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The History of the Department
Nazi Era
In 1933, the Department of Mechanical Engineering – like the
entire THM – becomes part of the Nazi system. The university
is brought into line, partly by force, partly by conviction,
partly out of anticipatory obedience; University members
of Jewish origin are expelled, as are those with politically
undesirable views. In 1933, Christian Prinz, Professor of
Mechanical Engineering, encounters hostility from students
because of his ‘red’ attitude and develops a stomach ulcer
from which he dies a short while later. Guido Zerkowitz,
Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, is dismissed
because of his ‘non-Aryan’ extraction. In 1938, he is one of
the last German scientists to join the Technion in Haifa (today
the Technical University of Israel) in what is then Palestine.
Mechanical engineer Erwin Hinlein is sentenced to two years
hard labour imprisonment following a perjury trial under
nebulous circumstances during which he loses his doctor’s
degree. After his release he is deported to the Riga-Kaiserwald
concentration camp where he dies in 1944.
The department conducts research for the army, for example
in the fields of torpedo propulsion, petrol injection and
substitute fuels for car and aircraft engines. Non-military
research is continued on a small scale.
The Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National
Socialism is currently conducting a study on the history
of the department during the Nazi era. Moreover, both the
department and the whole university are debating how
to deal with awards of honorary doctorates and honorary
senatorships which were either conferred during the Nazi era
or were conferred later on individuals who had been active
Nazis.
Design for the Technical University’s new building in Nymphenburg, 1938.
Professors of the Technical University at the 1935 ‘dies academicus’
(annual academic celebration) in the large physics lecture room.
Hermann Göring, Nazi Marshal of the Reich, leaving the ‘dies academicus’
at the Technical University, 1935.