
During the Franco-German War in 1870/71, French prisoners of war introduced smallpox;
Around 120,000 people died in Prussia alone.
Thereupon the Reichstag decided in 1874 that children should be vaccinated, which remained controversial until it was completely repealed in 1983.
SPIEGEL:
Who was against it?
Thießen:
That ran right through the parties.
The fear of vaccine damage played a major role even then.
The quality of the vaccine varied.
Vaccination centers have been set up in the big cities, which one has to imagine as a kind of farm with an attached medical officer.
There were cows infected with smallpox in the stables.
Doctors stabbed the animals' smallpox vesicles and scratched the vaccine under the skin of the children.
Pretty gross business.
Mass vaccination later took place in schools, and people feared it would be infected in the first place.
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