[Between red tape and scalpel : Urological literature, denazification and censorship in East Germany in the early postwar period]. / Zwischen Rotstift und Skalpell : Urologische Fachliteratur, Entnazifizierung und Zensur im Ostdeutschland der frühen Nachkriegszeit.

This paper addresses the question of how the urological disciplinary culture and urological knowledge were reformed during the early postwar period under conditions of the allied policy of denazification and demilitarization in East Germany. This article deals with the urological textbook as a central medium of disciplinary communication and explores how urological knowledge was processed in complex negotiation processes between authors, publishers and censorship authorities of the Soviet occupation zone. The focus is on mechanisms of medial control to which medical knowledge cycles have been subjected, and thus the archival holdings of censorship authorities that have not yet been evaluated. The evaluation results are presented here with a focus on urology and illustrated with selected case studies.

[The dance of the small spirochaetes : Theatrical hygiene education and the fight against venereal diseases in the early Soviet Union]. / Der Tanz der kleinen Spirochäten : Theatrale Hygieneaufklärung und die Bekämpfung der Geschlechtskrankheiten in der frühen Sowjetunion.

The present contribution analyses the antivenereal theatre performances as a means of fighting sexually transmitted diseases in the former Soviet Union. It is asked which images, figures and actions regarding venereal knowledge were presented on stage, which genre traditions and communicative instruments were used, and how the audience and theatre critics perceived the events on stage. For this, the archive sources, selected texts of antivenereal mock trial plays and dramas, reports and reviews in the daily press have been evaluated.

[Melancholic syphilophobia: on the cultural history of venerology]. / Melancholia syphilidophobica: Zur Kulturgeschichte der Venerologie.

In the second half of the nineteenth century venereal diseases attained more attention and explosiveness in public discourse than ever before. Collective fear of the so-called French disease culminated in the emergence of melancholic syphilophobia a previously unknown form of hypochondriac suffering. This paper addresses the question of how this development occurred and focuses more specifically on the epistemological implications of the pathological fear of syphilis and highlights the systematic significance of etiological interpretation and nosological conceptualization of venereal disease.