Psychiatry under National Socialism: Remembrance and Responsibility

Abstract

Ladies and Gentlemen! Under National Socialism, psychiatrists showed contempt towards the patients in their care; they lied to them and deceived them and their families. They forced them to be sterilised, arranged their deaths and even performed killings themselves. Patients were used as test subjects for unjustifiable research—research that left them traumatised or even dead. Why has it taken us so long to face up to these facts and deal openly with this dark chapter in our history? Although we are proud that the German Association for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy (DGPPN) is one of the oldest scientific medical associations in the world, for too long now we have been hiding, denying a crucial part of our past. For that, we are truly ashamed. It is also a disgrace that we, the DGPPN, did not even stand up for the victims in the period after 1945. Worse still, we were partially responsible for the renewed discrimination that they faced in the post-war period. We are at a loss to explain why we are only now in a position to hold an event such as this. I stand before you today as President of an association that has taken nearly 70 years to end this silence and recall the tradition of enlightenment through science in which it stands. An independent scientific commission is currently overseeing a research project that is addressing the history of the association, or rather its predecessors, in the period between 1933 and 1945. But this is not enough. Irrespective of any research results, which we expect to receive in the next few years, I must offer our sincerest apologies—albeit shamefully late—to all the victims and their families who suffered such injustice and pain at the hands of the German associations and their psychiatrists. The German Association for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy has decided to give a clear signal by holding this commemorative event as a way of acknowledging and of standing up for the victims, of coming to terms with our past and of learning from this bleak period in our history. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this commemorative event. It is wonderful to see so many of you here and I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for coming. The letters and documents we have just heard at the beginning of this commemorative event provide moving testimonials of the pain and suffering that mentally ill people were subjected to. Psychiatry under National Socialism is one of the darkest chapters in the history of our discipline. Throughout this period, psychiatrists and representatives of psychiatric associations repeatedly disregarded and heinously reinterpreted their professional duty to treat and care for their patients. The original German text of this speech of the president of the German Association for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy (DGPPN) at the annual convention of the DGPPN from 26 November 2011 was unanimously adopted by the Executive Board of the DGPPN as an Association Document on 23 November 2010. We are very grateful to Carsten Burfeind, MA (Berlin), and Prof. Dr. Volker Roelcke (Giesen) for their comments and suggestions. The German version was first published as: Schneider F (2011) Psychiatrie im Nationalsozialismus—Erinnerung und Verantwortung. Nervenarzt 82:104–120. An extended documentation of the memorial event was published as: Schneider F (2011). Psychiatry under National Socialism. Psychiatrie im Nationalsozialismus. Springer, Berlin.