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human bodies had been sparked by Gunther von

Hagens’ plastination exhibits in Germany (Hilde-

brandt, 2008), and laws regulating the handling of

materials of questionable ethical background were

deemed insufﬁcient. The recommendations include

the detailed investigation and removal of specimens

of doubtful ethical provenance from collections.

Institutes were searched for ‘‘material" stemming

from the NS period, which included wet specimens

and bones, as well as histological slides. The identi-

ﬁed items were then removed from the collections

and interred in graves of honor; in addition, places

of remembrance were created and the public was

informed about the process (e.g., Malina and Spann,

1999; Fro¨ber, 2006).

DISCUSSION

A look at publications from the time period shows

that anatomists in NS Germany used the bodies of

the executed not only for teaching purposes but also

in their research. In terms of the value of this

research it can be said that as long as anatomists

were concerned with matters of general concepts of

anatomy and morphological research, their work

showed a certain level of professional competence

and often strong engagement (Grundmann and

Aumu

ller, 1996). However, whenever they taught

racial hygiene and also pursued research in this dis-

cipline, their concepts became compromised by a

ﬁeld that was based on weak scientiﬁc evidence as

well as ideological stereotypes and conjectures. Men-

delian inheritance in race had never been really pro-

ven, and the only other methodological approach,

twin research, was fraud with its own problems

(Kater, 1989; p 227; Mai and van den Bussche,

1989). On the whole, much of the anatomical work

during the Third Reich lacked in innovation. The

story of the anatomy in the Third Reich demon-

strates once more that the biomedical sciences were

not destroyed by the National Socialists, but that

certain areas were suppressed while others were

encouraged (Proctor, 1992; Walker, 2003). Although

some of anatomy’s theory and practice suffered sup-

pression, namely the dynamic concept of racial

hygiene by Saller, most of it was encouraged either

by intent of the regime, as in the subject of racial

hygiene, or by chance opportunity, as in the avail-

ability of a plentiful body supply.

A preliminary answer to the question why the

anatomists readily used so many of the bodies of NS

victims is complex. As a result of the political situa-

tion, the traditional ethics of physicians and academ-

ics were newly molded by the ethics of the NS

regime. As early as 1938, Hartshorne stated in an

analysis of the relationship between German univer-

sities and government that civil servants were no

longer politically neutral and were held to a political

doctrine that mixed scientiﬁc fact and ﬁction (Hart-

shorne, 1938). The NS regime ‘‘unleashed its

destructive forces’’ (Proctor, 1992) on anatomy by

ﬁrst undermining traditional ethical values and then

giving legal opportunities for the commitment of

crimes and a plentiful body supply. It transformed

many anatomists working in NS Germany into oppor-

tunistic collaborators of a criminal regime. In terms

of the consequences for contemporary anatomy and

its ethics, it is most important to look at the science

of anatomy and its personnel as a whole. The ethical

questions connected with Hermann Stieve’s

research, a scientist who was not a party member

but exploited the bodies of NS victims for his

research, have more relevance for modern ethics

than those connected with the SS-ofﬁcers and mur-

derers Hirt and Kremer (Winkelmann, 2008).

Indeed, the fact that most anatomists and physicians

were not psychopathic criminals, but scientists who

thought they were right, is especially disturbing

because they were not madmen (Kudlien, 1985;

p 197). It also has to be noted that their work was

completely legal at the time, even Hirt’s and

Kremer’s ‘‘work.’’ However, in the anatomy of the

Third Reich, thousands of bodies of NS victims fell

prey to a postmortem medical utilization that

reached from anatomical institutions to concentra-

tion camps (postmortale Verwertungsmedizin:

Herber, 1989; Malina and Spann, 1999). Anatomists

in NS Germany were part of this process and at least

partially responsible for these actions. This responsi-

bility includes the use of bodies of executed NS vic-

tims in anatomical research. The neuropathologists

showed the same attitude as anatomists, and Peiffer

stated that their use of the brains of the euthanasia

victims for scientiﬁc purposes might have given

these killings the appearance of a justiﬁed criminal

act (Peiffer, 1997; p 51). Indeed, Hallervorden him-

self compared his work to that of the anatomists and

thought it morally correct (Peiffer, 1997; p 52). In

the political situation of NS Germany, any preexist-

ing balance between clinical detachment and empa-

thy in these physicians was destroyed. The medical

sciences were instrumentalized by the NS regime,

and most of the academics working in medicine

willingly submitted to this, thereby sacriﬁcing their

traditional ethical convictions. The NS medical

profession was not without ethics, but had ‘‘a lot of

bad ethics’’ (Proctor, 2000; p 342) as seen from a

modern point of view.

The question remains whether the anatomists had

an alternative and whether they could have realized

the point at which their traditional use of the bodies

of the executed and the unclaimed became under

the NS regime not just quantitatively but also quali-

tatively different from their work under any other

previous government. It seems that at least in the

beginnings of the Third Reich, in 1933, academic re-

sistance to the political system was possible within

certain limits without dire consequences (Zimmer-

mann, 1991; p 400; Hess, 2005; p 47). One could

also change one’s ﬁeld of research, as in the case of

Ferdinand Wagenseil, who withdrew from his racial

hygienic studies in protest of what he saw as a cor-

ruption of the ﬁeld of racial hygiene by NS ideology

(Unger, 1998). In addition, there is one report of a

young anatomical researcher, Stieve’s assistant

Charlotte Pommer, who in December 1942 decided

to change her career plans after having had to

attend the dissection of an executed woman whom

911Anatomy in the Third Reich: Part 3

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