[The "Proletarized" national health-scheme doctor. Aspects of the social self-image of physicians in the Weimar Republic].

The expansion of the health insurance system during the Weimar Republic changed the professional practice of the physicians considerably, The article discusses the coherence between physicians' perception of this change and their concept of their own social role and position in the German society of the Weimar Republic. Many physicians felt "proletarized" not only because of their difficult economic situation or their problematic relations with the sick-funds. The feeling of "proletarization" was based also on their experiences in their daily occupational practice in the health insurance system. Their changed relations with patients from lower strata or the "mass practice" didn't correspond to the ideal conception of the socially well-respected "burgerlicher Hausarzt" and this charge was interpreted as a sign of the social decline (so it was claimed) of the physician.