[Hundred twentieth anniversary of the Berlin Surgical Society. Significance of military surgery].

November 22, 2006 will mark the one hundred twentieth anniversary of the oldest regional surgical society in Germany, which was founded as the Free Association of Berlin Surgeons in 1886. For years, the chairmen were also chairmen of the German Surgical Society (established 1872). Thus they made important contributions to surgery in Germany as a whole. Professors such as Ernst von Bergmann, August Bier, and Ferdinand Sauerbruch furthered the reputation of the Berlin practitioners and German surgery throughout the world. In the states of Berlin and Brandenburg, development and promotion of surgery in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries owed much to the Prussian emperor Friedrich Wilhelm I and the necessities of Prussian battlefields (military surgical training). These battlefields also caused the sharp decline in worldwide importance of Berlin surgeons at the end of World War II. The special geopolitical situation of Berlin in post-war Germany constituted a negative turning point in this region, not only for surgery. As a result of the destruction of Berlin, most records and documents of the Berlin Surgical Society were lost. Research conducted in February 2006 revealed 20 membership lists from the founding years (1893-1914) which were presumed to be lost. These lists can now help us restore part of the Society's identity and roots. New insights have been made regarding the composition of the Society. For example, the large number of military surgeons in these lists reflects the spirit of the times around 1900 and emphasizes the importance of military medicine in imperial Germany.