[The Rockefeller Foundation and its efforts toward a reorientation of German medicine and public health in the 1950s].

The Rockefeller Foundation invested substantial funds into promoting the development of public health as a discipline and a re-orientation of medical training in West Germany to support the democratization of German society. Not limiting itself to the simple provision of literature, the Foundation pursued a two-pronged strategy. Firstly, the Foundation organized a program for German university physicians and public health officers to visit various universities and teaching hospitals in the USA and Canada. A second aim was to establish training institutes for postgraduate physicians. However, rather than simply imposing the US model, the Foundation intended to adapt it to the German context, in the form of a postgraduate course for physicians that integrated practical experience with a university setting. My research to date shows that the Foundation's activities did not meet with much enthusiasm from German medical professionals. Intellectual, cultural, cognitive and political differences impaired constructive collaboration between the Foundation's staff and local practitioners and academics.