to improve their public standing. Thus they began to hold regular monthly meetings, even in the challenging conditions of 1924,, pp. 8–9 which had to be attended by all local members. When Adolf Hitler became Germany's Chancellor in 1933, the Leopoldina started to exclude its Jewish members. Albert Einstein was the first victim because of public pressure. 1938 followed a declaration to the Nazi government, that all jewish members had been excluded, while in reality the index cards of around 70 members just got hid behind a curtain, no official member lists got published anymore and the cards got reintegrated one day after the german capitulation. Eight of them were murdered by the Nazis over the course of World War II. Nevertheless, the Leopoldina did not suffer as much influence from the Nazi regime as other German academies, thanks to the president of the Leopoldina at the time, Emil Abderhalden. While Jewish members were 'officially' expelled, the president of the Leopoldina made sure it did not go to the lengths that other academies went to at the time, the expelled didn't even get a notification about the matter, still received the member magazines and did not get exposed in the public by a statement of the society. He resisted the Nazi pressures by reorganizing Sections of the Academy and introducing a new series 'Biographies of German Natural Scientists' in 1932. After World War II, Halle became part of East Germany. During this time, the German Democratic Republic shut down all societies, leading the members of the Leopoldina to meet unofficially and in private. Efforts were made to reestablish the Academy, however. An edition of Goethe's 'The Works of Science' began to be edited under the Academy's name in 1947, and lectures started again in 1948. However, the Academy was not officially reopened until 1952. This reopening came just in time for the Academy to celebrate its tercentenary. After reopening, the Leopoldina successfully resisted attempts from the German Democratic Republic to reconstitute the Academy as a specifically East German institute and continued to think of itself as an institution for the whole of Germany. This was greatly affected by the building of the Berlin Wall in August 1961. The Academy was able to stay independent of national politics, which allowed it to bridge East and West Germany through scientific ideas. The yearly meeting of the Academy was planned for October of