scholarly journals Dissecting the History of Anatomy in the Third Reich

2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
William E. Seidelman

This paper is a personal narrative of involvement with the revelations of the use of anatomical and pathological specimens of victims of Nazi terror. The narrative documents responses to the question of the retention and use of anatomical and pathological specimens from victims of Nazi terror by leading academic and scientific institutions and organizations in Germany and Austria including the government of the Federal Republic of (West) Germany, the University of Tübingen, the University of Vienna, the Max Planck Society and the Anatomische Gesellschaft. It begins with the public revelations of 1989 and concludes with the September 2010 Symposium on the History of Anatomy during the Third Reich at the University of Würzburg. The narrative documents a 22-year transition in attitude and responses to the investigation and documentation of the history of anatomy and pathology during the Third Reich. The chronicle includes the 1989 proposed “Call for an International Commemoration” by the author, together with the bioethicist Professor Arthur Caplan, on the occasion of the planned burial of the misbegotten specimens and the responses to that proposal. Originally published in Annals of Anatomy Vol. 194, No. 3, 2012© 2011 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved. Image credit: Table of Contents image provided by the Medical University of Vienna, MUW-AD-003250-5-ABB-90

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 72-88
Author(s):  
Jarosław Dybek ◽  

The topic of the article is one of the German SS regiments stationed in occupied Poland and its role in The German occupation policy. While the history of the SS formation is very well known in both academic and popular science literature, its cavalry has not been elaborated in great detail thus far. Although this topic seems interesting, it has not yet been discussed in any book in the Polish language. Most of the literature related to this topic was published in German and English. The 1st SS Death’s Head Cavalry Regiment operated primarily in the General Government and was under the Higher SS and Police Command. Some of its squadrons also operated in areas annexed to the Reich, i.e. the Warta Voievodship (Reichsgau Wartheland). From this article we will learn about the formation of the SS Death’s Head cavalry and its gradual inclusion in the brutal occupation policy of the Third Reich in Poland. In the case of its formation, we are dealing with tasks such as combating the early partisan units, searching for weapons, participating in the creation of ghettos, or helping to eliminate Polish levels of the intelligentsia. Noteworthy is the participation of this unit in the production of the propaganda film “Kampfgeschwader Lützow”, in which Polish cavalrymen were presented attacking German tanks with sabres. This false image was reproduced after the war in some movies or books, and contributed to the distorted presentation of Polish soldiers in the defensive battles of 1939.


Gesnerus ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 54 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 194-218
Author(s):  
Cay-Rüdiger Prüll

Textbooks on German medical history are a valuable source when analyzing the discipline's view on the foundation of scientific medicine. This paper deals with descriptions of the history of pathology found in textbooks between 1858 and 1945: In particular, pathological anatomy and Rudolf Virchow's "cellular pathology" were the cornerstones of the foundation of modern medicine in the 19"* century. The way textbooks deal with the history of pathology mirrors the development of German history of medicine: Since the turn of the century the latter felt devoted to an ahistoric teleological approach which did not change in the "Third Reich". This situation hampered a critical histonography which would show relations of the history of pathology to cultural, social and political history.


2021 ◽  
pp. 268-287
Author(s):  
Helen Roche

Following Austria’s annexation by the Third Reich, the NPEA authorities were eager to pursue every opportunity to found new Napolas in the freshly acquired territories of the ‘Ostmark’. In the first instance, the Inspectorate took over the existing state boarding schools (Bundeserziehungsanstalten/Staatserziehungsanstalten) at Wien-Breitensee, Wien-Boerhavegasse, Traiskirchen, and the Theresianum. Secondly, beyond Vienna, numerous Napolas were also founded in the buildings of monastic foundations which had been requisitioned and expropriated by the Nazi security services. These included the abbey complexes at Göttweig, Lambach, Seckau, Vorau, and St. Paul (Spanheim), as well as the Catholic seminary at St. Veit (present-day Ljubljana-Šentvid, Slovenia). This chapter begins by charting the chequered history of the former imperial and royal (k.u.k.) cadet schools in Vienna, which were refashioned into civilian Bundeserziehungsanstalten by the Austrian socialist educational reformer Otto Glöckel immediately after World War I. During the reign of Dollfuß and Schuschnigg’s Austrofascist state, the schools were threatened from within by the terrorist activity of illegal Hitler Youth cells, and the Anschluss was ultimately welcomed by many pupils, staff, and administrators. August Heißmeyer and Otto Calliebe’s subsequent efforts to reform the schools into Napolas led to their being incorporated into the NPEA system on 13 March 1939. The chapter then treats the Inspectorate’s foundation of further Napolas in expropriated religious buildings, focusing on NPEA St. Veit as a case study. In conclusion, it outlines the ways in which both of these forms of Napolisation conformed to broader patterns of Nazification policy in Austria after the Anschluss.


2014 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-59
Author(s):  
Jürgen Kilian

Abstract After Greece had been conquered by the troops of the Axis Powers in spring 1941, they installed a rule of occupation existing until october 1944. The Government in Athens had to finance this occupation by making payments in advance and besides, making a forced credit available. This method led to an exorbitant overloading of the Greek economy and to a galloping inflation. The German Tax and Finance Ministry played an important, yet hardly noticed role as to the concrete implementation of the monetary exploitation. Almost unknown documents throw a light on the financing of the German Wehrmacht during WW II. Besides, the real burden on the Greek economy shall be estimated and connected with the general questions of war financing in the Third Reich.


2010 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 628-648 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Goeschel

Too often histories of the concentration camps tend to be ignorant of the wider political context of nazi repression and control. This article tries to overcome this problem. Combining legal, social and political history, it contributes to a more thorough understanding of the changing relationship between the camps as places of extra-legal terror and the judiciary, between nazi terror and the law. It argues that the conflict between the judiciary and the SS was not a conflict between ‘good’ and ‘evil’, as existing accounts claim. Rather, it was a power struggle for jurisdiction over the camps. Concentration camp authorities covered up the murders of prisoners as suicides to prevent judicial investigations. This article also looks at actual suicides in the pre-war camps, to highlight individual inmates’ reactions to life within the camps. The article concludes that the history of the concentration camps needs to be firmly integrated into the history of nazi terror and the Third Reich.


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