The surgeon and urologist Werner Forßmann (1904-1979) was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1956. At the time of the prize ceremony, several newspapers portrayed Forssmann as an unknown rural physician who suddenly had become an international star. Drawing on nominations and reports in the Nobel Prize Archive for Physiology or Medicine in Stockholm as well as correspondence from the private archive of the Forßmann family, this paper reconstructs why the Nobel Committee chose to award Forßmann. We show that Forssmann's work was appreciated in medical textbooks and that he enjoyed a relatively sound reputation in the international scientific community even before he became a Nobel Prize laureate. At a more general level, we use his example to explore some mechanisms of scientific recognition.

Purpose: In 1956, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded jointly to Werner Forssmann, André Frédéric Cournand and Dickinson W. Richards for their development of cardiac catheterization. Forssmann performed a self-experiment in 1929 by inserting a urethral catheter into his right ventricular cavity via his antecubital vein. Despite his popularity as one of the first German Nobel Laureates after 1945, little is known about Forssmann personally. This contribution aims to close this gap regarding the Nazi period and early post-war Germany. Methods: Primary historical sources from Forssmann's private archive were examined, evaluated and interpreted for the first time. Additionally, a comparative analysis based on further archival and secondary sources was performed. Results: Werner Forssmann joined the Nazi Party, the Sturmabteilung (Stormtroopers, SA) and the Nationalsozialistischer Deutscher Ärztebund (Nazi Doctors' Association) in 1932, a year before Hitler's assumption of power. In his autobiography, Forssmann referred to the political situation in passing. However, he expressed his personal thoughts in private letters which he wrote as a medical officer during the war. After World War II, Forssmann underwent denazification and was banned from practicing medicine for 3 years. He did not seem to be averse to Hitler's politics and in some ways expressed his approval. However, correspondence from the 1960s with 2 Jewish colleagues reveals that Forssmann may have changed his attitude toward National Socialism later. Conclusion: Werner Forssmann's political attitudes during the Third Reich and in the post-war era can be characterized as early agreement that gradually changed to a more critical distance to Nazi ideology. In this respect, Forssmann appears to be quite a typical example of a larger proportion of German medical doctors during these eras.

Werner Forssmann (1904–1979) was awarded the Nobel Prize for his self-experiments in catheterization of the heart and thus entered the annals of medicine. But he had turned to urology long before he received the Nobel Prize. Who was this person associated with both cardiology and urology? It is precisely this question that the present article explores with the help of both new and reevaluated primary sources. In 1999 Truss et al. already published an article in the World Journal of Urology about the many and varied facets of Forssmann’s life and work. Our article ties in with that of Truss et al. and expands the body of knowledge concerning Forssmann and his work. Werner Forssmann as one of the 2 urologists besides Charles B. Huggins who have ever won the Nobel Prize deserves a complete and comprehensive analysis of his life and his life’s work. Within ­German Urology, the culture of remembrance on Werner Forssmann is an important component and with every newly revealed and interpreted source we get to know better who this urologist was and what role he played in the scientific community.

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