Otto Krayer
Otto Hermann Krayer (22 October 1899 in Köndringen, Baden – 18 March 1982 in Tucson, Arizona) was a German-American physician, pharmacologist and university professor.
He was the only German scientist who refused on moral grounds to succeed a colleague who had been dismissed from his professorial chair by the National-Socialist government for anti-semitic reasons.
The medical historian Udo Schagen entitled his historical analysis of Krayer: "Widerständiges Verhalten im Meer von Begeisterung, Opportunismus und Antisemitismus" or 'Resistant Behaviour in a Sea of Enthusiasm, Opportunism and Antisemitism'.
From 1930 to 1932 Krayer was managing director of the Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Berlin, during Trendelenburg's severe illness and continuing after his subsequent death in 1931.
Krayer initially rejected his post verbally, as the new director of the Berlin Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Wolfgang Heubner, recounts in his diary entry from 14 June 1933: '
His letter, along with the Ministry's response, has been reported by Udo Schagen and also on the website of the Institute of Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Freiburg.
Under these circumstances, the acceptance of such a position as the one in Düsseldorf, would mean to me mental stress which would make it difficult to me to take up my work as a teacher with the joy and dedication without I cannot teach properly.
[…] I would rather refuse to achieve a position which corresponds to my inclinations and abilities than to decide against my conviction; or, by remaining silent at the wrong time, to encourage an opinion about myself which does not agree with the facts."
The State Secretary in the Prussian Ministry of Culture, Wilhelm Stuckart, imposed a ban on German universities on Krayer, which included the use of public libraries.
Wolfgang Heubner reported about a meeting in his diary on 4 July 1935:[6] "On the way I spoke with Krayer who justified his refusal to return to Germany with the impossibility of taking the Hitler oath."
[7] On behalf of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, Krayer lead a 'Medical Mission to Germany' after the war, which aimed at helping to reconstruct fields of training and research in medicine.
In contrast, many of these young people from the first semesters at university have already become suspicious concerning the doctrine preached by the Nazis, long before its deceptive and fatal nature became clear to the older generation.
On 19 July 1995, Krayer's actions from the year 1933 first became public when being mentioned in an article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, an important German newspaper.
