INTERNATIONAL HEALTH, EUROPEAN RECONCILIATION, AND GERMAN FOREIGN POLICY AFTER THE FIRST WORLD WAR, 1919-1927 A Dissertation. submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Georgetown University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History By Seth Amiel Rotramel, M.A. Washington, DC September 30, 2010 UMI Number: 3427320 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI 3427320 Copyright 2010 by ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This edition of the work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346 Copyright 2010 by Seth Amiel Rotramel All Rights Reserved ii INTERNATIONAL HEALTH, EUROPEAN RECONCILIATION, AND GERMAN FOREIGN POLICY AFTER THE FIRST WORLD WAR, 1919-1927 Seth Amiel Rotramel, M.A. Dissertation Advisor: Roger Chickering, Ph.D. ABSTRACT After the slaughter of the First World War had ended and the Treaty of Versailles ushered in an uneasy international order, Germany faced economic ruin, political upheaval, and the deterioration of the overall health of its population. Germany’s postwar domestic problems were exacerbated by international isolation, which included both economic and cultural blockades. While food shortages weakened the German population, the Allied scientific leaders barred German scientific and cultural institutions from the international community. An exception to Germany’s cultural isolation was in the field of medical science and public health. The universality of human biology trumped political polarization. In the immediate postwar years, major outbreaks of epidemic disease in Eastern Europe and Russia threatened Europe’s economic and political recovery. In order to counter a microbial invasion, Allied governments (primarily, the French and British) laid the foundations of the League of Nations Health Organization, the precursor to today’s World Health Organization. While Germany’s status as a pariah made its cooperation in the rise of international health difficult, German participation in the League of Nations Health Organization led to Germany’s involvement in international exchanges (well before Germany was a League member) and, ultimately, to the first instance of postwar Franco-German iii cultural reconciliation. Because it occurred during a time of deep Franco-German animosity and predated the ‘Spirit of Locarno’, Germany’s involvement in Allied-led international cooperation on health-matters presents an important connection between disease prevention and international politics. iv I dedicate this dissertation to those helpful and loving souls who remained ever supportive of me. Although there are too many people to name here, I do want to single out a few individuals for special thanks: Katie, Andrew, Josh, Marc, Carlos, my loving parents, Lee and Darrell, and my two beautiful sisters, Heather and Naomi. Many thanks, SETH AMIEL ROTRAMEL v TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Abbreviations ..................................................................................................... vii Introduction...................................................................................................................... 1 1. The League of Nations’ Anti-Typhus Campaign in Poland: Negotiations and the Establishment of Contact between Geneva and Berlin..................................... 24 2. Politics by Other Means: Germany’s International Balancing Act through its Anti-Epidemic Campaign in Russia.......................................................................... 60 3. From Relief to Integration: Border Defense and Germany’s Induction into the New Medical World Order .................................................................................... 109 4. “The Normal International Intercourse between Nations” and European Polarization: Germany’s Role in the Reorientation of the League of Nations Health Committee........................................................................................................ 147 5. Social Hygiene and Locarno: The LNHO’s Role in Germany’s Relations with the League of Nations.......................................................................................... 190 6. International Health as Cultural Exchange: Germany’s Alliance with the LNHO and Franco-German Reconciliation................................................................. 230 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 270 Bibliography ................................................................................................................ 284 vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AA - Auswärtiges Amt (German Foreign Office) ADGB - Allgemeiner Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund (General German Labor Union) ARA - American Relief Administration CISR - Comité Internationale de Secour á la Russie (The International Red Cross’s Committee to Aid Russia) DRK - Deutsches Rotes Kreuz (German Red Cross) ICRC - International Committee of the Red Cross ITUC - International Trade Union Confederation LNHC - League of Nations Health Committee LNHO - League of Nations Health Organization LRCS - League of Red Cross Societies OIHP - Office International d’Hygiène Publique (International Office for Public Hygiene) RGA - Reichsgesundheitsamt (Reich Health Office) RMI - Reichsministerium des Innern (Reich Interior Ministry RRC - (Soviet) Russian Red Cross vii INTRODUCTION What role did the rise of international health play in European rapprochement in the period between the end of the First World War and the normalization of Germany’s relations with the Allies in 1927? Who drove Germany’s cooperation with international health efforts between 1919 and 1927? Did the coordination of health policy influence German foreign policy away from isolation and towards reconciliation? Was international cooperation in public health a product or a cause of political rapprochement? This dissertation seeks to answer these questions. There is a lack of literature on the interaction between the rise of international health and Germany’s international rehabilitation after the First World War. Germany’s involvement with the international health movement was a significant exception to otherwise bitter Franco-German relations and Allied efforts to isolate Germany. Therefore this lacuna in the historiography of Weimar Germany and international relations of the 1920s is surprising. After the slaughter of the First World War had ended and the Treaty of Versailles ushered in an uneasy international order, Germany faced economic ruin, political upheaval, and the deterioration of the overall health of its population. Germany’s postwar domestic problems were exacerbated by international isolation, which included both economic and cultural blockades. While food shortages weakened 1 the German population, the Allied scientific leaders barred German scientific and cultural institutions from the international community. An exception to Germany’s cultural isolation was in the field of medical science and public health. The universality of human biology trumped political polarization. In the immediate postwar years, major outbreaks of epidemic disease in Eastern Europe and Russia threatened Europe’s economic and political recovery. In order to counter a microbial invasion, Allied governments (primarily, the French and British) laid the foundations of the League of Nations Health Organization (LNHO), the precursor to today’s World Health Organization. While Germany’s status as a pariah made its cooperation in the rise of international health difficult, German participation in the LNHO led to Germany’s involvement in international exchanges (well before Germany was a League member) and, ultimately, to the first instance of postwar Franco-German cultural reconciliation. Because it occurred during a time of deep Franco-German animosity and predated the ‘Spirit of Locarno’, Germany’s involvement in Allied-led international cooperation on health-matters presents questions about the connection between disease prevention and international politics. There is a wide range of literature that illustrates the fruitfulness of examining the role that epidemics and the responses to them have played on Europe’s political development since the Black Death.1 However, the literature that deals specifically 1 A few of the many books on the subject are J.N. Hays, The Burdens of Disease: Epidemics and Human Response in Western History (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1998), Peter Baldwin, Contagion and the State in Europe, 1830-1930 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), Sheldon Watts, Epidemics and History: Disease, Power and 2 with the politics of health in Weimar Germany is infected with the tautological assumption of the inevitability of the Nazi seizure of power. Most notable in this vein is the work of the prolific historian Paul Weindling.2 In his most significant offering, Epidemics and Genocide, Weindling argues that German efforts to eradicate disease (mainly typhus) on the Eastern Front in World War I were a direct precursor to the Holocaust. Weindling’s argument presupposes the Machtergreifung and dismisses