Austrian Scientist’s Suicide Laid to Anti-jewish Discrimination

(Jewish Telegraphic Agency)

The suicide of Dr. Paul Karnmerer, noted Austrian biologist, was traced to the anti-Semitic attitude maintained in the Austrian colleges.

Friends of the late scientist disclosed today that Kammerer was despondent because of the fact that the Vienna university had refused to grant him a professorship because he was not of purely Aryan origin, his mother having been Jewish.

Dr. Kammerer belonged to the unorthodox school of science of which his friend, Professor Eugene Steinach, was one of the leading representatives. The orthodox scientific circles did not accept his theories, frowned on his socialism, opposed his aim of popularizing scientific knowledge, and for these reasons prevented fulfillment of his dream of becoming a professor in Vienna.

Last year Dr. Kammerer accepted a position as Professor of Biology in Moscow University. He returned to purchase equipment in Vienna and killed himself when the time came for him to return to Moscow. He left his rich library to the University of Moscow and his body to the Vienna Anatomical School.

The best known work of Dr. Kammerer is “The Law of Series” in which he sought to explain why one disaster such as a wreck, is usually followed by a series. He was generally interested in the study of the workings of chance and the mechanism of evolution.

The press of Vienna paid warm tribute to Dr. Kammerer, lamenting that Vienna’s scholars are no longer able to gain a livelihood here.