Hellmut Becher

Hellmut Becher (born April 30, 1896 in Remscheid , † July 12, 1976 in Münster ) was a German anatomist and university professor.

The grave of Hellmut Becher and his wife Vera in the Becher family grave at the Münster Central Cemetery .

Life

Hellmut Becher was the son of the teacher Ernst Becher and his wife Hulda, née Küpper. His brother Erich Becher was a philosopher and psychologist, his brother Ernst Siegfried Becher a scientist and his brother Erwin Becher a medical doctor. After graduating from high school, Becher first studied zoology at the University of Münster and was awarded a Dr. phil. PhD . He then studied medicine at the Universities of Bonn, Munich and Gießen and was awarded a Dr. med. PhD. From 1920 he worked as an assistant and later as a second prosector at the Anatomical Institute of the University of Münster, where he completed his habilitation there in 1923. In 1927 he moved to the University of Giessen as a permanent adjunct professor . In 1933 he was appointed full professor in Gießen and since then has also been director of the anatomical institute. In 1933/34 he was dean of the Medical Faculty of Giessen .

In the course of the transfer of power to the National Socialists , he joined the Nazi teachers' association and the NSKK in 1933 . From 1934 he was a member of the SA , where he later rose to become Obersturmführer. In 1935 he became a member of the National Socialist Medical Association . He later joined the NSDAP (1937) and the NS-Dozentbund (1938).

In 1936 he followed a call to the University of Marburg , where he was also director of the anatomical institute. In 1937 he took over the Dean's Office of the Medical Faculty in Marburg for two years and was Vice-Rector of the university in 1939/40. From 1941 he taught as a full professor at the University of Münster , where he also served as director of the anatomical institute. Becher also took over the Dean's Office of the Medical Faculty in Münster between 1941 and 1945. From 1941 to 1945 he was also Gaudozentenbundführer Westfalen-Nord. In 1944, Becher was a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Plenipotentiary for Health Care Karl Brandt .

In the autumn of 1945, Becher was arrested by the British military government for his National Socialist activities and dismissed from his post as a full professor. As part of the denazification he was classified as a “fellow traveler” in 1947 and as “exonerated” in 1949. In March 1948 he was commissioned to hold his previous chair. Since August 1949, Becher taught again as a full professor of anatomy in Munster and was elected rector of the university in 1955/56. From 1953 to 1957 he was chairman of the German Anatomical Society . His main research interests were anatomy and histology, especially work on the eye and kidneys. He was the author of specialist publications. In 1965 he retired . Since 1951 he was married to Vera, nee Padberg. The couple had a child.

Hellmut Becher's estate is in the Münster University Archives .

Fonts (selection)

• Eye and interbrain , Enke, Stuttgart 1955 (edited by Hellmut Becher, Dietrich Eichner [and others])
• Atlas of Human Anatomy , Urban u. Schwarzenberg, Munich / Berlin / Vienna (welcomed by Johannes Sobotta . Ed. And edited by Hellmut Becher, multi-part work)

literature

• Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich . Who was what before and after 1945 . 2nd Edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 .
• Michael Grüttner : Biographical Lexicon on National Socialist Science Policy (= Studies on Science and University History. Volume 6). Synchron, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 3-935025-68-8 , pp. 19-20.
• Rudolf Vierhaus (Ed.): German Biographical Encyclopedia . Volume 1: Aachen - Braniss. 2nd, revised and expanded edition. Saur, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-598-25031-2 .
• Walter Kirsche: In memoriam Hellmut Becher . In: Journal for microscopic anatomical research 90 (1976), pp. 785-789. (not evaluated)

Web links

• Mug, Hellmut. Hessian biography. (As of November 5, 2019). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Who is who? , Volume 17, Schmidt-Römhild, 1971, p. 52
2. ↑ Aloys Wenzl:  Becher, Erich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1953, ISBN 3-428-00182-6 , p. 688 ( digitized version ).
3. ↑ ^{a b c d} Rudolf Vierhaus (Ed.): German Biographical Encyclopedia . Volume 1: Aachen - Braniß , Munich 2005, p. 465
4. ^ ^{A b} Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 33
5. ↑ Michael Grüttner : Biographical Lexicon for National Socialist Science Policy (= Studies on Science and University History. Volume 6). Synchron, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 3-935025-68-8 , p. 125.
6. ↑ Online finding aid for the Becher estate: http://www.uni-muenster.de/Archiv.Findbuecher/Bestand280/ , accessed: December 6, 2017

predecessor	Office	successor
Hermann Volk	Rector of the University of Münster 1955–1956	Jost Trier