Memorial for the victims of August Hirt's racial researches at the Institute of Anatomy of Strasbourg

The Reichsuniversität Straßburg was founded 1941 by the National Socialists in Alsace. The purpose was to create a continuousness to the German character of the University of Strasbourg, that had been a German Imperial University 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 occupied France. The Reichsuniversität was dissolved in 1944. (The regular University of Strasbourg had moved to Clermont-Ferrand in 1940.)

Nazi physician and war criminal August Hirt was the most famous professor serving at the RUS. It is there that he conducted his notorious experiences of "racial anatomy".

[edit] 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