Elfriede Paul

Elfriede Paul was a German physician and social hygienist, born in Cologne on 14 January 1900 and dying in Ahrenshoop on 30 August 1981. Raised in a modest family, she first trained as a teacher in Hamburg and studied medicine part time between 1926 and 1933 in Hamburg, Vienna and Berlin. She opened a private practice in Berlin-Wilmersdorf in 1936 and ran it until her arrest by the Gestapo in 1942, after her link to the Red Orchestra resistance group led to a six year prison sentence. After the war she helped rebuild the health service in East Berlin, completed her habilitation, and from 1956 to 1964 taught at the Medical Academy in Magdeburg, where she co-founded and led the Institute for Social Hygiene. Her research concerned health protection for working women and mothers.