The Pernkopf Project is created and maintained by Professor Aaron Fried.
Edward Pernkopf was an Austrian anatomist at the University of Vienna. During the Austrian occupation by the Third Reich, Pernkopf was appointed Dean of the Medical School and then Rector of the University (this is similar to a University President in the US). Pernkopf also created an anatomical atlas during this time. As Pernkopf dissected, his artists painted his dissections. His atlas presents an ethical dilemma for modern anatomists; Pernkopf was accepting and dissecting the bodies of executed prisoners. While this was not uncommon for this time, these were not bodies of people convicted of capital offenses. They were political prisoners; executed for opposing the Third Reich, a political party that Pernkopf enthusiastically supported. Further, Pernkopf’s artists showed their support for the Reich by including Nazi iconography in their anatomical paintings.
While Pernkopf’s atlases are no longer in print, this controversy is still relevant today. Much of the work done under Pernkopf and work done by Pernkopf’s artists later in life is still in print in other anatomical atlases like the Sobotta and Clemente atlases, anatomical atlases that are still in use in colleges, universities and medical schools today.
This page is intended to provide educational resources about why the use of Pernkopf and derivative work is unethical in the anatomical sciences and how to deal with the controversy if it emerges in your area.
I have a collection of the Pernkopf atlases for instructional purposes and will travel to present findings and how we have dealt with the discovery of derivatives of Pernkopf’s works in our human donor labs.
Educational Resources Here at the Pernkopf Project:
- A Pernkopf Timeline – Timeline of major events related to the Pernkopf atlases.
- Visual History of Pernkopf Edits – Sankey Diagram of the Nazi icon edits in the Pernkopf edits.
- Anatomy of a Cover Up? – A look at how one Nazi icon changed over time in the Pernkopf atlases.
- The Pernkopf Project at MVCC – How did the Pernkopf images end up at MVCC and how did we deal with them?
Coming soon:
- Where did the bodies come from?
- Pernkopf-related Ethical Dilemmas
- Nazi icons embedded in anatomical images.
Contact Aaron Fried at afried@mvcc.edu.