Treibhaus and Gemeindemuseum Absam commemorate the sceptical physician and publicist Werner Vogt from Zams in Tyrol, a pioneer of civil society.

From the mid-1970s, the physician, trauma surgeon and activist of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Kritischer Mediziner (Working Group of Critical Physicians) Werner Vogt, a controversial publicist with a socio-medical orientation, took a sceptical look at the prevailing healthcare system in essays, columns and book publications. According to Vogt, illness is “not a cellular accident, not an organ failure that occurs in individuals”. Medicine must focus on the life-history and social dimension. Werner Vogt caused a stir in 1979 when he and his colleagues publicly confronted the Viennese psychiatrist Heinrich Gross for the first time about his role as a Nazi euthanasia doctor in this institution, where at least 789 children and young people were murdered. This was one of the impulses for coming to terms with the child euthanasia at “Am Spiegelgrund”. Werner Vogt’s publications include “Arm. Krank. Tot. Argumente für ein gewaltloses Krankenhaus” (1989 as publisher), “Reisen in die Welt der Altenpflege” (2005), “Mein Arztroman” (2013).

In memory of Werner Vogt, Rainer Egger and Johann Nikolussi read his essay “Finsternis: Der Fall Gross.” They are accompanied by Anna Reisigl on bass.