1938: The Decimation of Vienna's Medical Faculty

Anti-Jewish persecution of scientists

The Nazi assumption of power marked the end of Vienna’s medical faculty as an internationally leading centre of medicine. The regime’s anti-Jewish policies deprived the medical faculty of a large portion of its intellectual potential. According to current research, 175 teachers – more than half of the professors and lecturers – had to leave the faculty, the majority as a result of their Jewish background. Thousands of students and graduates of the faculty, as well as an unknown number of assistants and other members of the university, were also affected by anti-Jewish measures. Only a few Jewish students were able to complete their studies in 1938 with a “non-Aryan doctorate” (“Nichtarierpromotion”), but this did not entitle them to practice their profession in the German Reich. Soon after, the university began to revoke the doctorates of its Jewish graduates due to “unworthiness”. Within a few months, two thirds of Vienna’s medical profession lost the right to continue their professional lives due to anti-Jewish persecution. People who were unable to flee faced the threat of concentration camps and extermination. Although many of the displaced people succeeded at rebuilding their lives in exile, many fell victim to the Holocaust or, like the pediatrician Professor Willhelm Knöpfelmacher, committed suicide out of desperation.