Nichts hat sich verändert:

This exclusion is remarkable insofar as it contradicted the idea of prevention. After all, selective precautions risked the continued existence of sources of infection. The fact that this risk was not an issue underscores the general finding: Vaccination was always about forming the “national body”, here the “national community” was constituted in local social practice. The focus was never just on "one's own interest", but also on that of "the other national comrades", as emphasized by a senior medical officer in Munich. Therefore, vaccinations in the "Third Reich" no longer followed the principle of equality as in Weimar, they were now an act of "national community" mobilization. In the queues in front of the vaccination centers, a “national community” formed out of a sense of duty, which made its contribution to the immunization of the “national body”. A "disregard of duty towards the people as a whole", which represented a refusal to vaccinate, contradicted the sense of honor of every "comrade", as an appeal in Siegen emphasized: "It is probably a matter of honor that the NSV block walter will soon be answered with 'yes' if he asks during his tour whether Hans and Fritz have been vaccinated.” Such overestimation of vaccination as a service to the “national community” served different interests. On the one hand, they intensified the social pressure that is likely to have driven those who were “vaccinated” to the health authorities. On the other hand, they glorified other motives for participating in vaccination as a commitment to the "national community": For the majority of parents, the fear of diphtheria was probably still a more important argument for vaccination than their sense of duty towards the "national community".

Even if not every "Hans and Fritz" was vaccinated and the social effectiveness of this staged "national community" is questioned, the diphtheria vaccination can be interpreted as an innovation in population policy. With it, structures were created in the mid-1930s in which far-reaching precautionary measures could be implemented. In this sense, too, preventive practices were established in the "Third Reich" with new mass vaccinations that went beyond those in Weimar. Vaccination was now carried out in a network of numerous actors, under the aegis of the health authorities, who were supported by medicine and the media. This practice was not only new, but also extremely successful: Diphtheria vaccinations led to an average participation of over 90 percent, although they always remained voluntary. It is not without irony that even in the face of the formally existing compulsory vaccination against smallpox, poor vaccination rates were usually achieved. But that is exactly what characterizes the change in the "Third Reich": the basic voluntary nature of successful vaccination programs.

The voluntariness was flanked not only by the social pressure that the stylization of vaccination as a service to the "national community" exerted on the individual. Added to this was a massive exploitation of fears. It is true that the necessity of vaccination had already been justified in the German Empire and in the Weimar Republic with illness and death. In the “Third Reich”, however, this justification strategy took on new proportions. "Still," warned a leaflet from Munich in 1941, "diphtheria (neck tan) claims its annual victims. Diphtheria deaths are always particularly painful and sad because they usually affect children who were hitherto perfectly healthy and are now suddenly, in perfect health, snatched away in a matter of days. Death from diphtheria is cardiac death or death by suffocation.” “Parents!” concluded the call with several exclamation marks, “The responsibility you bear is great! You must not expose your children to the danger of diphtheria disease!” The tone and the dissemination of such appeals were of a new quality. In all parts of the empire, posters, films, pamphlets and newspapers depicted in bold colors the dangers of epidemics. They indicate that the introduction of new vaccinations required new legitimation strategies. In other words: the fact that it was voluntary promoted an instrumentalization of fear, which should have convinced even doubting “comrades of the people”.

From earlier in the paper:

Schwerer wog der Einwand des Heeres-Sanitätsinspekteurs Anton Waldmann. Eine persönliche Entscheidung des „Volksgenossen“ beim Impfen widerspräche „dem Führerprinzip“ und erhöhe damit das Risiko von Seuchenherden „im Vol-ke“, die „im Falle eines uns aufgezwungenen Zukunftskrieges [...] das Heer in der Bewegungsfreiheit hinderten“. Diese wehrpolitischen Gründe führten am Ende der Sitzung zu der Erkenntnis, dass gegen die Abschaffung des Impfzwanges nach wie vor Bedenken bestünden. Die Kommission kam somit zu keinem abschlie-ßenden Ergebnis, woraus sich allerdings eine wichtige Erkenntnis gewinnen lässt: Für ein Hauptinstrument moderner Bevölkerungspolitik lag 1933 kein Konzept bereit. Um die zeitgemäße Vorsorge wurden nach der „Machtergreifung“ eine un-gewöhnlich offene Diskussion geführt. Dass dabei die Eigenverantwortlichkeit des „Volksgenossen“ ein wichtiges Argument war, dass staatlicher Zwang sogar als Widerspruch zur nationalsozialistischen Ethik gesehen wurde, zeigt zweierlei: die programmatischen Widersprüche der Gesundheitspolitik und die Unklarheiten über die Legitimität staatlichen Zwangs gegenüber dem „Volksgenossen“. Das Impfen, so könnte man zusammenfassen, mutierte in der Frühphase des „Drit-ten Reichs“ zu einem Lackmustest für die „Zustimmungsdiktatur“. Schließlich waren es beim Impfen die „ganz normalen Deutschen“, die man für die „Volksge-meinschaft“ gewinnen wollte.

The objection of the army medical inspector Anton Waldmann weighed more heavily. A personal decision of the "comrade" when vaccinating would contradict "the leader's principle" and thus increase the risk of epidemics "among the people", which "in the event of a future war forced upon us [...] would prevent the army from freedom of movement". At the end of the meeting, these military-political reasons led to the realization that there were still reservations about the abolition of compulsory vaccination. The commission therefore did not come to a conclusive conclusion, from which an important finding can be gained: in 1933 there was no concept ready for a main instrument of modern population policy. After the "seizure of power", an unusually open discussion was held about the modern precautionary measures. The fact that the self-responsibility of the “national comrade” was an important argument, and that state coercion was even seen as a contradiction to National Socialist ethics, shows two things: the programmatic contradictions of health policy and the ambiguity about the legitimacy of state coercion vis-à-vis “national comrades”. One could summarize that vaccination mutated into a litmus test for the “consent dictatorship” in the early phase of the “Third Reich”*. After all, when it came to vaccinations, it was the “completely normal Germans” who were wanted to win for the “Volksge-meinschaft” [national community].

"We're all in this together."