The two CVs of Klaus Joachim Zülch (1910-1988)

Abstract

Klaus Joachim Zülch's research on the pathology and biology of brain tumors made him one of the outstanding scholars and clinicians in the fields of neurology and neuropathology in the Federal Republic of Germany. The World Health Organization (WHO) drew on his results when laying down its classification. In the years 1961-1962 he was president of the German Neurological Society (DGN), in 1978 he became an honorary member and in 1984 honorary president. In addition to the Zülch Award of the Max Planck Society, the DGN organizes aZülch lecture at its annual meetings. Archive documents revealed that he was an early adherent of the ideology of National Socialism. He was amember of paramilitary units, joined the SA storm troopers in 1933 and the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) in 1937. After having studied under Otfrid Foerster in Breslau and Georg Schaltenbrand in Würzburg he served as a military physician and in army hospitals during and after WWII. Nevertheless, he continued his investigations at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research with Wilhelm Tönnis. In July 1947 he was dismissed on account of his SA membership but entered an objection to this decision of the Allies. After alengthy denazification trial he succeeded in being exonerated. This was also due to attestations written in his favor by various neuroscientists. Hence, he could pursue his career in Cologne and from 1959 onwards he acted as director of the newly established department of general neurology of the Max Planck Institute and simultaneously as head of the department for clinical neurology at Cologne-Merheim hospital. The juxtaposition of aCV written by Zülch himself around 1938 with another one composed after the war shows that he tried to conceal incriminating facts and partly reconstructed anew and ultimately successful biography.