[THE UNIMAGINABLE CONNECTION BETWEEN JEWISH DOCTORS AND THE GERMAN MEDICAL TRAINING SYSTEM DURING THE NAZI REGIME].

INTRODUCTION: In his important article, Prof. G. Eshel describes the story of three Jewish physicians who returned to Nazi Germany to complete their MD thesis despite laws prohibiting Jewish students from German Universities. The three physicians completed their MD thesis examination with the help of three German Professors who supported them regardless of the laws banning Jewish students. The three physicians risked their lives by returning to Nazi Germany, as did the three professors who supported them. The three physicians returned to Palestine upon completion of the requirement for their medical licensing and continued to contribute to the medical system for many years in the State of Israel. The determination of the three Jewish physicians and their courage teaches us an important lesson on the motivation of young doctors to complete their education and practice medicine. The support of the German professors created some lights in the great darkness of the Nazi regime. Generations of physicians took a stand on non-medical issues and contributed to social justice and the wellbeing of individuals beyond medical care. We should all continue this legacy.

[JEWISH MEDICAL STUDENTS FROM THE BRITISH MANDATE OF PALESTINE/ERETZ ISRAEL - THEIR FINAL MD EXAMINATION IN BERLIN DURING THE THIRD REICH].

INTRODUCTION: Two Jewish medical students who were forced to discontinue their study upon the raise of the Nazi regime, returned/ immigrated to Palestine and did their internship in Palestine. A third student, although faced with many procedural limitations, was able to continue most of his studies in Berlin including passing the MD examination. The first two students returned, after some years, to Berlin to sit for the Doctor examination which enabled them to gain a permanent medical license in Palestine. We describe the different backgrounds of the 3 students which enabled them to do the examination at Berlin's medical faculty during the Nazi regime. The follow up of the three, revealed glorious medical career during the British mandate and during the first years of the new state of Israel. The Dissertations were signed and supported by three leading Professors of the Berlin's Faculty. Two of them were found to have a National-Socialistic background.

"Resistance leads to self-destruction": how an (a)political strategy helped Karl von Frisch succeed during the Nazi era.

Karl von Frisch, one of the leading zoologists of the twentieth century and co-founder of the Journal of Comparative Physiology A, has been frequently portrayed as an opponent of the Nazi regime because he, as a 'quarter-Jew,' faced the threat of forced retirement from his position as a professor at the University of Munich during the Third Reich. However, doubts about an active opposition role have surfaced in recent years. A litmus test for assessing the validity of this notion is provided by our discovery that four of the six core members of the anti-Nazi resistance group 'White Rose'-Sophie Scholl, Hans Scholl, Christoph Probst, and Alexander Schmorell-were his students. When they were arrested, sentenced to death, and executed, he seemed to ignore this historic event, both during and after World War II-in line with his belief that resistance leads to self-destruction, and research can flourish only by ignoring what happens around oneself. On the other hand, this seemingly apolitical attitude did not prevent him from making use of politics when it served his interests. Such actions included his (pseudo-)scientific justification of forced sterilization of people suffering from hereditary disorders during the Third Reich and his praise of the Nazi government's efforts to "keep races pure." As unsettling as these and some other political views and actions of Karl von Frisch are, they enabled him to carry out several critical pieces of his research agenda during the Third Reich, which three decades later earned him a Nobel Prize.

Introduction: Indology and Aryanism: Knowledge of India in Nazi Germany-An Invitation for New Research.

The introduction to our special issue offers a brief survey of the historical literature on knowledge about India in Nazi Germany and distinguishes three different, but interrelated layers of such knowledge: disciplinary knowledge of Indology as an academic field, knowledge fulfilling the needs of state agencies, and popular knowledge (and beliefs) about India.

"There is No Reliable Evidence to Pass Moral Judgment on Frauwallner." : Erich Frauwallner, Jakob Stuchlik, Walter Slaje, and the Whitewashing of Austrian Indology During the Time of National Socialism.

This paper engages with a little-known controversy between Jakob Stuchlik and Walter Slaje on the involvement of Erich Frauwallner, the renowned scholar of Indian philosophy (1898-1974), with NS institutions. It sheds new light on this controversy and highlights the Aryan-supremacist ideology that is reflected in Frauwallner's division of the history of Indian philosophy into an Aryan and non-Aryan period. On the whole, the paper sides with Stuchlik and exposes Slaje's attempt to whitewash Frauwallner and certain aspects of his work, despite his adoption of NS ideology and involvement with NS institutions such as the Gestapo and SA. Moreover, the paper dwells on Frauwallner's adherence to antisemitism and Aryan-supremacist ideology even after the WWII and as late as the 1960s.

Manoeuvring Across Academia in National Socialist Germany: The Life and Work of Devendra Nath Bannerjea.

The article investigates the possibilities and limits for the academic Devendra Nath Bannerjea to find employment in National Socialist Germany by producing-what he imagined to be-useful knowledge for the state. Bannerjea, who came from the Punjab in northwestern India via London, Geneva and Rome to Berlin, defies neat categorization. He was neither a National Socialist scholar, nor can he be solely understood as an Indian anticolonial nationalist. In the more than four decades he spent in Europe, Bannerjea appeared in many different roles-as an anticolonial rebel, false diplomat, researcher, and endeavouring professor. Despite his employment in different educational institutions, his publications, and his political and academic networks, he remained a second row intellectual and political activist. His activities led to repeated conflicts, first with British and later Nazi authorities, because of his radical ideas and claims to intellectual egalitarianism on the one hand, and, even more often, because of his 'creative' efforts to improve his precarious living conditions on the other.The article explores the relationship between knowledge production and National Socialist state politics through the lens of Bannerjea's life, focussing on the exchange of resources between Bannerjea and the National Socialist apparatus. Against the backdrop of the social circumstances of his livelihood, it investigates the knowledge produced by Bannerjea and the rewards he received from the National Socialist regime in return.

Gatekeepers of Extermination: SS Camp Physicians and Their Scope of Action.

The role of camp physicians of the Waffen-SS ("Armed SS," military branch of the Nazi Party's Schutzstaffel) in the implementation of the Holocaust has been the subject of limited research, even though they occupied a key position in the extermination process. From 1943 and 1944 onward, SS camp physicians made the individual medical decisions on whether each prisoner was fit for work or was immediately subjected to extermination, not only at the Auschwitz labor and extermination camp but also in pure labor camps like Buchenwald and Dachau. This was due to a functional change in the concentration camp system during World War II, where the selection of prisoners, which had previously been carried out by nonmedical SS camp staff, became a main task of the medical camp staff. The initiative to transfer sole responsibility for the selections came from the physicians themselves and was influenced by structural racism, sociobiologically oriented medical expertise, and pure economic rationality. It can be seen as a further radicalization of the decision making practiced until then in the murder of the sick. However, there was a far-reaching scope of action within the hierarchical structures of the Waffen-SS medical service on both the macro and micro levels. But what can this teach us for medical practice today? The historical experience of the Holocaust and Nazi medicine can provide a moral compass for physicians to be sensitive to the potential for abuse of power and ethical dilemmas inherent in medicine. Thus, the lessons from the Holocaust could be a starting point for reflecting on the value of human life in the modern economized and highly hierarchical medical sector.

Persecutee in the Third Reich, full professor in the GDR: The communist physician Carl Coutelle (1908-1993) and his post-war career as pathologist.

As an avowed communist, Carl Coutelle was one of the few (future) pathologists persecuted for purely political reasons in the Third Reich. Despite this peculiarity, his life has received little attention. The present article takes the existing research desideratum as an opportunity to elaborate on Coutelle's fate during the Nazi era, but also on his academic rise to the position of full professor at the University of Halle (GDR). The analysis is based on extensive files from various German archives. The article pursues a twofold question: On the one hand, it seems necessary to clarify how Coutelle's life between 1933 and 1945 can be characterized and classified, and on the other hand, it is of interest whether he owed his career in the GDR primarily to scientific merit or to state support. It can be shown that Coutelle's career path reflects the prevailing political power relations: With the beginning of the Third Reich, Coutelle was completely disenfranchised because of his political views; he was forced to emigrate, interrupted his nascent scientific career, and became actively involved in the international anti-fascist resistance. After the war, Coutelle became one of the protagonists of the socialist transformation and denazification of the health care system in the Soviet Occupation Zone. Now his career took the opposite course: Although his research performance was below average compared to other pathologists from the GDR, the avowed communist was appointed full professor - due to state intervention and against the declared will of the faculty in Halle.

[The "Hilfsverein für Geisteskranke" in the Kingdom of Saxony, a Philantropic Organisation for the Mentally Ill]. / Der Hilfsverein für Geisteskranke im Königreich Sachsen.

This article provides an overwiew of the history of the "Hilfsverein für Geisteskranke" in the Kingdom of Saxony (later Free State of Saxony) from its foundation in 1898 until its probable dissolution during World War II. The "Hilfsverein" was a philantropic organization that aimed to provide support for the mentally ill and their relatives through financial aid and education. It relied on a network of representatives spanning all of Saxony´s regions. Its work continued during the Weimar Republic after World War I, though by then it had lost influence due to economic loss and other structures of public welfare being established. In the context of the rise in eugenic and social darwinist tendencies during the 1920s, the implications of "racial hygiene" and hereditability came to be discussed among its members. After the takeover of the National Socialist Party in 1933, the "Hilfsverein" was forcibly assimilated into the Nazi welfare system and used to propagate racial ideology.

The problematic legacy of victim specimens from the Nazi era: Identifying the persons behind the specimens at the Max Planck Institutes for Brain Research and of Psychiatry.

Although 75 years have passed since the end of World War II, the Max Planck Society (Max-Planck Gesellschaft, MPG), successor to the Kaiser Wilhelm Society (Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft, KWG), still must grapple with how two of its foremost institutes-the KWI of Psychiatry in Munich and the KWI for Brain Research in Berlin-Buch-amassed collections of brains from victims of Nazi crimes, and how these human remains were retained for postwar research. Initial efforts to deal with victim specimens during the 1980s met with denial and, subsequently, rapid disposal in 1989/1990. Despite the decision of the MPG's president to retain documentation for historical purposes, there are gaps in the available sources. This article provides preliminary results of a research program initiated in 2017 (to be completed by October 2023) to provide victim identifications and the circumstances of deaths.

On Antiscience and Antisemitism.

Recent surges in antivaccine activism and other antiscience trends now converge with rising antisemitism. During the COVID-19 pandemic, authoritarian elements from the far right in North America and Europe often invoked Nazi imagery to describe vaccinations or at times even blame the Jewish people for COVID-19 origins and vaccine profiteering. Such tropes represent throwbacks to the 14th century, when European Jews were persecuted during the time of the bubonic plague. This article provides both historical and recent perspectives on the links between antiscience and antisemitism, together with the author's personal experience as a Jewish vaccine scientist targeted by both dark forces. New approaches to uncoupling antisemitism from antiscience, while combating both, are essential for saving lives and preserving democratic values.

The Origins of Camphill and the Legacy of the Asylum in Disability History.

This essay analyzes the beginnings of the Camphill movement, an international network of intentional communities for children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. At its founding in Scotland in 1939, Camphill was a community of refugees; both the staff and first disabled residents fled Nazi Austria and Germany. This circumstance precipitated an innovation: disabled and nondisabled people lived together in a family-style household. But the innovation was not so much in Camphill's structure: it was common for nineteenth and early twentieth-century asylums to resemble homes and to strive for a familial atmosphere. Furthermore, Camphill's focus on cures, vocational training, and productivity aligned with the prevailing mid-twentieth-century medical approach to disability. The innovation concerned content: Camphill did not invoke a sense of home; it was a home because its displaced founders needed it to be one. The essay concludes with a critical reflection on how the model Camphill created should be situated in disability history.

Medical experimentation on prisoners (part 2): role of doctors in research abuses.

The involvement of physicians as an executive tool in the excesses of medical experimentation in prisons continues to raise questions and incomprehension. From the depths of the extermination camps under the Nazi regime to the iterative exploitation scandals after the Second World War, the ability of certain physicians to overstep the foundations of the Hippocratic Oath of «do no harm¼ and associate themselves with so many atrocities will always surprise. The answers to this question seem ambiguous because the excesses of medical experimentation in prisons should be reconsidered in their associated historical-political context. This history note, the second in a series on medical experimentation in prisons, aims to relieve the excesses attributed to physicians during medical experimentation on prisoners.

Medical experimentation on prisoners (part 1): historical milestones.

The exploitation of prisoners in medical research is an ancient phenomenon. However, the history of the XXth century was marked by major events that reached the peak of horror during the second world war. Although the collective mind has remembered the outrages of the Nazi regime, the truth is that these practices were adopted by the majority of the military powers of that time, and continued after the end of the war. This history note is the first in a series that aims to review the circumstances and implications of these dark moments in the history of medical research in order to pay tribute to the countless victims who paid with their lives for «scientific progress¼ and to understand the reasons for current ethical considerations in biomedical experimentation on persons deprived of liberty.

[Late forced emigration without perspectives: Alfred Hauptmann and Adolf Wallenberg]. / Späte Zwangsemigration ohne Perspektive: Alfred Hauptmann und Adolf Wallenberg.

Archival documents and further biographical testimonies reveal that dismissal and expulsion on racist grounds also affected neurologists in leading clinical positions and at an advanced age. Alfred Hauptmann (1881-1948), full professor for neurology and psychiatry in Halle/Saale, member of the Leopoldina and discoverer of phenobarbitone treatment for epilepsy, emigrated first to Switzerland and then to the USA after the anti-Jewish pogroms in November 1938 and a subsequent "protective custody" imposed on him at the age of 58 years. Adolf Wallenberg (1862-1949), a self-made neurologist, described the syndrome later named after him in 1895. As a clinician he carried out research in the field of neuroanatomy until the National Socialists ousted him from his workplace in Danzig. At the age of 77 years, he emigrated to the USA via Great Britain, but did not manage to settle down again in his profession. For both physicians, neurology was their purpose in life, they felt patriotically attached to their home country and saw no future for themselves after their late forced emigration. Hauptmann is today commemorated by an award for experimental and clinical research on epilepsy, Wallenberg by the German Neurological Society award for outstanding achievements in the fields of cerebrovascular diseases, brain circulation and brain metabolism.

["Impossible to be part of this system any longer": the expulsion of neuroscientists from Frankfurt am Main (1933-1939)]. / "Impossible to be part of this system any longer": die Vertreibung von Neurowissenschaftlerinnen und Neurowissenschaftlern aus Frankfurt am Main (1933­1939).

In the 1920s, the situation of neuropsychiatry in Frankfurt was characterized by the rivalry between two institutions (Edinger Institute and University Neurology Clinic), two subdisciplines (neurology and psychiatry), and the physicians Kurt Goldstein (1878-1965) and Karl Kleist (1879-1960). After the National Socialists' assumption of power, university neuropsychiatric institutions in Frankfurt showed the highest number of dismissed university teachers and personnel in the German Reich. In neurology and psychiatry alone the university lost almost 50% of the personnel. Among those persecuted on racist grounds was Leo Alexander (1905-1985), who carried out genetic studies before 1933, prepared the "Alexander Reports" on behalf of the Allies after the Second World War, and was one of the prosecution counselors in the Nuremberg Doctors' Trial. His colleague Walther Riese (1890-1976) fled via France also to the USA and dedicated himself to the historical and ethical principles of neurology. Alice Rosenstein (1898-1991) was the first woman to specialize in neuroradiology and neurosurgery. In contrast to her male colleagues who were also dismissed in 1933, she committed herself to psychiatry after her arrival in North America and belonged to the early campaigners for the rights of homosexuals. Ernst (1905-1965) and Berta (1906-1995) Scharrer finally left Germany because of the prevailing political climate in the country. They excelled as co-founders of neuroendocrinology and neuroimmunology on the other side of the Atlantic.

Siegfried Oberndorfer (1874-1944) - A "prophet" not recognized in his own land.

On March 21, 1933, the German National Socialist Party banned Jewish doctors from practicing medicine in Germany. Soon after, it was decided to boycott Jewish businessmen, Jewish products and Jewish lawyers and all Jews were banned from working as civil servants. Professor Siegfried Oberndorfer was forced to retire from his post at the Munich Schwabing Hospital's Pathological Institute where he served as the director for 21 years and had to emigrate to Turkey. Obendorfer is known for his description and introduction of the term "carcinoid tumor". A brilliant pathologist, physician, and investigator, he contributed extensively to the pathology literature in many other areas. In Turkey, which he considered as his second home, he was appointed as the director of the newly created Department of General and Experimental Pathology at Istanbul University. There he continued his research and trained countless pathologists, and in 1937 he was the force behind the creation of the first Institute of Cancer of Istanbul University. Obendorfer died in 1944 due to complications of a mediastinal tumor. His wife was allowed to emigrate to Medellin, Colombia, where her three children resided. In September 2007, Obendorfer's grandson, Walter L. Castrillon-Obendorfer, a doctor in Colombia, was invited together with the son and daughter of Phillip Schwartz, another German refugee who emigrated to Turkey during the Nazi period in Europe, and were awarded a plaque in honor of their namesakes at the European Congress of Pathology held in Istanbul. The legacy of Obendorfer, who was a "prophet" that was not recognized in his own land, continues to this day.

[Knowledge in the labyrinths of power: Europe and the (inter)nationalization of science in the first half of the twentieth century]. / O saber nos labirintos do poder: a Europa e a (inter)nacionalização da ciência na primeira metade do século XX.

The first half of the twentieth century was marked globally by a nationalist shift, which also affected science. The initiatives to block some "national science" (especially from Germany) and the discussions that flooded Western public space are hallmarks of the radical transformations that knowledge and power underwent at the time. Based on historical literature from the time, the article explores the growing polarization of scientific discourse in the first half of the twentieth century. Special attention is given to the interwar period, the (re)founding (after 1918) of international scientific organisms based in Europe (like the International Research Council), and the prohibition of the journal Nature in Nazi Germany in 1937.

A primeira metade do século XX foi globalmente marcada por uma vaga nacionalista que não deixou a ciência incólume. As iniciativas de bloqueio de algumas "ciências nacionais" (em particular a ciência oriunda da Alemanha) e as ruidosas discussões que então inundaram o espaço público ocidental constituem marcas ineludíveis das transformações radicais que o saber, o poder e a relação entre ambos então conheceram. O artigo explora, com base na literatura histórica da época, a crescente politização do discurso científico na primeira metade do século XX. É dada especial atenção ao período entreguerras, à (re)fundação, após 1918, dos organismos científicos internacionais sediados na Europa (como o International Research Council), e à proibição, em 1937, da revista Nature na Alemanha nazista.