The Library & Collection of the Medical Humanities (BSMH) at the Institute of the History of Medicine and Ethics in Medicine houses a collection of teaching images and an associated book collection comprising some of the estate of anthropologist and eugenicist Hans Grimm. Other parts of the estate are located at the Berlin Museum of Natural History, the Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology, and Prehistory, and the HU Berlin Archive. During the Nazi era and beyond, Hans Grimm worked at the Institute for Human Heredity and Eugenics in Kiel and at the Anthropological Institute in Breslau. From 1955, he led the newly founded Institute of Anthropology at HU Berlin.
The collection comprises approximately 6,700 35-mm slides dating from the 1920s to the 1970s. There is a particular focus on the Nazi era and the early years of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). The extensive holdings make it possible to trace the history of anthropology. The collection can also be used to compare contemporary collections of teaching images and provide historical context.
The content will undergo more in-depth indexing and contextualization through the inclusion of the associated book holdings and archival materials from the Berlin Natural History Museum and the HU Berlin Archive. IIn the winter semester of 2025/26, the slides will be contextualized and explored together with students in a seminar on Anthropological Teaching in the GDR.
Project goal
The aim is to restore, index, and digitize part of the collection for further research into the history of anthropology in Germany.