Charlotte Pommer: Resistance fighter and female pioneer of German anatomy

Abstract This article examines the biography and unique case of Charlotte Pommer (1914–2004), the only anatomist documented to have left the field during the Nazi period after encountering the regime's victims on the dissection table. While she is known for her resistance activities, newly presented documentation reveals her role as the provisional director of the Institute of Anatomy in Erlangen from 1947 to 1949. Consequently, she is likely the first woman in Germany to hold such a leadership position, albeit not as a full professor. Based on an analysis of archival sources and her personal correspondence, this study reconstructs Pommer's biography, institutional role, and life after 1945. It demonstrates that her early engagement with the resistance against the Nazi regime and the responsibilities she assumed as a young physician fundamentally shaped her worldview. These findings contribute to the historiography of women in academic science and anatomy and provide a significant case study of a contemporary witness to the Nazi era. Her late reflections illustrate that the psychological burdens and ethical dilemmas of her early career remained unresolved in old age. By interpreting her life as part of an “ongoing war among Germans,” Pommer transformed personal experience into a historical‐moral commentary on post‐war German identity. This dual perspective—documented leadership combined with a self‐authored testimony of moral struggle—renders Pommer not only a pioneering figure in German anatomy but also a witness whose medical and moral self‐conception bridges the ruptures of the mid‐twentieth century and turbulent post‐war eras in Germany.