Eduard Pernkopf (1888–1955), an Austrian anatomist, professor, and dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Vienna during the Nazi period, was a member of the Nazi Party from 1933. During the Nazi era, he served as the head of the anatomical institute at the University of Vienna. His colleagues described him as an enthusiastic National Socialist, and indeed he conducted himself accordingly as early as 1938, when he came to work wearing the uniform favored by Adolf Hitler.The Department of Anatomy, which Pernkopf headed, had a history of antisemitism and extremist political activity among both students and academic staff, even before Austria’s annexation into the German Reich. On February 18, 1939, the Nazi regime issued a decree ordering that the bodies of all executed prisoners be sent to the anatomy departments of the nearest universities for research and educational purposes. Later, in 1942, Nazi law decreed that the remains of executed Poles and Jews were not to be buried by their relatives, but instead delivered to German research institutions. Many prestigious medical institutions in Germany preserved the remains of murdered individuals for research purposes.Pernkopf took advantage of the law, working up to 18 hours a day, dissecting corpses in front of teams of painters and illustrators. The shipments did not stop, and the university rooms filled with bodies. Thus, he created the Topographische Anatomie des Menschen – The Topographical Anatomy of Man (known as “The Pernkopf Anatomical Atlas”), which was published in Vienna by Urban & Schwarzenberg, in volumes that appeared one after another in the late 1930s and early 1940s.“At least half of the 800 illustrations in the atlas were based on the bodies of political prisoners,” estimated Dr. Sabine Hildebrandt of Harvard Medical School in the United States. “They included homosexuals and lesbians, Roma, ideological opponents – and of course, Jews.”
Pernkopf was the man destined to carry out the horrific task, as his rapid academic ascent at the University of Vienna from the early 1930s went hand in hand with his increasing involvement in the Nazi regime. The same year he began heading the anatomical institute (1933), he joined the Nazi Party, and a year later, the SA – the Storm Troopers. Alongside Pernkopf, many of the assistants, technicians, and illustrators who worked with him also joined the Nazi Party.(As dean, Pernkopf insisted on documenting the racial origin – Aryan or otherwise, of all faculty members, and demanded they swear loyalty to Hitler. He handed over to the authorities the names of individuals who did not meet these criteria, and in March 1938, all Jews—including Nobel Prize laureates—were expelled from the University of Vienna. In total, 132 out of 197 faculty members were dismissed.) By defining certain people as “subhuman,” Nazi medical science allowed them to be treated as “research material” even while still alive, without the protection of German law.
The atlas, as mentioned, was illustrated by a team of artists and includes hundreds of highly detailed color illustrations, created by illustrators such as Erich Lepier (who customarily added a swastika next to his signature), Karl Endtresser, Ludwig Schrott (all three were Nazi activists), and others. Each illustration was hand-drawn, full-size, with astounding precision. It is rich in detail and provides unparalleled sharp and graphic renderings of the skin and bones, the muscular and tendon systems, the nerves, and the internal organs of the human body. The illustrations in the book were used (and in some places are still used to this day) by doctors, surgeons, and students for decades, and leading anatomists in the medical field over the years have testified: “You can’t even begin to compare it to other books in terms of precision and attention to detail.” Doctors around the world attest that during complex surgeries, the book helps them identify which of the many functioning nerves in the body is the source of pain—more effectively than any other tool to this day!Pernkopf’s atlas has long been considered a scientific masterpiece without parallel, and is regarded as one of the most beautiful and accurate anatomy books ever created. In 1990, The New England Journal of Medicine, the leading medical journal, described Pernkopf’s atlas as a “classic work in the field.”
In the years immediately following the war, the atlas was used in good faith by physicians in several countries, unaware of the source of its illustrations. Over time, it became increasingly known that many of the illustrations in Pernkopf’s work were created using the bodies of innocent victims sent from the death camps—victims who were not even granted a proper burial.By the 1980s and 1990s, this fact had become more widely acknowledged, and the debate surrounding the use of the book took center stage in nearly every global medical institution that engaged with the ethical question: Is it appropriate to use an atlas created through severe violations of human rights? Should the memory of the victims be honored through full disclosure—or through halting the use altogether? As a result, in March 1995, the Yad Vashem Institute demanded that the Universities of Vienna and Innsbruck conduct an independent investigation, led by external experts, into the background and origin of the figures in Pernkopf’s atlas. Yad Vashem’s initial request was rejected. However, due to renewed efforts—led by Professor William Seidelman, a professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine and a scholar of medicine and the Holocaust at the University of Toronto, along with his colleagues—an in-depth investigation into the matter was opened in February 1997 at the University of Vienna. In the report published following the investigation in 1998, it was revealed that the university’s anatomical institute, headed by Pernkopf, had received at least 1,377 bodies during the war years, including the bodies of children, from the Gestapo execution chambers at the regional court in Vienna. These individuals had been executed either by beheading with a guillotine or by gunfire.
Although its historical origin is morally tainted, many physicians and surgeons report that to this day, there is no visually accurate substitute for the atlas. A recent British survey found that 59% of the kingdom’s surgeons are aware of the atlas, and 13% of respondents admitted they still use it today. An overwhelming majority (69%) of physicians stated that they would feel comfortable using it if the circumstances of its creation were fully disclosed and known to them, while only 15% of those surveyed expressed outright opposition. In some academic institutions in the U.S. and Europe, its use is permitted only when accompanied by an ethical preface explaining the historical and moral context.There is no doubt that Pernkopf’s book is an anatomically stunning work, meticulous down to the finest detail, yet paradoxically, it also stands as a chilling testament to the depths of inhumanity to which Nazi racial ideology dragged its adherents. The use of the atlas today remains highly charged and is the subject of ongoing debate at the intersection of ethics, history, and medicine. Pernkopf was arrested at the end of the war and dismissed from the university. He was held in a detention camp for three years but was never charged with any crime. Upon his release, he returned to the academic institution and continued working on the guide, eventually updating the third edition, which was published in 1952. He died three years later, shortly before the publication of the fourth edition. See also here
See also:
G. Riggs, “What should we do about Eduard Pernkopf’s atlas?”, Academic Medicine, 1998
Sabine Hildebrandt, “How the Pernkopf controversy facilitated a historical and ethical analysis of the anatomical sciences in Austria and Germany: A recommendation for the continued use of the Pernkopf Atlas”, Clinical Anatomy, 2006
Countless references to the subject exist online, including:
Should Doctors Learn from Nazi Medical Research on Holocaust Victims?
The Dilemma of Pernkopf’s Atlas
What should we do about Eduard Pernkopf’s atlas?
See also on the website of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem:
Exhibitions at the Medical Library: The Pernkopf Atlas
And see also here, and many other sources.
