[On the occasion of the 70th congress of the German Society of Urology : Examples of networks and think tanks at its founding in 1906/1907 and further developments].

The German Society of Urology was founded in 1906/1907 with a historical background starting in 1896 shortly after the death of Maximilian Nitze, the "inventor" of the cystoscope. This reflects the end of the first phase in the establishment of modern scientific urology as a specialty of its own within German-speaking countries (Imperial Germany, the Austria-Hungary Empire and Switzerland). Supported by German emigrants, the international orientation of German urology and networks was important during this time period. After WWI and WWII and Nazi atrocities, it took time to rebuild these relationships and exchanges from the 1960s to the 1990s-first within the former East and West Germany and then with European countries and the USA. From the 1990s onwards, the society continued to bridge borders behind the Iron Curtain.