anatomy in national socialism: an introduction sabine hildebrandt, md boston children’s hospital,...

Anatomy in National Socialism:Anatomy in National Socialism:an introductionan introduction

Sabine Hildebrandt, MD

Boston Children’s Hospital, Div. General Medicine/Dep. Medicine

Harvard Medical School; Boston, USA

[email protected]

NS Anatomy Sabine Hildebrandt

“The difficulty is, you see, that our imagination cannot count […]

And if I say one died- a man I have made you know and understand […] then perhaps I have told yousomething that you should know about the Nazis.”

Erich Maria Remarque, 1946


Elfriede Scholz, *March 25 1903 executed December 16, 1943

née Remark NS Anatomy Sabine Hildebrandt

- Anatomists used the bodies of victims of the National

Socialist (NS) regime for dissection and research,

a practice today seen as an abuse of the human body.

Leopold Metzenbauer (medical illustrator)

“Die Abfleischer”, 1943 Anatomy Institute Vienna

- The history of anatomy in the Third Reich is only now being written.


Facets of “Anatomy in National Socialism”

- Anatomists and Politics

- Bodies

- Anatomical Science

- Stages of an Ethical Transgression


Political background

www.wissen.de/wde/generator/ substanzen/bilder.

January 30, 1933NS Anatomy Sabine Hildebrandt

www.bundestag.de/. ../index.htmlhttp://lernprogramm-bundestag.medpaed.de/bilder/reichstagsbrand.jpg

“Reichstagsbrand”: burning of the parliament 2/27/1933

“Ermächtigungsgesetze”: enabling acts - plenary power to Hitler and his party, making him a legal dictator - end of democracy: ban of communist and socialist parties.

“Machtergreifung” (seizure of power) 30 January 1933


Facets of “Anatomy in the Third Reich”


- Bodies




worldfuturefund.org/ Import/rc.entrance.jp

Reorganization of German Universities:

-centralization, leadership by Reichserziehungsministerium Berlin(Ministry of Education), also responsible for Anatomical Institutes

-NS leadership concept

-Alignment of science with NS doctrine and its utilization for war purposes

-Dismissal of “non-Aryan” and politically opposed faculty and students (20%)


The political spectrum of anatomists

With 44.8% physicians had a higher NSDAP membership than thegeneral population (Kater, 1989).

All faculty Univ. Tübingen: 129 NSDAP of 160 total= 80% (Adam, 1977)

Political data available for 168 of 234 anatomists in German Anat. Dept.s:

- 55 careers disrupted because of so-called “racial” or political reasons

- Remaining 113 anatomists :

- NSDAP members: 91 (82%) SA: 34 SS: 9

- 2 convicted war criminals

- Only 6 not members of any NS organization


Scholars of anatomy whose careers were disrupted by NS-policies

Faculty and students of German anatomical departments plus otherGerman and international members of Anatomical Society

total number: 527, data available for 486

number of anatomical careers disrupted: 86

80 men, 6 women

24 to 91 years-old


Kazimierz Telesfor von Kostanecki (1863-1940)

Anatomist, Poland, CracowMember of Anatomische Gesellschaft

1893-1934 chair anatomy Cracow University, dean of Medical School chair of Polish Academy of Sciences and Letters

Nov. 6, 1939: imprisoned during “Sonderaktion Krakau”, NS action against Polish intelligentsia, together with his colleagues from Jagellonian University;

transported to concentration camp Sachsenhausen where he died shortly thereafter




- Bodies




Changes in traditional sources for bodies in anatomy in NS period

Traditional source New: NS victims

Deceased psychiatric patients

Suicides

Deceased prisoners

Executed persons

Deceased hospital patientsNS Anatomy Sabine Hildebrandt



Deceased psychiatric patients - include “Euthanasia” patients

Suicides

Deceased prisoners

Executed persons





Suicides - increasingly Jewish citizens

Deceased prisoners

Executed persons






Deceased prisoners - new NS laws + increased violence- GeStapo prisoners- concentration camp inmates- forced laborer camp inmates- prisoners of war

Executed persons






Deceased prisoners - new NS laws + increased violence- GeStapo prisoners- concentration camp inmates- forced laborer camp inmates- prisoners of war

Executed persons - high numbers due to NS laws- women (incl. pregnant women)



University Body-Register Total # executed bodies

Bonn Yes 1025 191 (19%)Cologne until 1942 >774 85 (11%) Giessen Yes 405 53 (13%)Göttingen No 517 233 (45%) Halle until 1937 ? ~108 Hamburg Yes ? >315Heidelberg Yes 970 280 (29%)Jena Yes 2224 200 (9%)Kiel No ? >73 Marburg: Yes ~ 800-900 ? Strassburg No 300-400 >86 (~25%) Tübingen: Yes 1077 ~ 285 (26%)Vienna No >5,341 >1,377 (26%) Würzburg Yes 944 120 (13%)Total 14,377 3,406


First estimates for body supply to 31 Dep. Anatomy, 1933-1945:

Total number of bodies delivered to anatomical departments:37- 40,000

Total number bodies of the executed:so far documented: 3730 for 17 departments

probably much higher

Total number of NS victims used in anatomy unclear:in Tübingen estimated at 2/3 of total bodies

“Justifizierter” [“executed man”], Metzenbauer, 1942

Victims of NS Anatomy, S. Hildebrandt MD

A new kind of study

Making the impossible possible:Hans-Joachim Lang’s identification of all 86 Hirt victims

http://www.die-namen-der-nummern.de/html/the_names.html

©Claude Truong-Ngoc

Victims of NS Anatomy, S. Hildebrandt MD

The women on Stieve’s list

Anatomical DepartmentCharité, Berlin

Hermann Stieve (1886-1952) Chair, Dep. of Anatomy, Humboldt-University Berlin1935-1952

No NASDP membership, only minor groups

Dissected several hundred bodies of the executed,especially women.

Research on the influence of the nervous system onthe male and female reproductive system

e.g. - effect of severe psychological trauma on menstruation patterns

ns-zeit.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/ Portals/_NS_ZNS Anatomy Sabine Hildebrandt

Nationalities of executed persons on Stieve’s list, N=182, 174 women, 8 menBerlin 1935-1944


Reasons for execution of persons on Stieve’s list, N=182, 174 women, 8 menBerlin 1935-1944


Mildred Fish-Harnack1902 - 1943

Born in Milwaukee/Wisconsin

Met German Rockefeller scholar Arvid Harnack at University of Wisconsin in Madison

Taught American literature in Berlin after 1929

Joined Red Orchestra (Rote Kapelle) resistance group with her husband

Guillotined at Plötzensee February 1943,the only American executed by Hitler’s command

http://www.traces.org/mildredfishharnack.htmlNS Anatomy Sabine Hildebrandt

Pregnant women

Hilde Coppi (May 31, 1909 - August 5, 1943), treason

Liane Berkowitz(August 7, 1923- August 5, 1943), treason

Charlotte Juenemann (Nov 23, 1910 – Aug 26, 1935), manslaughter

Lucienne Tassin (June 21, 1923 – Oct 13, 1943), looting




- Bodies




Use of bodies of the executed in anatomical research

Study of anatomical journals 1924-1951:

German language papers 1924-1951: 7.469

“material” from the executed: 183 [~2%] papers from Germany: 166 other countries: 17

English language papers 1924-1951: 4.702

“material” from the executed: 2


Papers with “material” of the executed, German-language journals

total executed

1924-1932: 3.734 33 [1%]

1933-1938: 2.265 46 [2%]

1939-1945: 984 73 [7%]

1946-1951: 486 15 [3%]%




- Bodies




Combining data on the executed, from Dr. Birgit Sack, Memorial site Münchner Platz, Dresden

with

abbreviations of last names and ages of executed persons used in publications by Max Clara and colleagues (7 papers)(here Heckel, 1942,Z Mikr Anat F 52:393-417)


http://historia.mforos.com/681984/6034845-diario-del-ss-johann-kremer/..

Johann Paul Kremer (1883-1965) Professor of Anatomy in Münster Neo-Lamarquist and racial hygienist

SS-Obersturmführer in Auschwitz

present at selections at the ramp and at executions (phenol injections)

research on the effects of hunger on the human body

sentenced for murder in Poland and accessory to murder in Germany

An active National Socialist


August Hirt, Anatomist Director of Anatomy Department Strassburg/AlsaceSS-Sturmbannführer (Schutzstaffel- a Nazi elite troupe- major)

Involvement in Ahnenerbe, SS organization studying raceand heredity

Jewish skeleton collection (86 Jews from Auschwitz)

Gave cyanide and instructions for execution toexecutioners, also involved in poison gas experiments

www.struthof.fr/uploads/ pics/02-HIRT-mod.jpg

Named inNuremberg physicians-trialsescaped by suicide



Stages of Transgression 1

-victims of the NS regime became part of all traditional sources of body procurement in anatomy and were used for purposes of anatomical education and research by all German anatomical departments

-many anatomists used the “opportunities” given by increased numbers of executed NS victims for research and presented them as a positive development

-Stieve interpreted the situation of women on death row in terms of his strictly planned experiments, but there is no documentation that he ever saw a living prisoner before death or caused any prisoner’s death


Stages of Transgression 2

-Clara used a still living prisoner, whose execution date was already determined and who was thus a “future dead” person, for a planned experiment

-Kremer selected living prisoners without prior planning for it and created “future dead” persons by this selection- for their death, even in Auschwitz, might not have been inevitable

-Hirt had living prisoners selected according to a strict research plan, thus creating “future dead” by causing their death

Gradual paradigm shift in NS anatomy:Lang, 2013

Traditional paradigm: work with the dead

New paradigm: work with the “future dead”


Why?Why?

“Gesehen II”, Metzenbauer 1942

“Gesehen IV”, Metzenbauer 1942NS Anatomy Sabine Hildebrandt

Why did the anatomists behave in this manner?

- They thought they were right!

- The use of bodies of the executed was legal in NS Germany and considered ethical by the anatomists at the time.

- German civil servants rarely questioned authorities.

- Some of them believed in the righteousness of the executions.

- The bodies were highly opportune “material” that enabled them to do new studies.


Gareth Jones (anatomist, New Zealand) on NS anatomists:

“It is deeply unfortunate that they belonged to a disciplinethat at that time gave little thought to ethics […] Consequently they were operating in an ethos that allowedfor appalingly unethical behavior. This in no way justifies any of their practices, but if anatomy as a discipline hadbeen radically different, at least some of the horrors of thiscorner of Nazi atrocities may not have taken place.”


Leopold Metzenbauer, 1943Anatomy Institute Vienna

Lessons to be learned:

1. Scientists cannot pursue their scientific interests detached from the ethics and politics of their societal environment and should critically question these

2. International guidelines for the ethical handling of human bodies in anatomical institutions and elsewhere need to be further developed and monitored

1. Evaluation of the personal balance between clinical detachment and empathy is necessary on a daily basis.



Literature:

Hildebrandt S. 2012a. Anatomy in the Third Reich: Careers disrupted by National Socialist policies, Ann Anat 184:251-256. Hildebrandt S. 2012b. The anatomist Hans Elias: a Jewish German in exile. Clinical Anatomy 25:284-294. Hildebrandt, S. 2013a. The women on Stieve’s list: victims of National Socislism whose bodies were used for anatomicalresearch. Clin Anat 26:3-21. Hildebrandt S. 2013b. Research on bodies of the executed in German anatomy: An accepted method that changed during the Third Reich. Study of anatomical journals from 1924 to 1951, Clin Anat 26:304-326. Hildebrandt S. 2013f. Current status of identification of victims of the National Socialst regime whose bodies were used for anatomical purposes. Clinical Anatomy, published online

Jones, D.G. (2007). Anatomical investigations and their ethical dilemmas. Clinical Anatomy 20:338-343

Lang HJ. 2014. Die Namen der Nummern. URL: http://www.die-namen-der-nummern.de/index.html

Mitscherlich, Alexander; Mielke, Fred. 2007. Doctors of Infamy. The Story of the Nazi medical crimes. Reprint of the 1949 original. USA: Kessinger Publishing.

Roelcke, V. 2009. Tiermodell und Menschenbild. Konfigurationen der epistemiologischen und ethischen Mensch-Tier-Grenzziehung in der Humanmedizin zwischen 1880 und 1945. In: Griesecke, B., Krause, M., Pethes, N., Sabisch, K. (Dds.): Kulturgeschichte des Menschenversuchs im 20. Jahrhundert. (pp 16-47). Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.

Roelcke, Volker, 2010b. Medicine during the Nazi period: historical facts and some implications for teaching medicalethics and professionalism. In: Rubenfeld, Sheldon (ed.): Medicine after the Holocaust. From the master race to the human genome and beyond. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2010 pp 17-29

Winkelmann, A., 2012. The Anatomische Gesellschaft and National Socialism- A preliminary analysis based on society proceedings. Ann Anat 194:243-250

Winkelmann, A., Noack, T., 2010. The Clara cell: a “Third Reich eponym”? Eur Resp J 36:722-727 Winkelmann A, Schagen U. 2009. Hermann Stieve’s clinical-anatomical research on executed women during the “Third Reich”. Clin Anat 22(2):163-171

anatomy in national socialism: an introduction sabine hildebrandt, md boston children’s hospital,...

Documents

history of anatomy

anatomy institute vienna

ns doctrine

national socialist ns

anatomical science stages

number of anatomical

reich anatomists

national socialism anatomists