Eduard Pernkopf

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Eduard Pernkopf (born November 24, 1888 in Rappottenstein ( Lower Austria ), † April 17, 1955 in Vienna ) was an Austrian anatomist . He was a staunch National Socialist and Obersturmbannführer of the SA as well as dean and rector of the University of Vienna . The anatomy atlas published by him , which also contains pictures of those executed during the Nazi era , is still used today because of its attention to detail.

career

Eduard Pernkopf studied medicine in Vienna. During his studies he was already German national set and was a member of the fraternity Alemannia Vienna . After studying at the University of Vienna and obtaining his doctorate in 1912, Pernkopf became Ferdinand Hochstetter's assistant at the II. Anatomical Institute in Vienna in 1920 . He completed his habilitation in 1921 and became professor of anatomy in Vienna in 1927. In 1933, after Hochstetter's retirement , he became professor of anatomy, and in the same year he joined the Austrian NSDAP . From 1934 Pernkopf was a member of the then banned SA (achieved rank: SA-Obersturmbannführer). After the annexation of Austria , he was one of the people who were commissioned to bring the university into line; among other things, the Nobel Prize in Medicine Otto Loewi was arrested and released. April 1938 he was the arrested as successor also after the "Anschluss" and dismissed Egon Ranzi the dean of the medical faculty appointed his inaugural lecture he held in SA uniform on "National Socialism and Science" and advocated it for the "elimination of Erbminderwertigen by Sterilization and Other Means ”. From 1943 he was the successor of Fritz Knoll rector of the university. In 1944 he was appointed to the advisory board of the authorized representative for health care Karl Brandt .

After the end of the war he was suspended in 1945 and spent about two years in Allied captivity in the Glasenbach camp near Salzburg ( Camp Marcus W. Orr ). He then continued his work on his anatomy atlas, which first appeared in 1943 as Topographical Anatomy of Man in Berlin , but without giving his academic title and without giving lectures . He died in 1955 while working on Volume 4. Pernkopf was a corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences from 1939 to 1940 and a full member from 1940 until his death in 1955 . He was buried at the Grinzing cemetery .

The "Pernkopf Anatomy Atlas"

Signature of the illustrator Lepier with swastika in an early edition of the atlas

From 1937 to 1960, von Pernkopf published the Topographical Anatomy of Man, Atlas of Regional Stratigraphic Preparation . The atlas set new standards in the graphic design of anatomical teaching materials. Many of the drawings in the atlas are still used in current anatomy textbooks worldwide. Shortly after the end of the National Socialist era , voices were raised that suspected that some of the corpses of executed people had been used for the anatomical drawings of the atlas made by the active National Socialists Erich Lepier and Karl Endtresser. The illustrations last appeared in 1997 in the Sobotta atlas of human anatomy published by R. Putz and R. Pabst in Baltimore . In 1998 the University of Vienna published a Senate project on this question, which describes the genesis of the atlas. It cannot be proven to what extent preparations of the executed were used in the creation of the atlas, but it is considered certain that such use took place. It is estimated that around half of the preparations shown come from political prisoners.

literature

  • Gustav Spann: Studies on anatomical science in Vienna 1938–1945. Senate project of the University of Vienna. University of Vienna, Vienna 1998.
  • Roman Pfefferle, Hans Pfefferle: Slightly denazified. The professorships at the University of Vienna from 1944 in the post-war years. V&R unipress, Göttingen 2014.
  • Barbara I. Tshisuaka: Pernkopf, Eduard. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 1122.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Keiligh Baker: The Nazi book of anatomy still used by surgeons , bbc.com, August 19, 2019, accessed August 19, 2019.
  2. ^ Directory of the old men of the German fraternity. Überlingen am Bodensee 1920, p. 242.
  3. ↑ a b c Eduard Pernkopf, Prof. Dr. on the history website of the University of Vienna on November 14, 2017, accessed on August 19, 2019
  4. ^ Ernst Klee: The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2003, ISBN 3-10-039309-0 , p. 453.
  5. ^ Eduard Pernkopf grave site , Vienna, Grinzinger Friedhof, Group 19, No. 86.
  6. ^ Disease names used by Nazi doctors. In: taz.de . January 3, 2018, accessed on May 25, 2019.
  7. ↑ Keiligh Baker, Eduard Pernkopf: The Nazi book of anatomy quietly used by surgeons , BBC August 18 of 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Pernkopf, Eduard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian anatomist
DATE OF BIRTH November 24, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Rappottenstein , Lower Austria
DATE OF DEATH April 17, 1955
Place of death Vienna