How the Anatomische Gesellschaft Excluded Unwanted Members After

Annals of Anatomy 209 (2017) 25–36

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SOURCES IN TIME

How the Anatomische Gesellschaft excluded unwanted members after

1945—among them Eugen Fischer and Max Clara

∗

Andreas Winkelmann

Institute of Anatomy, Brandenburg Medical School, Fehrbelliner Str. 38, D-16816 Neuruppin, Germany

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The Anatomische Gesellschaft, an international Germany-based association of anatomists, was closed down

Received 29 June 2015

in 1945, after the end of the “Third Reich”. It was eventually re-founded in 1949, continuing its tradi-

Received in revised form 6 June 2016

tion from its foundation in 1886, based in large part on the membership prior to 1945. Newly available

Accepted 17 August 2016

archival material reveals, however, that at least six members were explicitly prevented from re-joining

the society. This includes Max Clara, who was accused of plagiarism and, at least implicitly, of basing

Keywords:

his career on Nazi party support. It also includes Eugen Fischer, a leading anthropologist of the Nazi

Anatomische Gesellschaft

period, who was seen to be indirectly responsible for Nazi crimes like forced sterilisation or extermina-

Denaziﬁcation

Anthropology tion of “anthropologically deﬁned” groups of people. Therefore, Fischer’s honorary membership, which

had already been published in the membership directory, was revoked after a heated internal debate.

Wolfgang Bargmann

Eugen Fischer Nevertheless, these exclusions cannot be interpreted as a self-directed “denaziﬁcation” of the Anatomis-

Max Clara che Gesellschaft, as political activity in line with the Nazis was not the main criterion for these exclusions.

Incidentally, the archival sources also reveal that Wolfgang Bargmann, who had been elected as the ﬁrst

post-war secretary of the Gesellschaft in 1949, resigned from this post after only one year in ofﬁce because

his management of this “Fischer affair” was felt to be too autocratic.

1. Introduction and Spann, 1999; Winkelmann and Noack, 2010). However, the

society’s secretary, Heinrich von Eggeling, an ex ofﬁcio board mem-

When in May 1945 the Second World War and the “Third Reich” ber, had survived in what he called his “bomb asylum” in Neustadt

ended, this was also the – temporary – end of the Anatomische am Rübenberge, a small town near Hannover. He had continued to

Gesellschaft, the main organising body of German anatomists and conduct the correspondence of the society – as he had done since

a Germany-based international scientiﬁc society, founded in 1886 1920 – and to edit its ofﬁcial journal, the Anatomischer Anzeiger

(for historical detail, see Kühnel, 1989; Winkelmann, 2015a). While (today’s Annals of Anatomy) until its last wartime volume (no. 95)

no speciﬁc legislation of the allied authorities to this effect could in 1944. He had also kept the membership directory, last published

be identiﬁed for the immediate post-war years (cf. Allied Control in 1939, and had continued to accept new members, as occasion-

Authority, 1945-1948), it seems clear that all scientiﬁc societies ally published in the Anatomischer Anzeiger (see below). So it was

were closed in 1945/1946 (Rammer 2012, p. 370). To continue, the von Eggeling, together with other anatomists with a leading role in

Anatomische Gesellschaft had to be re-founded, which eventually the former Anatomische Gesellschaft, particularly Hermann Stieve

took place in 1949 (Bargmann, 1949). of Berlin and Alfred Benninghoff of Marburg, who started gather-

In May 1945, the four members of the last acting board, ing information regarding the fate of previous members, nationally

elected in 1938 in Leipzig, were no longer available for reviving and internationally.

the Gesellschaft: Walter Vogt of Munich and Torsten Hellman of The subsequent developments and exchanges leading up to

Lund/Sweden had died in 1941 and 1944, respectively, and Max the ﬁrst unofﬁcial post-war meetings of anatomists in 1946 and

Clara of Munich and Eduard Pernkopf of Vienna had lost their aca- 1947 and the re-foundation of the Anatomische Gesellschaft in Bonn

demic positions due to their active role under National Socialist rule in 1949 have been described based on the Benninghoff estate

and had both been put in prison after the war until 1947 (Malina (Hildebrandt, 2013a). In short, Otto Veit of Cologne and Philipp

Stöhr jr. of Bonn took the initiative to invite anatomists to a

ﬁrst unofﬁcial post-war meeting in 1946 in Bonn. A place in the

∗ British Zone was explicitly preferred to the other three occupational

Fax: +49 33913914515.

E-mail address: [email protected] zones because the British military administration did not restrict

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aanat.2016.08.005

26 A. Winkelmann / Annals of Anatomy 209 (2017) 25–36

participation, while the American occupational forces would not 1945 and president of the ﬁrst inofﬁcial post-war meetings,

have allowed the participation of those not yet fully “denaziﬁed” includes correspondence until 1953 (Winkelmann, 2015a,b). It is

(Hildebrandt, 2013a). The same applied to the subsequent second stored at the archive of the Gesellschaft at the Institute of Anatomy

meeting, also in Bonn, in 1947. Anatomists from the Soviet Zone in Erlangen, supervised by the current secretary, Prof. Friedrich

could still not participate as they were not allowed to travel until Paulsen. It is organised in 45 numbered folders and sorted either

1950. by year (until 1942) or by correspondent. As von Eggeling’s corre-

The eventual re-foundation of April 1949 was based to a large spondence covers all his years as secretary and the post-war years

part on the previous membership. Historical material newly avail- and lacks substantial gaps, his estate is the most comprehensive

able at the archive of the Anatomische Gesellschaft in Erlangen historical source on the business of the Anatomische Gesellschaft

(Winkelmann, 2015b), particularly the estate (Nachlass) of Hein- during these years (for a detailed description of the estate, see

rich von Eggeling and correspondence of Wolfgang Bargmann (see Winkelmann, 2015b). Letters from this estate will be quoted as, e.g.

below), suggests that not every former member was welcome at “Eggeling estate/16: 6 October 1948 to Bauer”, signifying a letter

this time and that some were explicitly excluded from being re- from von Eggeling to Bauer, to be found in folder 16 of the estate.

admitted in 1949. This new archival material triggered the present The estate of Curt Elze (see below) is available at the

analysis which will focus on these membership decisions. University Library of Würzburg (Universitätsbibliothek, Hand-

At this time, around 1949, academics who had been detained schriftenabteilung: Nachlass Elze). It includes 37 numbered folders

by the occupational forces after the war – like Clara and Pernkopf and additional boxes and seems to hold much of Elze’s scientiﬁc

– had for the most part been freed again and the “ofﬁcial” post- correspondence, but remains largely unexplored (Winkelmann,

war denaziﬁcation process, initiated by the allied forces, had been 2015a). It was scanned for documents relevant to this analysis, but

completed, mostly by classiﬁcation as “cleared” or as “Mitläufer it cannot be excluded that a systematic reworking of the entire

[fellow traveller]”. From today’s point of view, the allied process estate material may produce further relevant information. Letters

of denaziﬁcation is generally deemed a failure because a tremen- from the Elze estate are quoted in the same way, but with the preﬁx

dous organisational effort produced little positive effect, penalised “Elze estate” before the designation of the folder or box.

many ‘minor’ Nazis while many “big ﬁsh” were never held liable, In addition, the archive of the Anatomische Gesellschaft in

and lead to many Germans becoming opponents of the allied bid Erlangen holds two ring binders labelled “ANAT GES 1950–1956”

for democratisation (Biddiscombe, 2007). This is also true of the with relevant correspondence of Wolfgang Bargmann, one-year-

medical faculties. While many professors had been temporarily secretary of the Anatomische Gesellschaft, mainly from 1950. The

dismissed in 1945, shortage of alternative staff led to the speedy letters are mostly ordered according to correspondents. They are

reappointment of most of them. Those “Ordinarius”-professors quoted here with “Bargmann letters” as a preﬁx and no folder

(chairs) who remained in their positions saw no need to question numbers. If not otherwise mentioned, Bargmann is either the

their own past as they often conceptualised themselves as apolitical author or the recipient. The archive also includes a binder labelled

scientists not involved in the Nazi state—they were happy to return “1957–1974”, with some correspondence by Bargmann as board

to the autocratic style of leadership common prior to 1933 and member or acting president from 1957 to 1961, which, however,

thus opposed any democratisation of academia (Schleiermacher, was not relevant for this investigation. The correspondence of Max

2013). In many academic institutions, the percentage of former Watzka, secretary from 1950 to 1974, did not survive. It seems that

Nazi party members in the 1950s was even higher than the percent- the two binders are the only “ofﬁcial” archival source related to

age of party members before 1945, as the younger academics now the Anatomische Gesellschaft for the years 1949–1950. While these

replacing older professors had been more likely to join the NSDAP documents are undoubtedly authentic, it remains unknown who

(Deichmann, 2002). As Biddiscombe (2007) put it, “the ultimate arranged and preserved them or how complete they may be. In

‘denaziﬁcation’ of higher education” only came with “the 1968 Stu- particular, they do not include any board meetings protocols.

dent Revolt”. It must be added that this was not even “ultimate” Membership of the NSDAP was checked with the near-

either as it took much longer until German anatomists were ready complete Mitgliederkartei (membership index) available at the

to openly discuss the Nazi past and eventually take a critical look Bundesarchiv (Federal Archive) in Berlin (signature: former BDC,

at their teachers’ teachers (Hildebrandt, 2016). Gaukartei/Zentralkartei): Wolfgang Bargmann, membership no.

Against this historical background, and in view of favourable 2398533, admission May 1933; Curt Elze, no. 8007883, April 1940;

post-war self-descriptions of the Anatomische Gesellschaft as Otto Popp, no. 7257195, November 1939; Andreas Pratje, no.

an association with a certain distance to the Nazi regime 3687902, August 1935; Dietrich Starck, no. 7320516, December

(Winkelmann, 2012), it is tempting to think that the exclusion of 1939. No evidence of membership could be found for Heinrich von

members after 1945 may have been an effort of the Gesellschaft to Eggeling, Bernhard Lange or Richard Wegner.

rid itself of some of its former Nazis in a kind of “internal” denaz-

iﬁcation, including, for example, those who had played an active

role at the ideological meeting of anatomists (“Anatomenlager”) in

Tübingen in November 1942, who had tried to found an alterna- 3. The protagonists

tive, strictly German association of anatomists much closer to the

National Socialist regime (Winkelmann, 2015a). I will show, how- The main decision makers of the Anatomische Gesellschaft dur-

ever, that this was not the case and that the category of “Nazi” on ing the years surrounding the re-foundation of 1949 were the ﬁve

its own cannot explain exclusions. To this effect, I will analyse who board members elected as the ﬁrst post-war board in April 1949,

was included or excluded during this post-war period and what Veit, Stöhr, Starck, Elze, and Bargmann (Fig. 1). Veit and Stöhr had

may have been possible criteria and motivations. also organised the two preceding inofﬁcial meetings of anatomists

in Bonn in close contact with von Eggeling, who was the main link

to the “old” Anatomische Gesellschaft. These six protagonists will

2. Archival sources be brieﬂy presented here in order of their birth, including a few

remarks on their political stance. While Hermann Stieve in Berlin

The following sources were used for this analysis: The scien- had also been inﬂuential until 1945, he was now side-lined by liv-

tiﬁc estate of Heinrich von Eggeling (see below for biographical ing in the Soviet Zone, which did not allow him and others to travel

details), secretary of the Anatomische Gesellschaft from 1919 until to meetings in the Western zones.