From Nazi to Hitler Analyst: The Autobiographical Reinterpretations of the Psychiatrist Johann Recktenwald (1882-1964)

Abstract

The focus of this article is the psychiatrist Johann Recktenwald (1882-1964) who has so far received little attention: acquitted of the charge of "crimes against humanity", he went public in post-war Germany with a neuropsychiatric treatise on Hitler. But is this appearance as a Hitler-critical psychiatrist consistent with the available historical sources? What was Recktenwald's relationship with the Nazi regime, and how did he behave in the "Third Reich" towards the patients entrusted to his care? The paper is largely based on documents from various archives, some of which have been evaluated for the first time, and on court records. The latter are supplemented and compared with the writings of Recktenwald and the available secondary literature. During the "Third Reich", Recktenwald served the Nazi regime in many ways, was jointly responsible for numerous patient murders and thus moved into the role of a Nazi perpetrator. After his acquittal in post-war Germany, he endeavored to construct a personal distance to National Socialism by critically examining Hitler's psychopathology, which at the same time served his own exculpation. Recktenwald is a particularly impressive example of the efforts of Nazi perpetrators to retrospectively rewrite their own role in the "Third Reich" - and at the same time a reflection of a post-war society that was willing to accept such biographical reinterpretations in order to avoid coming to terms with the Nazi past.