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Summary This article examines the treatment of the chronic disease, diabetes mellitus, during and immediately after the German Democratic Republic (GDR)’s autarkic policy of Störfreimachung, literally translated as ‘making free from disturbance’. I look specifically at an insulin favoured by East German diabetes specialists and their patients delivered from the West German pharmaceutical company, Hoechst AG, and the consequences of preventing this insulin from being imported. By using insulin as a case study, a medication necessary for the survival of insulin-dependent diabetics, the article offers a close analysis of the complex relationship between ordinary citizens, medical professionals and the ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED) following the building of the Berlin Wall. I argue that the intense focus on the issue of consumption in the competition between the GDR and West Germany shaped both the attitude of the SED and those responding to the policy of Störfreimachung. The SED regime and leading health officials espoused a highly ‘productionist’ medical ethos that was somewhat at odds with their growing desire to meet increasing consumer demands. This collision opened up ideological contradictions, which provided an opportunity for those on the receiving end of the policy to discredit it, and, by extension, justify the continued use of their preferred choice of insulin from Hoechst. I draw, in particular, on patient Eingaben (petitions) and reports by district diabetologists in order to uncover this trend.

social history of medicine

Where is the Hoechst Insulin?: The Role of Diabetics and Their Doctors as Consumers During the German Democratic Republic’s Autarkic Policy of ‘Making Free From Disturbance’, 1961–1966