Anatomy of a Cover Up?
How subtle edits hide a Nazi history.
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Psst! If you don’t know who Eduard Pernkopf is, you might want to start here –>The Pernkopf Project.
This image is from Eduard Pernkopf’s Anatomical Atlas. This is image #36 and was painted by Erich Lepier and Published in Erster Band (First Volume) in 1937. Hidden in Lepier’s signature is an icon that would would come to define one of the controversies about Eduard Pernkopf’s atlases.
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When this volume came out in 1937, Nazi icons, like the swastika, were outlawed in Austria.
Timeline: 1937
When this volume was published in 1937, by Austrian publisher Urban & Schwarzenberg, Lepier signed the painting with his last name followed by Wien for Vienna. You can see that Lepier has clearly connected the ‘R’ in Lepier with the ‘W’ in Wien and has created a hakenkreuz – more commonly called a swastika.
Pernkopf’s atlas was one of the first books published using offset lithography in Europe. It is likely that someone in the printing house used a finger nail or some other tool to remove the swastika from this image. That leaves the negative impression where the black ink should be from printing.
Timeline – 1943
At the height of Nazi influence, the volume with image 36 is reprinted. There is evidence that some copies were printed in Vienna and some were printed in Berlin. We can see the first revision of Nazi icons in the versions printed in Berlin. Notice how the darkness of the line that should make the swastika looks erased?
Notice that the Swastika is back in this edition. The original painting was not altered by the edits done in 1943. In all, there are 32 Nazi icons that end up in the 1st English edition including 22 swastikas in Lepier sigantures.
Timeline – 1963
WB Saunders, a US publisher in Philadelphia, has secured a deal to condense the 7 volumes of Pernkopf’s original atlas into 2 volumes. In order to condense the books, all of Perknopf’s writing is removed from the books.
In the second printing, without comment, the swastika was again removed. It is hard to know exactly how the swastika was removed this time. Some of the original paintings have been altered by retouching the actual painting. However, the retouch also could have occurred during the color photography.
This swastika was one of 22 Nazi icons that were edited in this second printing. Editing 22 images in one printing run represents a significant printing cost.
Timeline – 1964
WB Saunders only ordered 4,000 copies of the 1st English edition. However, John Dessau (WB Saunders editor) claims that they sold 50,000 units.* That increase in demand must have lead to an immediate second printing of the two volumes of the atlas.
* Dusseau, J.L. (1988). An informal history of WB Saunders.
Timeline: 1980
2nd English Edition
Timeline – 1980-89
Shown here are the 2nd and 3rd English editions. As you can see on the left, the 1980 edit is slightly different than the 1989 edit on the right. In all, editors of the Permkopf atlases have covered up, edited, altered, or cropped Nazi icons from all but 4 of the 37 images that contained Nazi icons when originally printed.
Timeline: 1989
3rd English Edition
Timeline – Today
Why should we still care today?
Timeline – 1937 to Present
Since its initial publishing in 1937, images from the Pernkopf atlas, including the images with Nazi icons in their signature have been published in multiple languages and have been featured in multiple other anatomical atlases including the Johannes Sobotta atlas and the Carmine Clemente Atlas. Additionally, Pernkopf images, including #36, have been used in pharmaceutical ads and medical posters. Each of these atlases have edited out the Nazi icons using similar methods.
Timeline – 1950s
Starting in the 1950s, Erich Lepier started working for the Johannes Sobatta atlas, also owned and published by Urban and Schwarzenberg. In some cases, Pernkopf images, including Lepier’s, were being used as they appeared. There is some evidence that Lepier was copying some of the Pernkopf work into the Sobotta atlas. Consider the following example.
Did Erich Lepier copy other Pernkopf artists in his Sobotta work?
Below are two images, one drawn by Franz Batke for the original Pernkopf Atlas and one drawn by Erich Lepier for the Sobotta atlas.
The angles and lines in this image seem to be a little too close to be a result of looking at similar anatomical specimens. Click or touch the video on the right to see the overlay of the two images.
Lepier images from the Pernkopf and Sobotta atlases have been used in a variety of other sources already listed, and recently including Gray’s Anatomy.
Timeline – Today
Why should we still care today?
Timeline – 1989 to Present
Elsevier acquired Urban & Schwarzenberg and the rights to the Pernkopf atlases. As they were ramping up to release new versions, the controversy about Eduard Pernkopf and his legacy emerged and became problematic.
Elsevier continued to publish Sobotta with Lepier images, but all known Pernkopf images were removed.
Timeline – 2010s
In 2019, Elsevier returned all of the original Pernkopf paintings in their possession (many have “gone missing”) to the University of Vienna.
Addendum
Remember how Lepier had a possible penchant for copying Pernkopf images?
In the most recent publishing of the Sobotta atlas in 2018, many images have appeared that are eerily close to Pernkopf images. Here is an example, does it look familiar?
For more information about Eduard Pernkopf, start here -> The Pernkopf Project.