[Public Health as Function of the State. Healthcare and "Folkish State Policy"]

The subjects of this article are field of activity of public health departments and their functionaries that were established as part of the Act to Standardize the Healthcare System (GVG) from July 3^rd, 1934 during the era of National Socialism and in the early post-war period in Thuringia and Württemberg. The objects of study are the implementation of the new paradigm of «racial and hereditary care» in public health departments defined by the Reich's Ministry of the Interior. Furthermore, this paper also examines the role of public health officers (PHO) and their discretionary powers, the impact of the war on PHO's specific activities, as well as the regional particularities in comparison to other federal states and finally, aspects of structural-, programmatic- and personnel continuity in publicly funded healthcare after the liberation in 1945.