Lee Su-kil / Courtesy of Overseas Koreans Agency
In the mid-1960s, Korea was a nation reeling from the devastation of war, short on foreign currency and desperate for economic survival. Thousands of miles away, West Germany was experiencing its postwar Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle), but faced a crippling shortage of medical labor.
The man who bridged that gap was Lee Su-kil, a pediatrician whose structural legacy is being reexamined six decades later.
The Overseas Koreans Agency on Monday named Lee (1928-2023) its "Overseas Korean of the Month" for June, marking the 60th anniversary of the historic migration he single-handedly orchestrated.
While working at Mainz University Hospital in Germany in the early 1960s, Lee recognized an opportunity to simultaneously alleviate Germany’s nursing shortage and provide economic relief to his homeland. In 1965, operating largely on his own initiative, he mailed letters to roughly 10 German hospitals to gauge their willingness to hire Korean staff, subsequently coordinating the logistics with the Korean government.
