Reichsuniversität Straßburg

Memorial for the victims of August Hirt's racial researches at the Institute of Anatomy of Strasbourg. Plaque reads as follows: * In memory of the 86 Jewish victims assassinated in 1943 at Struthof by August Hirt, professor at the Nazi Reichsuniversität Straßburg. * Their remains rest in the Israelite cemetery in Cronenbourg. * The annexed French Faculty of Medicine of Strasburg had moved to Clermont-Ferrand. * Remember them so that never again medicine is misguided.

The Reichsuniversität Straßburg (RUS) was founded 1941 by the National Socialists in Alsace, annexed to Nazi Germany, while the regular University of Strasbourg had moved to Clermont-Ferrand since 1940. The purpose was to create a continuity to the German character of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Universität - as the University of Strasbourg was named from 1872 to 1918. In 1941, it was to the fore of German invaders to propagate the „pure German knowledge“ of national socialistic character in the annexed Alsace-Lorraine. When the Allies arrived in Alsace in 1944, the Reichsuniversität was first transferred to Tübingen and then dissolved.

Among the most famous professors serving at the RUS were Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, Rudolf Fleischmann, Walter Noddack as well as Nazi physician and war criminal August Hirt. It is at its Institut d'Anatomie Normale that he conducted his notorious experiences of "racial anatomy" and planned the Jewish skeleton collection.

See also

• Natzweiler-Struthof

References

• Teresa Wróblewska: Die Reichsuniversitäten Posen, Prag und Strassburg als Modelle nationalsozialistischer Hochschulen in den von Deutschland besetzten Gebieten. Marszalek, Toruń 2000, ISBN 83-7174-674-1
• Wechsler Patrick, La Faculté de médecine de la «Reichsuniversität Strassburg» (1941-1945), medical PhD, Nr. 191, Université Louis-Pasteur Straßburg, 1991