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With the implementation of the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service (1933), including the Third Implementation Decree (1934), the Regulation for Obtaining a Teaching License (1934) and the Law for the Dismissal and Transfer of University Teachers (1935), the National Socialist (NS) government created legislative instruments to ban university staff (from lecturers to full professors) labelled as Jewish or considered politically unwanted from teaching and research. Whereas around 20% of the staff at the universities were affected by these measures after 1933, at various medical faculties the figures reached 30–40% and at neurological departments and institutes sometimes up to 90%. Student Nazi activists played a significant role in expelling faculty members from office. As beneficiaries of the expulsions, young doctors often improved their career prospects and established professors remained silent out of political conviction, opportunism or fear. A (self) coordination (Gleichschaltung) with immediate or gradual exclusion of "non-Aryan" members and boards is documented for numerous medical organizations and associations (e.g. Deutscher Ärztevereinsbund, Hartmannbund, German Medical Women's Association, Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians) as well as for scientific academies (e.g. Leopoldina) and research societies (Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes, German Research Foundation). The NS-loyal Society of German Neurologists and Psychiatrists, which had been founded in 1935, tolerated "Jewish" members until 1938. As a whole, the picture that emerged from everyday medical (and neurological) practice is one of drastic changes that massively affected not only the lives of many doctors but also the moral standards in terms of patient care, teaching, research and collegiality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the institutional development of neurology in Germany up to the rise to power of the National Socialists and the radical sociopolitical changes after 1933. A wide range of scattered secondary literature was assessed and evaluated. Additionally, some original sources are literally quoted and interpreted according to the context. Since the end of the nineteenth century a complicated process of separation from internal medicine and psychiatry led to the formation of a self-conscious discipline of neurology. The first generation of German neurologists succeeded in founding the German Journal for Neurology ( 'Deutsche Zeitschrift für Nervenheilkunde') in 1890 and their own neurological association, the Society of German Neurologists ('Gesellschaft Deutscher Nervenärzte', GDN) in 1907. On an international scale, however, the institutional implementation of neurology with only a small number of chairs and few neurology departments remained more than modest. The ambitions for autonomy ended 2 years after the change of power in 1933. Regulatory interventions by the government and psychiatric interests led to the fusion of the GDN with the psychiatric specialist society, the new association being called the Society of German Neurologists and Psychiatrists ('Gesellschaft Deutscher Neurologen und Psychiater', GDNP) in 1935. In this group psychiatrists dominated the discourse. The expulsion, imprisonment and murder of physicians declared as non-Aryan or Jewish along with the forced consolidation ( 'Gleichschaltung') at the universities prompted profound changes in medical and academic life. It remains an ongoing challenge of neurological historical research to measure the impact of this upheaval on the few neurology departments in hospitals and private practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are only a small number of studies dealing with the impact of eugenic theories and practices on the research of particular neurological diseases during the Third Reich. Thus, this contribution to the special issue on neurology in Germany between 1933 and 1945 focuses exemplarily on epilepsy research. By drawing on primary sources and secondary literature the article tries to reconstruct the scientific discourse of the time and consider the implications for patients. National socialistic ideology was based on eugenic thinking and the implementation of eugenic policies was a major political objective. An immediate effect of this policy was the passing of the Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring ( Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses) in 1933. According to this law 'hereditary epilepsy' along with various other neurological and psychiatric disorders was regarded as a mandatory indication for forced sterilization. Subsequently, funding of epileptological research was generously increased and extended, e. g. at the German Research Institute (Deutsche Forschungsanstalt) in Munich and the Rheinische Provinzial-Institut in Bonn. The main focus was placed on idiopathic forms of the disease, which were a priori considered as hereditary. At the annual meetings of the Society of German Neurologists and Psychiatrists (Gesellschaft deutscher Neurologen und Psychiater), lectures and debates on epilepsy repeatedly constituted a key topic. Some participants opted for a broad interpretation of 'endogeneity' and thus favored an extension of the practice of sterilization but others advocated a more differentiated and restricted attitude. Several neurology researchers showed a penchant for self-mobilization in line with the doctrine of the new government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The connection between systematic killing of the mentally ill and disabled, euphemistically called 'euthanasia' in the National Socialism ideology, and German brain research has been thoroughly investigated and in detail; however, the impact of this criminal nexus on the image and self-perception of German neurologists as well as the status of neurology as a medical discipline is still the subject of controversial debates. Between 1939 and 1945 the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute (KWI) in Berlin along with other research centres were insofar enmeshed in the 'euthanasia' program as brains of killed patients were dissected in the guise of 'concomitant research' in order to generate medical knowledge. Affected were mainly individuals suffering from oligophrenia, early childhood brain atrophy, cerebral palsy and epilepsy. According to current historical research, collegial networks were instrumental in receiving brains of killed patients. Furthermore, civil research units were supplemented by military ones at the KWI. These, too, were concerned with the collection of medical knowledge, for instance on injuries of the brain and spinal cord. The historical approach to consider the Nazi organizations and medicine as 'resources for each other' seems, therefore, at least in part applicable to neurology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the consequences for neurology as a discipline which resulted from neurologists' participation in the crimes committed under National Socialism (NS). Chronologically, the current literature distinguishes mainly four overlapping stages: (1) a first phase was characterized by legal persecution and 'denazification', which was also the time of the Nuremberg doctors' trial in which no neurologists were on trial. A detailed documentation of the trial for the German medical profession was published by Alexander Mitscherlich. (2) In the subsequent practice of wide amnestying and reintegration of former Nazi followers during the 1950s, neurologists were no exception as its elite continued in their positions. The year 1953 was the year of the Lisbon scandal, when chiefly Dutch representatives protested against the participation of Julius Hallervorden in the International Congress of Neurology. The newly founded societies, the German Society for Neurology (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Neurologie, DGN) and the German Society for Psychiatry and Neurology (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Psychiatrie und Neurologie, DGPN), unanimously supported their member. (3) The next period was characterized by a nascent criticism of the prevailing attitude of covering up the crimes committed by physicians during the Nazi period. The discovery of incriminating brain sections at various Max Planck Institutes brought neurology to the focus of the debate. (4) Since the 1980s and 1990s historians (of medicine) have been systematically examining medicine's Nazi past in a professional way, which resulted in a noticeable increase of knowledge. Additionally, a new generation of scholars provoked a change of mind insofar as they recognized medicine's responsibility for the crimes committed between 1933 and 1945. We expect that future historical research will further elucidate the history of neurology during the NS regime and have consequences for our current understanding of research ethics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

John Rittmeister was a German neurologist (1898-1943) who was executed in Berlin-Plötzensee because of his decision to support organized political resistance against National Socialism. He grew up in a socially and materially privileged environment and following his final school examinations (Abitur) in 1917 he volunteered for war duties despite limited physical capabilities and was posted as a private to the war front in the Italian Alps and the Champagne district. While he was there he made his first social experiences outside his original surroundings. After the war he studied medicine and following the final state examinations and graduation he progressed to specialist training as a neurologist in Munich. At this time he came into contact with C.G. Jung. During a study period in London in 1929 he worked for several weeks as a resident at Toynbee Hall, a university institution in Whitechapel and experienced the methods of community work used there which were known under the term settlement movement. He continued his specialist activities in the neurological clinic in Zürich founded by C. von Monakow. Following the experiences in London he broke up with C.G. Jung and turned to Sigmund Freud and therapeutic analysis under Gustav Bally. In 1937 he returned to Germany. In 1939 he became director of the Policlinic of the German Institute for Psychological Research and Psychotherapy. Probably also due to his own war experiences in 1941/1942 he participated in the drafting of a flyer for the Schulze-Boysen/Harnack group against the war and after 8 months in prison he was executed in Berlin on 13 May 1943. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]