Eduard Portheim

Born:	10-15-1910
Faculty:	Law School
Category:	Deprivation of academic degree

Eduard Ritter PORGES von PORTHEIM (born on October 15^th, 1910 in Vienna/Austro-Hungarian Empire; name changed to "Portheim" on June 9^th, 1920 in Prague/Czechoslowakia [Praha/Czech Republic]), was the son of botanist Leopold Portheim (1869-1947), head of the botanical department of the Biological Experimental Station Vivarium in the Vienna Prater, which he co-founded, and his wife Elisabeth Portheim (née Ungar, 1886-1969).
He stdied Law and received the academic degree of Dr. iur. from the Law School at the University of Vienna on July 9^th, 1936. After the Anschluss in 1938, his parents and sister were able to emigrate to Great Britain via Prague/Czechoslovakia and Switzerland. Eduard Portheim also tried to reach England via Prague and Switzerland, but was arrested during a stay in Salzburg, Makartplatz 6, on October 16^th, 1940, and deported to the Dachau concentration camp (prisoner no. 20544). From there he was transferred to Neuengamme in January 1941 and back to Dachau (prisoner no. 27520) in September 1941. On February 23^rd, 1942, as part of the Nazi killing operation "Sonderbehandlung 14f13" (special treatment 14f13), he was deported to the killing facility Schloss Hartheim near Linz, Upper Austria, where he was murdered. In 1941, he was deprived of the doctoral degree he had earned at the University of Vienna for racist reasons, as he was considered "unworthy of an academic degree from a German university as a Jew" under National Socialism ("eines akademischen Grades einer deutschen Hochschule unwuerdig"). It was not until 67 years after the revocation and a very long time after the end of National Socialism that the doctoral degree was restored to him in 2008, or the revocation declared "null and void from the beginning". In memory of Eduard Portheim a stumbling stone (Stolperstein) was laid on March 22^nd, 2012 in Salzburg, Makartplatz 6.

Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna/graduatrion registry ("Promotionsprotokoll") IUR 1924–1939 No 4824, Rectorate GZ 1649 ex 1939/40/41; POSCH 2009, 275,  459; GAUGUSCH 2011, 2782f.; Stolpersteine Salzburg.

Katharina Kniefacz, Herbert Posch