Ein Haus für Pettenkofer. Wissenschaftliche Traditionspflege in München 1902–1962

Abstract

AbstractA House for Pettenkofer. Cultivation of a Scientific Tradition in Munich, 1902–1962. The article deals with three attempts to preserve the memory as well as the scientific heritage of Max von Pettenkofer, made by his successors at the University of Munich's Institute of Hygiene, Max von Gruber, Karl Kisskalt, and Hermann Eyer. All of those scientific memorials were supposed to take the form of a building: an interdisciplinary center of science and education in the city of Munich, an outpost of the Institute of Hygiene in Pettenkofer's birthplace in rural Bavaria, and a new building for the institute itself. The effort to establish such a place of memory and emulation were driven, on the one hand, by Pettenkofer's downright mythical reputation as the man who not only had established a new scientific field but saved Munich from dirt and pestilence; on the other hand, it was motivated by his successors’ respective understanding of which aspects of Pettenkofer's legacy were worth preserving as well as helpful in order to advance their own scientific and institutional standing – a calculation which turned out to be still valid and compelling more than half a decennium after Pettenkofer's death.