Published on 5 September 2016
After the establishment of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, the study of racial hygiene (Ressenhygiene) began to develop at the German Charles University (GCU). This subject had been generally supported in Germany since the Nazis came to power, but it gained the status of a progressive scientific discipline as early as the 1920s. Racial hygiene had its basis in eugenics; it could be said that it was the German version, yet it did differ from it in some respects. The main difference was that unlike classical eugenics, which was pursued in interwar Czechoslovakia, racial hygiene put the emphasis on the racial character of a nation, as indeed is clear from its name. Its tools, however, did not differ from classical eugenics, whether concerning support for higher birth rates or the sterilization of individuals with hereditary diseases.
Racial hygiene was taught at the Reich’s universities, primarily in the medical faculties, and this was the case in Prague, too. Lectures on racial hygiene were a compulsory part of medical studies. After a kind of provisional state during the 1938/1939 academic year, Karl Ludwig Pesch (1889-1941), the head of the Institute of Hygiene, became a “sponsor” of these subjects of study. In 1939 the Austrian physician Karl Thums was offered a position at the GCU in Prague, and became somewhat of a personification of racial hygiene in the Protectorate. He took up the position in Prague on 1 January 1940, as a teacher of heredity in biology and racial hygiene. When Pesch died in 1941, Thums remained as the only professor of this discipline at the university. His task was to create, at the local medical faculty, an exemplary department of racial hygiene, which was opened under the name of the Institute for Heredity and Racial Hygiene (Institut für Erb- und Rassenhygiene) on 1 April 1940. He worked here first as an associate professor and later as a full professor of racial hygiene.
Thums was born on 5 April 1904 in Vienna, and in 1927 he finished his medical studies. At that time, he was already interested in genetics and eugenics. Afterwards, he worked briefly at one of the Viennese clinics. In the meantime, he continued his post-graduate studies in philosophy and racial science. From his youth, Thums was inclined towards the Pan-Germanic ideology and racism, which led to his joining the Austrian branch of the NSDAP and SA in 1931. Towards the end of 1933 he went to Germany, where he joined the Keiser Wilhelm Institute for Genealogy and Demography. Here, he worked under the supervision of the psychiatrist Ernst Rüdin, who, according Šimůnek, recommended Thums to Prague. Thums participated in the occupation of the Sudetenland in 1938 – he apparently had family connections in Sudetenland. In 1939 he obtained a doctorate in the field of genetic pathology and racial hygiene, and in the following year he received a position at the GCU. In his first year Thums remained with his nascent department in building LF of Pesch's Hygiene Institute. Later, Thum’s Institute for Heredity and Racial Hygiene took over the building of the former Purkyně Institute in Albertov 4, Prague 2. The institute did not occupy the whole building, however, but shared it with the Institute of Pharmacology.
The building in Albertov offered Thums and his Institute of Racial Hygiene large premises with labs, an interview room, auditoriums (the larger of them with a capacity of 300 seats), a darkroom and a library. The institute functioned not only as an educational and scientific organization, but also it put into practice measures directly implementing racial hygiene. Of course, Thums was not performing these tasks alone. The institute employed 10 people: three assistants, a scientific research assistant, a secretary and technical staff. His closest colleague was Josef Wokatsch (1911 - ?) from Ústí nad Labem, who worked under Pesch in the fields of serology and hygiene. However, in 1942 he was called to the front. Another of his assistants was a physician from the hospital in Jihlava, Dr. Eugen Peters (1918-?). Perhaps because of the possibility of the male assistants being called to arms, Thums got mostly women for his team. Among them were, for example: Gertraud Vanino (1917–?), the replacement for Wokatsch; Herta Storm (1911–?); Theresia Hiebl; and Elisabeth Schneider (1917–?).
Thums taught the disciplines of racial hygiene, while some of the practical lessons were led by his assistants. At the medical faculty, an independent subject of study focused on racial hygiene and genetic pathology was introduced. Some courses were taught by Thums in cooperation with Bruno K. Schultz, the head of the Institute for Racial Biology at the Faculty of Natural Sciences. These two, together with Karl V. Müller, gave lectures on race and eugenics for students of the Faculty of Law. The Institute also provided professional training for future "genetic doctors" (Erbärtze), and the supervision of dissertations.
The scientific activities of the Institute were focused on research into mixed Czech-German marriages, for which they obtained a grant from the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG). Another project supported by the DFG and also by the Reinhard Heydrich Foundation was implemented in cooperation with K. V. Müller and concentrated on research into “German blood lines” in the Czech population. In addition, Thums’s department conducted research in other areas, such as: neurological genetic pathology; rare hereditary disorders and diseases (for the purposes of creating a pathological collection); twins; and the solution to population issues in the Czech Lands.
Together with his institute, Thums also provided purely “practical services” in the field of racial hygiene. This was mainly “pre-marital counselling” (Eheberatung) in connection with the commencement of the regulation of mixed (mostly Czech-German) marriages. Issues of health, genetics (racial hygiene) and race were examined. For these purposes, the Counselling Centre for Hereditary and Racial Hygiene (Beratungsstelle für Erb- und Rassenpflege) was opened on 1 April 1941. Although the centre occupied the same premises as the institute in Albertov, with the same staff, formally it was under the German Health Office (Deutsches Gesundheitsamt) in Prague as its second department. Reports on the health and racial hygiene of couples to be married were done by other German health authorities in the Protectorate, but only the one in Prague was equipped with this specialized department, which could bear comparison with its models from the Reich. In this case Thums acted as a medical officer (Amtsarzt), and together with other documents his assessment was essential for deciding whether or not the marriage was allowed.
Around the same time, Thums started the “genetic biology register” project (erbbiologische Bestandsaufnahme) for the German population in the Protectorate. These records had been made previously by the Reich’s medical authorities, on the order of the Reich’s interior minister in 1936. The aim was to keep a central record of the occurrence of hereditary diseases in the different parts of Germany. After 1938, the project was expanded to include the annexed and occupied countries of Europe. It must be said that the project comprised almost completely the ethnic German population, as the principles of racial hygiene as the “national-socialist achievement" were to be applied to Germans. Thums established at his institute the Centre for the Genetic Register of the German population of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (Zentralstelle für die Erbkartei der deutschen Bevölkerung im Protektorate Böhmen und Mähren). The centre used data from hospitals, convalescent homes, sanatoria and health authorities across the Protectorate. Information regarding Czech-German mixed marriages were also recorded in the register, possibly to be used as a basis for further research. Individual families of mixed-nationality were registered on special forms (Fragebogen für gemischtvölkische Ehen) with three types of questionnaire: one for the husband; one for the wife; and one for their children. The questionnaires included frontal, profile and three-quarter-profile photographic portraits. Among other information, the racial type was recorded. Even in the last years of the war, the expansion of the “genetic register” to include the Czech population was being planned, possibly for reasons of Germanization.
Thums also functioned as an expert witness in cases requiring the determination of paternity, especially when it was suspected that the biological father of the child was a Jew. Based on the anthropological (racial) examination, it was determined whether the child, or possibly the adult, possessed “Jewish” attributes. When the Jewish origin was not “proven” in this way, Thums used the following statement: "...does not exceed the normal variations in the attributes of the Central European population and does not manifest any signs of the Near-Eastern and Oriental racial mixing characteristic of the Jewish race.” Courts turned to Thum’s institute quite frequently to request an expert opinion. The individuals concerned, together with their families, were often called to the Institute at Albertov. The examination was very detailed and apparently lasted from three to four hours. The subjects were photographed, including details of their nostrils, ears and nape. Their fingerprints and palm prints were taken, along with samples of their hair. The examination included blood samples and drawing the structure of their irises. Altogether, over 100 anthropological indicators were investigated. Thums used Verschuer’s method of determining paternity. If Thum’s examination "proved" Jewish origin, the consequences could be fatal for the person examined. This, however, was not the only occasion on which Thums played some kind of a role in court hearings. He was also a juror at the “Hereditary Health Court” (Erbgesundheitsobergericht) in Litoměřice, which ruled on the sterilization of people with hereditary diseases and was superior to “genetic courts” of lower instance.
Thums was also very active outside his institute and held various positions in the scientific, academic and political spheres. Among other activities, he headed the Prague branch of the German Association for Racial Hygiene, was a delegate for racial policy at the regional branch of the NSDAP in Prague, and worked as an "expert on racial issues” in Sudetenland. In the autumn of 1942, he co-founded the Commission for Race and Heredity Research of the Sudeten German Institute for provincial and national research in Liberec. He was also elected a member of the German Academy of Sciences in Prague. He was an active lecturer. In his lectures, he talked about racial issues in the Czech Lands, for example, or about racial hygiene in general. However, some of his talks aroused the displeasure of the occupation authorities: K. H. Frank, for example, objected to a lecture - given by Thums at the Reich school of the German Labour Front in Poděbrady - which concerned the issue of the Germanization of Czechs. He sent a message to Thums, telling him to avoid discussing such sensitive topics at public talks in the future. Perhaps he was concerned that Nazi plans for the Germanization of the Czech lands were being revealed prematurely. Thums was involved in deciding academic policy at the GCU. He had a good relationship with the university’s ‘éminence grise’, Hans J. Beyer, and cooperated externally with the Reinhard Heydrich Foundation. Beyer helped him to the position of leader of the local group of the National Social Union of Associate Professors.
When the young and ambitious “racial expert” Lothar Stengel-von Rutkowski came to Prague, Thums' position at the GCU was threatened. Rutkowski intended to take over his institute and transform it according to his ideas. The peculiar thing is that Rutkowski took up residence in Thums's flat and they might have been friends. Nevertheless, the plans of the young German physician and anthropologist did not come to fruition. Yet towards the end of March 1945, with the assistance of Rudolf Hippe from the Institute for Social and Ethnic Psychology, both men attempted to redefine the Nazi racial doctrine in a way that would not inhibit cooperation with non-Germanic European nations. The “softer” form of racial policy was not implemented due to the impending fall of the Third Reich.
His institute was overrun and occupied during the Prague Uprising. Thums was imprisoned for two months for his cooperation with the SD, but as an Austrian citizen he called upon the repatriation commission of the Austrian Embassy and was eventually allowed to return to his country of origin. In June 1945, the Czech biologist and first post-war rector of Charles University, Bělehrádek, filed a complaint against Thums for allegedly causing serious damage to university property. Until his death, Thums worked as a doctor in a hospital in St. Pölten, but he never recanted his racial hygiene ideals, and even published them. The Czechoslovak authorities tried to investigate his possible participation in Nazi crimes.