Introduction: Witnessing Crime

Abstract

This chapter sets out the goals and arguments that will inform Forensic Psychology in Germany: Witnessing Crime, 1880–1939. Beginning with the ambition of the criminalist Hans Gross to forge a psychology of all those involved in criminal proceedings, the Introduction makes clear that the book will focus on the contested interdisciplinary development of forensic psychology in Germany, arguing that in spite of efforts to create a holistic science, it nonetheless largely became a psychology of the witness. Pointing to the dearth of scholarship on the history of forensic psychology, particularly for the Weimar and Nazi eras, the Introduction establishes the book’s focus on moments of dispute and debate between disciplines as well as the practice of forensic psychology in the courtroom.