Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities

Abstract Background The COVID-19 pandemic has led to restrictions in all important areas of healthcare worldwide. According to previous study data, the COVID-19 pandemic was also associated with a change in the incidence of inpatient myocardial infarction (MI) cases. How care delays and outcomes for myocardial infarction have developed during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the time before in Berlin is still unclear. This study uses data from the Berlin-Brandenburg Myocardial Infarction Registry (B2HIR) to examine the documented incidence, care delays, and case fatality rates before and during the pandemic in Berlin. Methods We analyzed11,867 MI cases that were treated as inpatients in Berlin hospitals participating in the B2HIR (n=20) ≤24 hours after the onset of symptoms from March 1, 2018 to December 29, 2019 (pre-pandemic period) and from March 1, 2020 to December 29, 2021 (pandemic period). In addition, infection waves #1 to #4 were each considered separately within the pandemic period, and periods analogous to the waves were defined and compared during the pre-pandemic period. Results During the COVID-19 pandemic, 14% fewer MI patients were hospitalized and documented in the B2HIR than during the comparison period (p<0.01). The pre-hospital delay (onset of symptoms to hospital admission) did not differ during vs. before the pandemic. The door-to-balloon time (DTB) for STEMI was significantly shorter during #1, #3, and #4 pandemic waves and cumulatively during the pandemic than during the comparison period. Hospital mortality was not significantly different during the pandemic waves vs. the comparison periods. (See Table 1 for detailed results) Conclusion In Berlin, there was a decrease in the incidence of hospitalization due to an acute MI during the COVID pandemic compared to before. The reason for this may be an actual reduction in the incidence, but also patient reluctance to contact the emergency services, a higher number of infarctions treated later (after >24 hours) or a higher number of untreated heart attacks. The pre-hospital delays of MI inpatient cases were comparable before and during the pandemic, and in-hospital care delays were mostly shorter during the pandemic. It can be concluded that, despite the burden of the pandemic, the pre-hospital and inpatient care structures in Berlin were functional. The reduction of MI hospitalization during the pandemic warrants further investigation.Table 1

Article Patrick J. Geary, Herausforderungen und Gefahren der Integration von Genomdaten in die Erforschung der frühmittelalterlichen Geschichte. (Das mittelalterliche Jahrtausend, Bd. 7.) Göttingen, Wallstein 2020; Mischa Meier / Steffen Patzold, Gene und Geschichte. Was die Archäogenetik zur Geschichtsforschung beitragen kann. Stuttgart, Hiersemann 2021 was published on June 2, 2025 in the journal Historische Zeitschrift (volume 320, issue 3).

ABSTRACT Martin L. Davies’s academic trajectory originates in German literary studies, focusing on Jean Paul (1763–1825), a prominent figure in early 19th-century German literature. While Jean Paul is often regarded as an ‘Idealist’ exploring intellectual and emotional realms, Davies examines his overlooked realism in economics, politics, and linguistic metaphors. His 1978 Oxford dissertation, ‘Jean Paul’s Realism: A Study in the Relationship between Literature and Reality’, challenges prevailing interpretations but faced rejection due to its departure from scholarly consensus. Drawing from unpublished archival materials, including preliminary works and correspondence, Davies’s study situates Jean Paul’s contributions within broader contexts of poetics, politics, and reception history.

For some years now, there has been an intense and controversial debate about the relationship between the culture of memory and research into the consequences of colonialism, on the one hand, and the Holocaust, on the other. Michael Rothberg's concept of multidirectional memory and Nathan Sznaider's contribution to the debate on the vanishing points of memory ("Fluchtpunkte der Erinnerung") provide only a few of several examples. Using the recordings of the German-Jewish composer and ethnomusicologist Brigitte Schiffer, made at the oasis of Siwa in the Sahara in 1932/33, as a case study, the article reflects on the implications of this debate for dealing with the so-called Berlin School of comparative musicology. Beyond that, the article asks how the complexity of competing memory discourses affects current approaches and efforts of decolonizing archives and identifies perspectives and strategies for how to handle such collections today, especially regarding the chances and challenges of so-called recirculation.