German anatomical institutes always had problems obtaining sufficient cadavers for research and training. In the National Socialist (NS) period this changed. Universities could count on ...“extraordinary opportunities for cadaver delivery.” Most frequently tacitly, many bodies were those of victims of NS crimes. Scientists increasingly exploited the exceptional political situation to systematically supplement their institutional collections. Their endeavors to fill the, in their terms, “lamentable gaps” in their collections took on truly bizarre forms. In Austria, Jewish cemeteries were plundered for racial-political expansion of anatomical collections. A change in paradigm was merely the next step: intentional murder for the benefit of NS-oriented science. In December of 1942, anatomists meeting in Tübingen discussed plans for “material acquisition.” August Hirt, director of the anatomical institute at the Reichsuniversität in Strasbourg, was to develop guidelines. There was express reference to “Auftrag Beger,” which had already been conceived although not yet realized: at the behest of Hirt and the SS-scientific organization, “Ahnenerbe,” the anthropologists Bruno Beger and Hans Fleischhacker selected 86 Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz in June of 1943 and deported them to the concentration camp at Struthof near Natzweiler, where they were murdered. The bodies were delivered to the anatomy department in Strasbourg for preparation and used as anatomical specimens. The Reichsuniversität Strasbourg was considered a center of excellence for Nazi ideology. For modern scientists, the elucidation of these criminal acts is not exhausted in the search for an answer to the questions of perpetrator, place, modus operandi or motive. A suitable memorial to the victims must go beyond mere quantification.
August Hirt (1898–1945) was director of the Institute of Anatomy of the Reichsuniversität Strassburg from November 1941 to November 1944. During this period, he was involved in many criminal ...activities: mustard gas experiments on prisoners of KL Natzweiler-Struthof, creating a collection of Jewish skeletons by gassing 86 Jews from KL Auschwitz in the Struthof-Natzweiler gas chamber, and involvement in experiments on phosgene gas performed by Otto Bickenbach. Extensive literature exists on these crimes. However, there has been very little work completed on the so-called normal activity of the Institute of Anatomy of which he was head and in particular the question of deliveries of corpses. We estimate that between 244 and 724 bodies were delivered to the Anatomical Institute of the Reichsuniversität Strassburg between 1942 and 1944. In the course of our investigations, we have determined the identity of 232 corpses received between 1942 and 1944, the vast majority of Soviet prisoners of war from two hospitals for prisoners of war (Strassburg and Mutzig). Other sources of dead bodies have been found, such as hospital patients and French citizens who had been executed by shooting. Most of the corpses were used for dissection by medical students, but many anatomical preparations were also made from the bodies. The bodies were buried during and after the war, but the fate of the anatomical and histological specimens is unknown. Newly discovered archival record allowed us to identify and find three jars with tissues from the 86 gassed Jews. These pieces were in the Museum of the Institute of Forensic Medicine of Strasbourg. At this point the following proposals are made: (1) opening of the Medical Faculty of Strasbourg archives, (2) creation of an historical commission, (3) identification and publication of the complete inventory of all preparations at the Strasbourg Anatomical Museum, (4) research of the fate of the dry and wet preparations made under National Socialism, (5) verification of histological slides, embryological specimens and the tissues from the institutes already existing under National Socialism, (6) verification of the pieces of the Museum of Forensic Medicine, (7) publications of these results and information of the press and (8) creation of a memorial for the victims of the NS delivered to the Institute of Anatomy.
