Campus Charité Mitte (CCM)

History

The history of the Chariteacute dates back to the year 1710 At that time the plague posed an imminent threat and King Frederick I of Prussia had a quarantine hospital built outside the city gates After the plague spared the city the building was used during the next 17 years as a hospice for destitute old people a workhouse for beggars and a maternity home for unmarried mothers

In 1727 King Frederick William I decreed that the quarantine hospital would become a military hospital and infirmary as well as a training center for future military physicians quotThe house shall be called Chariteacutequot was written as a marginal note in one of his letters The Royal Chariteacute Hospital was starting to become an important medical facility it had storeys added was expanded to 400 beds received ample financing and provided a bed for each patient The impetus for these developments came from the Prussian Medical Edict of 1725 which was issued to regulate the training of healthcare professionals It set the standards for a century

Medical studies were placed on a solid theoretical and practical foundation whose implementation was statecontrolled through the Collegium MedicoChirurgicum MedicalSurgical School in Berlin The curriculum focused on the education of military surgeons who had been receiving practical clinical training at the Chariteacute since 1727

The Chariteacute thus had three functions it was a hospice for the poor until 1798 a state hospital and a teaching facility to train future military physicians for the steadily growing Prussian army Thus it soon lacked adequate space and was torn down for the first time between 1785 and 1797
The Chariteacute gained increasing importance as a training center for military physicians after the establishment of a military academy the Peacutepiniegravere plant nursery in 1795 It was called the Frederick William Institute from 1818 until 1895 when it became the quotEmperor William Military Medical Academyquot Here future military physicians received a general academic education

While the Chariteacute retained its importance as a clinical training center for military physicians from 1727 to 1945 it initially had no part in the academic education of civilian physicians after the University of Berlin was founded in 1810 Thus medical surgicalophthalmological and gynecological clinics were established at the university and the Collegium MedicoChirurgicum was disbanded These clinics were at first scattered in private apartments until 1818 when construction of a large university medical center started on Ziegelstrasse in the immediate vicinity of the Chariteacute

The fact that Berlin university medicine and the Chariteacute were mentioned in the same breath was partly due to the establishment of more and more university clinics on the Chariteacute premises over the years All the university clinics on Ziegelstrasse eventually moved to the Chariteacute The medical clinic was the first one to move in 1828 but the last one the university surgical clinic only followed suit a century later in 1927 Then the Chariteacute finally became a university medical center Formally however the Chariteacute and the university hospital still remained separate institutions until 1951 in the GDR they finally merged to form the Medical Faculty Chariteacute of Humboldt University
The turn of the last century saw the nearly complete demolition of Chariteacute facilities and the construction of a uniform new red brick building between 1896 and 1917 Its generous design was ruined during World War II 90 of the building was destroyed or damaged Its reconstruction after 1945 under the GDR regime included a new tumor clinic 1959 and a dermatological clinic 1960 as well as a bed tower with a utilities tract 1982 and documented the intention of the GDR to keep the Chariteacute as the states showpiece It had 2000 beds at that time Restoration of the landmark building started after Germanys reunification and was nearly complete in 2005

In 1997 Rudolf Virchow Hospital merged with the Chariteacute to form the Chariteacute Medical Faculty of Humboldt University Berlin The associated clinics were also consolidated one year later Benjamin Franklin Hospital of the Free University of Berlin was added in 2003 This marked the beginning of Chariteacute Universitaumltsmedizin Berlin Europes largest university hospital The Chariteacute is now well on its way toward regaining its past glory and has celebrated its 300th anniversary in 2010