Die Leskys

The classical philologist Albin Lesky and the physician and historian of medicine, Erna Lesky, née Klingenstein, embodied the successful "dual-career couple" internationally. Their academic careers were influenced by various political systems, structures and functioning. To what extent were they, representatives of their generation, willing to use individual room for manoeuvring to achieve success in the scientific community? Albin Lesky, appointed prorector of the University in Innsbruck in 1942, and Erna Lesky, medical director of a home of the NSV relief organization "Mother and Child" from 1940, were loyal members of the NSDAP. After the Nazi Party was banned, they used the networks of the former members to further their academic careers. Their joint silence about and suppression of their Nazi past ensured their success after 1945. Albin Lesky, appointed to the Institute of Classical Philology at the University of Vienna in 1949, was committed to humanistic education as an international expert on classical Greek Literature and held key academic policy positions at both, the University of Vienna and the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Erna Lesky qualified as a lecturer in the history of medicine in 1957 and in 1966 became the first woman to be appointed professor at the Medical Faculty of the University of Vienna. Under her leadership, the Institute for the History of Medicine became a "Centre of Excellence". In 1973 she was elected the first female honorary member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Academic status symbols were of great most importance to the Leskys. The social-democratic educational reforms of 1975, which were the signal for the democratization of the universities, marked the final break with the authoritarian university system that had lastingly shaped Albin and Erna Lesky´s scientific habitus.