Will Munich get a museum for the history of medicine? – Munich

High ceilings, white walls, sunlight falls through the window front onto the floor. The senior taxidermist Alfred Riepertinger is not standing in a modern reception room, but in the middle of an autopsy room in which corpses are being autopsied. On a wall above his head is the saying “Mortui vivos docent”. “The dead teach the living” is the translation that promptly comes out of Riepertinger’s mouth. Appropriate sentence for this place, after all, this is where the living bend over the dead to learn more about them.

Back then, in 1906 and 1907, when the Pathological Institute was built at the Munich Schwabing Municipal Hospital, the dead were entitled to this aesthetically designed place. Today, Rierpertinger is fighting to keep the institute as a museum. “It’s pure history,” he says.

Here the doctor and pathologist Siegfried Oberndorfer headed the institute from the beginning in 1910 to the abrupt end in 1933 – at least for Oberndorfer, who as a Jew was released by the Nazis and had fled to Turkey. The doctor was a passionate collector: skeletons and organs, prepared and documented. Livers over hearts and bones – they all tell something about a specific ailment, and help doctors better understand and heal.

Head taxidermist Alfred Riepertinger, who came here in 1975 to do community service, found the collection and expanded it over the more than 40 years that he worked here as a taxidermist. There are also specimens that he has collected from other institutes, such as stillborn children with severe deformities that are swimming in a yellowish liquid. They came from the anatomy institute when it was being renovated, says Riepertinger.

A lot of heart goes into this

There are also some preparations from the university hospital in the collection, such as the skeleton of Joseph Huber, known as “Finessensepperl”. The man, who is only 1.50 meters tall, delivered love letters to people in the 18th century and has become quite well known: his stone likeness is attached to a corner of the Karlstor. Next to it is the skeleton of the “Tegernsee Giant”, which is 2.35 meters high.

The main part of the collection, however, is made up of the many prepared organs that Riepertinger has neatly arranged next to and above one another in display cases, some of which he built himself, all with titles and inscriptions, some with photographs of the patients next to them. Many years of heart and soul have been put into this, you can feel that at the latest when Riepertinger speaks of “my livers” in front of a display case. For example, there is a crushed liver, next to it is a picture of a woman in a corset that is obviously much too tight, which pressed into her organ for years and even deformed it.

Open detailed view

Obscurities and peculiarities can be found here, but above all simply the visualization of a thirst for medical knowledge that gripped people at the beginning of the 20th century. And above all that is the respect: “You are actually entering a small cemetery here, so many destinies are visible here,” says Riepertinger. The collection consists of about 3000 specimens, about half of which are on display in the basement of the building, the other half are housed in evidence rooms.

“This isn’t supposed to be a chamber of horrors”

Normally none of this is visible to the public. Riepertinger only unlocks the door to the cellar here for certain events, for example those organized by the adult education center or on the day of the open monument. But not the latter either, it’s too much work for him, he says. The last time, in 2017, 500 people came in one day. Hardly manageable without the appropriate museum infrastructure. This is another reason why Riepertinger would like the collection to be turned into a museum. Riepertinger has no doubt that there are enough interested parties. In the medical history museums in Berlin and Vienna, people are queuing, he says, why not in Munich too?

Open detailed view

“It’s not supposed to be a cabinet of horrors, but to inspire enthusiasm for the idea of ​​medical education,” says the senior taxidermist. The 68-year-old Riepertinger has been retired for a few years, but if there is an autopsy now and again, he comes in. Otherwise there is no longer a successor. There are only about ten autopsies a year here, says Riepertinger. So he prefers to keep beating the drum for the museum cause. He’s been trying for almost twenty years. “Now things are finally moving and I have new hope,” he says.

The city council should now deal with the matter. Riepertinger has so far received support from the opposition city council faction: the CSU/free voters faction recently requested that the culture committee and the health committee discuss whether the establishment of a city medical history museum named after Siegfried Oberndorfer was possible. Lecture hall, dissection room and the collection of preparations could be made accessible to the public. A room will also be dedicated to the historical person Siegfried Oberndorfer.

Open detailed view

As early as February, the FDP/Bavarian Party faction warned against delaying the topic. Because the conversion of the Munich clinic has long been underway and the current medical concept envisages a newly built “health campus” on the site of the Schwabing clinic area, in which there are still no plans for a museum. “If action is not taken now and a decision is made to preserve the collection, it is to be feared that the collection and thus Siegfried Oberndorfer’s legacy will be irretrievably destroyed in the course of the clinic’s renovation,” says a motion by the parliamentary group.

In fact, there is a planning backlog on the site. Because the city council is waiting for a new medical concept for the entire Munich clinic at all five locations, which in turn is on hold while a new management is sought. It is already certain that pathology in Schwabing should move to Bogenhausen. But what will happen to House 32 is still unclear. “The future use is currently being checked by the specialist departments involved, so no statement can be made in this regard,” says the municipal department.

Which department of the city should now feel responsible?

In 2017, the municipal committee and the finance committee decided in a joint meeting that they were basically open to opening the collection. Only a “predetermination of house 32” does not seem sensible on the new health campus. Accommodation in houses 19 to 22 is conceivable. For Riepertinger, however, this is not an option, he insists on the pathology institute as a location. “The museum has to be created in this house. Here are the things in the place where Oberndorfer worked. And this is where they belong.”

In 2021, the cultural department came to the conclusion that parts of the collection may be valuable in the medical field, but that the existing collection is primarily used in the area of ​​medical training and further education for doctors and nursing staff and is therefore not the responsibility of the department. The municipal department then let it be known: A medical history museum will not be established, also because the financing has not been clarified.

Is an Oberndorfer Museum in Munich still conceivable? Third-party funds, special exhibitions, renting out rooms for events and film shoots: Riepertinger lists how the museum could be financed. He firmly believes that the collection would be a crowd puller. And that it’s time to pay due respect to the Jewish doctor Siegfried Oberndorfer. The descendants of the doctor also supported him in his request. It would be his dream to actually experience the opening of the museum together with Oberndorfer’s grandson at some point. “Probably leaning on walking sticks then.”