The science prior to the crime-August Hirt's career before 1941

His main scientific fields were the autonomic nervous system, in which he produced a relevant contribution to anatomical knowledge, and fluorescence microscopy. His development of a special “luminescence microscope”, in cooperation with pharmacologist Ellinger, was an important advancement in the history of microscopic technique. His early research was funded by national and international sponsoring bodies and was neither unethical nor racist. As Hirt did not publish anything after 1940, those who only knew his publications might think of him as a “good” scientist. To simply dismiss Hirt as a “pseudoscientist” would avoid the question-still difficult to answer-of how he could develop from an accepted, successful anatomist to a criminal “in the name of science”.