Some 80 years after Nazis barred a woman from sitting the final exam to officially obtain her doctorate, a 102-year-old Jewish woman finally received the honour from a German university.

Hamburg's UKE University Medical Center presented pediatric expert Ingeborg Syllm-Rapoport with her PhD on 9 June.

Syllm-Rapoport had finished her doctoral thesis on diphtheria in 1938 while working at a hospital in the northern port city. However due to Hitler's racially motivated legal restrictions, she was unable to sit her oral exam.

"It was about the principle, not about me," said Syllm-Rapoport, reported AFP.

Syllm-Rapoport's friends reportedly researched on Google on developments in diphtheria over the past eight decades to prepare her for the oral exam.

Meanwhile, UKE's medical director and chairman, Burkhard Goeke, said they were glad to have finally restored "a piece of justice".

It was about the principle, not about me.
- Ingeborg Syllm-Rapoport

"We can't make the injustice that occurred undone, but our insights into the past shape our perspectives for the future," Goeke said in a statement.

The hospital's dean of medical faculty, Uwe Koch-Gromus, called Syllm-Rapoport "simply brilliant" after her exam.

"We were impressed by her intellectual alertness and speechless over her expert knowledge, even in the area of modern medicine," Koch-Gromus said in a statement.

Syllm-Rapoport hailed the university for showing "great patience".

According to the Hamburg university, Syllm-Rapoport is probably the oldest person in the world to receive a doctorate.

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