Psychiatry under National Socialism: Crimes and coming to terms with history

Psychiatry under National Socialism: Crimes and coming to terms with history

Psychiatric hospitals became cruel places of murder during the Nazi era. It is estimated that at least 250,000 mentally ill and disabled people fell victim to the brutal euthanasia program. These shocking facts were discussed by Prof. Maike Rotzoll, a renowned historian in the field of pharmacy and medicine at the University of Marburg, in a lecture entitled “After the Murder of the Sick”. The event took place as part of the Ruperto Carola Lecture Series at the University of Heidelberg, which deals with socially relevant research questions in order to bring them closer to a broad audience. This lecture series is entitled “1945: Epoch Threshold and Space of Experience” and provides both a retrospective interpretation of the end of the Second World War and a reconstruction of human experience and suffering during this time.

Prof. Rotzoll explained that the institutional psychiatric system in Germany remained largely unchanged until the psychiatric reform in the 1970s. The machinations of euthanasia and forced sterilization, in which psychiatrists were actively involved, paint a dark picture of the role of psychiatry during the Nazi era. Research shows that over 70,000 patients were murdered in killing centers between January 1940 and August 1941, often without ever being seen in person by a psychiatrist.

The role of psychiatry

German psychiatry was not only a passive witness, but also an active participant in the crimes of National Socialism. Approximately 296,000 mentally impaired children and adults were murdered between 1933 and 1945, part of a comprehensive plan to exterminate "inferior" people. Two positions on this topic are discussed: One sees a discontinuity between 1933 and 1945 and declares psychiatry a victim of political constraints, while the other speaks of a continuity of models and people before and after 1933 and emphasizes the active contribution of psychiatrists.

The prerequisites for these crimes lay in Social Darwinism and eugenics, which began in the 19th century. Racial hygiene was politically promoted in the Weimar Republic, with calls for “euthanasia” being formulated as early as the 1920s by the philosophers Karl Binding and Alfred Erich Hoche. In 1933, the “Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring” was passed, which permitted forced sterilization of disabled and mentally ill people.

Post-war period and reappraisal

Tens of thousands of patients died not only from active killings but also from negligence or medical neglect in nursing homes. The euthanasia operations were not only centralized, but also decentralized, which led to further murders in various facilities. Despite the widespread and systematic crimes, many of the doctors and psychiatrists involved were never brought to justice after the war. In the Nuremberg Medical Trials, only a few such as Karl Brandt and Viktor Brack were sentenced to death.

The crimes were not dealt with for a long time. The first scientific studies on the role of psychiatry in National Socialism were only started in the 1940s, but research only really took off in the 1960s. The complex interplay of ideological motives, medical practices and systematic murder remains a dark chapter in the history of psychiatry, affecting not only the professional community but also society as a whole. The lecture series at the University of Heidelberg conveys an in-depth examination of these topics through the lectures and promotes an understanding of the historical context and the human tragedies that took place in psychiatric institutions.

The lectures of the Ruperto Carola lecture series take place on Mondays in the auditorium of the Old University. The recordings will later be available on heiONLINE, the central portal of Heidelberg University. This ongoing examination of the history of psychiatry is essential to keep the memory of the victims alive and to learn from the past.