Book by Lars Petersson about Musterung (conscription medicals)

I've just finished reading Medical Rape by Lars Petersson. It largely about the German musterung exams for conscripts:

http://www.larsgpetersson.com/military-abuse/in-english-2/in-english/

not a well written book but some good first hand accounts of the exams.

It's available from Amazon (for kindle too) if anyone is interested.

Dr Dan,

Thank you very for the information you provide concerning this book by Mr Lars Pertersson, which I am considering buying.

i am a 60 years old Frenchman and I have experienced the French military service organisation, which was then compulsary, even if I ended up doing my "military" service, working as an expert in an African country..

i hated (I still do) every thing connected with medecine, I was sick when we had the regular annual physical at school, so I was absolutly terrified at the perspective to be called for the military service examinations, especially as there were horrible stories circulating about these exams. Rumors went that boys had to stand naked for hours in front of several doctors, some of them female, that the examination concentrated on the private parts, that they took litters of blood out of you, that you had your rectal temperature taken several times in various positions and, last but not least, that these doctors had a quota of boys to be sent to a medical hospital for further medical investigations and so that military medical students could have some patients to get trained . These medical exams were known as "les trois jours" (the three days) even if they lasted only 36 hours, but the boys were given 3 days army pay, that was less than peanuts.

Finally, as I was a student for quite a long time, the army called me for these exams relatively late, when I was 25, as most boys around me were about 20. Was it due to my age,, or, as I have been told, was the "selection center" where I went "cooler" than the others, things did not go as bad as I expected; I was never naked during the exams. The officer doctor I saw at the end of the procedure just asked me: "do you eat well, do you pee well, do you shit well, do you fuck well, have you got your two balls ?" , but he did not even lower my brief. They did not take my temperature or take any blood from me.

Still, you can find a lot of horific stories about those "trois jours" on various internet site, including the French version of zity.biz.

it would be interresting to have some information on how military examinations are conducted today in countries that still have military service (Finland, Israel....) or on how they were held when there was military service in others (the US for instance).

To get to the core of the subject, I have allways been chocked by the idea that you would have to give some time of your life to your country.

. ,.

Google 'musterung' and you will get links to photos, German and Chinese, books, etc.

You can download this book with this link (free):

http://www.humiliationstudies.org/documents/PeterssonMedicalRape2010.pdf

I've started an examination post about musterung, having finished the above book myself. I was interested in reading the individual recollections but glossed over much of the argument, not that I disagreed with it.

Ok if you like male group exams.

Why not try this one too 'VOENKOMAT' should get loads of real male medical exams with young men having thier medical exams for joing the armed forces.

That's an interesting account svensson

I too would be interested to hear what goes on these days in Israel etc

You could also try typing in - военкомате - for Russian conscripts, real medical exams.

This book is obviously interesting to know how were performed the physical examinations of young men before induction in germany ( and may be still now but only for volonteers) but I think that it is not a real and serious survey of the opinions and feelings of the draftees at their physicals, we have only in the book a few witnesses of draftees, it seemed that most of them were mortified by the way in which their physical examination was performed but in my opinion they were only a few to be traumatized for a long time

In my opinion, it was not so much a big deal to be examined naked by a female woman as a doctor (at schools also the mandatory physicals were generally performed in France by women and sometimes in the nude), even by a woman nurse, even a young one...

As regards the witnesses of women doctors or nurses or secretaries, I am more skeptical about their truth, I doubt that a woman who was an actor or an observer at a physical examination of young men as draftees had revealed their pleasure at these physicals because the male teenagers were forced to obey to them and completely under their control. For me, most of the women in charge of the examinations did their jobs professionnally without enjoying at the view of naked young men, they complied at rules edited by military authorities without thinking too much about them. If a very few ones were enjoying because of the feeling of power that they had when instructing to a male teenager to strip completely, I do not believe that they had told that in the book, I do not understand why they had talked of their feeling in that way or they had said what the author of the book wanted to hear.

It is a weakness of the book : it would have been more interesting to have other witnesses, especially those of women doctors or nurses doing their jobs normally and explaining why they are proceeding in the way described in the book and witnesses of young men who had overcomen their initial embarrassment and did not have felt themselves humiliated during their military physicals, may be also the witnesses of military or civilian authorities about the reasons of the procedure : efficiency ? necessity to make a complete check up from head to toes of each draftee ? even those who went to work in a civilian office ? and to repeat it sometimes several times at least three times for those who were posponed or one at a military center and an other one at a civilian center ? and so on ...

Even the opinion of parents would have been interesting or those of male doctors if there was a few aside a lot of women doctors : did they perform the examination in a different way than women and so on ...

To sum up, it seems to me the book is written by a man who is trying to underline how humiliating are the military physicals before induction but in fact it is not only the miliary physicals but more the mandatory military service which is really questioned in the book ,and is the real subject of critics because in all countries which had or have still now a mandatory military service, the privacy and modesty of the draftees was or is not really respected and the physicals examination of draftees had allways been embarrassing for some of them and humiliating for others more shy about nudity or they are still now ( like in China or South Korea or Russia) it is not something special to Germany.

Even without being naked in front of women, it was embarrassing or humiliating. when naked in front of a lot men adults and often in group.

Of course, when I talk of the interest to have also witnesses of parents, it means above all fathers and grand fathers who could have been also submitted to mandatory draft physical examination, if it was very different,, how they felt at that time and how they judge the physical examination of their sons or grandsons.

I thonk that they have known more group physicals performed in the nude from start to end and may be a draft board commission to decide of their fitness but more seldom than their sons the presence of women but I have not much information about the draft physicals in Germany

it is a reason for which I have found interesting to have more informations about the changes in the procedure during the years in the book

I regret also that the witnesses were taken in many different years and we don't know exactly when and why.

It would have been more interesting to have witnesses of only one year and to discover if threre was differences according to the location of the medical centers and to know who decide eventually of the procedure for the physicals in each center and to have the opinion and eventually explanations about their behaviours of doctors, nurses or secretaries in each center and especiall those where the male young men were complaining of the lack of respect of their dignity...