[Erwin H. Ackerknecht and the Berg/Rath Affair in 1964. On the coping of German medical historians with their history].

In 1964, the Zurich medical historian Erwin H. Ackerknect announced his decision to resign from the German Society of Medical History, Natural Science and Technology (Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Geschichte der Medizin, Naturwissenschaft und Technik - DGGMNT) in a letter to 150 colleagues and prominent personalities in scientific, academic and political circles. Ackerknecht explained that he was resigning from the Society because the medical faculty of the University of Gottingen, supported by its professor of medical history, Gernot Rath - also chairman of the DGGMNT - had awarded the Venia legendi medical history chair to the x-ray specialist and medical historian Alexander Berg. Berg was ideologically compromised by his co-authorship of a book that embraced the ideals of National Socialism and in which he was mentioned as a Obersturmfuhrer of SS. Apart from describing the events surrounding Berg's promotion to the teaching position, this article presents Ackerknecht's perspective on the situation, the continuing influence of further Nazi era's leading historians of medicine the war - enabling Berg to assume his position - as well as the DGGMNT's controversial reactions to Ackerknecht's resignation and the consequences that the affair was to have for the Society.