Research article
Insights into the Freiburg Anatomical Institute during National Socialism, 1933–1945

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Abstract

The Anatomical Institute at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg is among the anatomical departments for which a comprehensive account of its history during National Socialism (NS) is still missing. Previous investigations (such as in: Grün et al., 2002) have revealed the political activities of some anatomists, but, in the absence of relevant body-registers, a more comprehensive examination of the anatomical body procurement has not been attempted. The inspection of records in university and municipal archives allows insight into the activities in the institute within the historical context. The Freiburg Institute shared the experience of the impact of NS politics with other German anatomies. Four anatomists were dismissed because of NS racial discrimination, and chairman von Möllendorf left for political reasons. His successor Nauck's appointment was politically motivated, as he was a staunch Nazi. His colleagues were also members of NS political organizations. Body procurement was controversial between the public and the anatomists in Freiburg prior to and following the Third Reich, and much of the anatomists’ efforts focused on the improvement of the body supply. In 1935, and, again during the war, the number of bodies was sufficient for anatomical education. Among the traditional sources of body procurement were increasing numbers of NS victims. Forty-four of them can be identified, among them 21 forced laborers and their children who died of so-called natural causes, and 22 men who had been executed at Stuttgart prison on April 6, 1943. While the victims’ names have been ascertained, their biographies still need restoration to ensure an appropriate commemoration.

Introduction

Studies on the history of German anatomical institutes have provided much information on the relationship between politics and body procurement in the 20th century, and especially during the time of National Socialist (NS) period, from 1933 to 1945. The first comprehensive investigations at the universities of Tübingen and Vienna in the 1980s and 1990s were followed in the new millennium by analyses of individual institutes and anatomists, most recently concerning the anatomical departments in Cologne and Munich (Schönhagen, 1987, Angetter, 2000, Kaiser, 2013, Kaiser and Gross, 2015, Schütz et al., 2013, Schütz et al., 2015; for a comprehensive review see Hildebrandt, 2016). These studies revealed that anatomical departments were affected by NS policies in terms of personnel and body procurement. Many anatomists were dismissed for racist or political reasons, and among the bodies procured for anatomical purposes were increasing numbers of victims of the NS regime. The Freiburg Anatomical Institute is one of the institutions for which very little information is available. Previous investigations of the history of this university during the Third Reich focused on some of the biographies of anatomists and their politics. Body procurement was mentioned only marginally in connection with the fate of forced laborers and prisoners executed at Stuttgart or Bruchsal execution sites whose bodies were used for anatomical purposes (Grün et al., 2002, Seidler and Leven, 2007). A more comprehensive investigation of the body procurement was not attempted, with the argument that relevant documents such as body registers from the anatomical institute were missing. The names of the forced laborers were not published at the time (Speck, 2002, Seidler and Leven, 2007, p. 512).

A search for new information on the anatomists and policies of body procurement led to records in municipal and university archives in Freiburg and Stuttgart. Those sources had not previously been examined with reference to the activities at the Freiburg institute during the Third Reich. The documents provide new insights into the interaction between politics and anatomists, the development of body procurement, and the historical context. Furthermore, they allow the identification of forty-four victims of the NS system whose bodies were used for anatomical purposes in Freiburg. The names of all of these victims are presented here for the first time, in order to “restore identity and a whole sense of the historic person to individuals reduced to being camp numbers and research material” (Weindling, 2015, pp. XVI–XVII).

Section snippets

Sources

After the liberation of Freiburg by the French Army in April 1945, military officials collected and removed documents from the University of Freiburg and the anatomical institute, possibly including the body registers. Despite repeated search efforts these have not yet been located (personal communication Professor Dieter Speck, Director of University Archives Freiburg, 4 June 2014). In similar situations of missing body registers from anatomical institutes, historians have been successful in

The Era Eugen Fischer and Wilhelm von Möllendorff, 1918 to 1935

The University of Freiburg was founded in 1457, and its faculty of medicine offered anatomical instruction, including dissection of human bodies, from 1573 on. In 1918, Eugen Fischer (1874–1967) followed his teacher Robert Wiedersheim (1848–1923) in the position as chairman of anatomy. Fischer, who was trained as an anatomist and physical anthropologist, attained international recognition as a leader in so-called racial biology and eugenics. During Fischer's tenure, from 1918 to 1927,

Body procurement before 1933

Both Fischer and von Möllendorff had to face the problem of an insufficient body supply for purposes of medical education and research in the 1920s. This was a common difficulty for all anatomists throughout history, not only in Germany, but also internationally (Stukenbrock, 2001, Stukenbrock, 2003, Richardson, 1987, Sappol, 2002, Hildebrandt, 2008). Prior to the NS period, body procurement for German anatomical institutes had relied on the traditional sources established by legislation of

The discussion on restoring the victims’ names

The public identification of NS victims’ by their names has been controversial not only in the context of the history of anatomy, but also for psychiatry (Weindling, 2010, Weindling, 2015, Zimmermann, 2007a). Apart from legal questions surrounding privacy issues, one of the arguments has been that identification could elicit additional suffering for surviving members of victims’ families. However, it is important to put a story and a name to all the victims, who have remained anonymous since

The anatomists

Previous investigations of the history of the medical faculty at Freiburg University during National Socialism have revealed information on institutional changes and biographies of perpetrators and victims of NS policies (Hellmich, 1989, Grün et al., 2002, Seidler and Leven, 2007). Much can be learned here about individual anatomists, but a comprehensive narrative of the activities at the anatomical institute and its body procurement does not exist. This absence may be due to both the long

Acknowledgements

This work would not have been possible without the support of the dedicated archivists and scholars Dieter Speck of the Universitätsarchiv Freiburg, Ulrich Ecker of the Stadtarchiv Freiburg, and Roland Müller of the Stadtarchiv Stuttgart. The author is grateful to all of these colleagues. Further thanks go to Bill Seidelman for a thorough editing of the manuscript.

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