„Schocktherapien“ und Psychochirurgie in der frühen DDR

Abstract

Patient files, textbooks and published articles of the time show that the wide range of psychiatric therapies of the 1950s and 1960s was also used in the early German Democratic Republic (GDR). The use of insulin coma therapy, cardiazol and electroconvulsive therapies and especially of leucotomy in the GDR must not only be seen in the context of the international development and debate concerning these therapies up to the introduction of psychopharmaceutic therapy but also, in a similar way as in the Federal Republic of Germany, in relation to the locally sometimes different availability of insulin and cardiazol in the post-war period, different schools of academic thought and scientific research interest and priorities of the clinics concerned.

The introduction of leucotomy in Germany: National Socialism, émigrés, a divided Germany and the development of neurosurgery

“…It is assumed that the Soviet ban on leucotomy in 1950 (Lichterman, 1993; Zajicek, 2017) would have also been applied in the early GDR. However, leucotomy had actually been introduced in the Soviet occupation zone in 1948 (Rzesnitzek, 2015b). The Bernburg mental hospital, during the war one of the T4 programme killing centres, was able to introduce leucotomy, especially for private patients, because it had a specialist department for head injuries, the first neurosurgical unit in the Soviet occupation zone (Ritter, 1951; Rzesnitzek, 2015b).…”

“…Despite the Soviet ban on leucotomy in 1950, it was also being practised in other cities, such as Rostock and Jena, in the early GDR. Leucotomy was even described in Merrem’s Lehrbuch der Neurochirurgie , which appeared in 1960, a year before the Wall was built (Merrem, 1960; see also Rzesnitzek, 2015b).…”

‘Electroshock Therapy’ in the Third Reich

“…87 On the other hand, psychiatric hospitals whose clinical directors completely subscribed to the ideology of schizophrenia as a genetic disease -such as the Wittenauer Heilstätten in Berlin -changed the diagnosis in the case of a successful electroshock treatment, for example, to 'reactive psychosis'. 88 It fits that an increasing number of reactive disorders, especially in soldiers, were treated with electroshock. 89 In conclusion, the 'dialectics of healing and killing', as promoted in the 1943 'Denkschrift' letter 'Thoughts and suggestions concerning the future development of psychiatry' written by the elite of the Nazi psychiatrists, remained a pure 'ideal', unattained until the end of the Third Reich.…”

25 Jahre nach der „Wiedervereinigung“: Der Versuch einer Übersicht über die Psychiatrie in der DDR. Teil 2: Von pluralistischen Betrachtungsweisen und dem Zusammenbruch in den 1980er Jahren

“…Als Beispiel sei auf das therapeutische Repertoire hingewiesen, das von den psychopharmakologischen, somato-oder psychotherapeutischen Prämissen der Klinikdirektoren und zeitweise von der Verfügbarkeit der Medikamente geprägt war. Der Blick auf die ‚Schocktherapien', die Psychochirurgie und die Einführungs-phase der Psychopharmaka lässt Rzesnitzek sogar von "sehr verschiedenen ‚Psychiatrien in der DDR'" sprechen, und die Frage nach einer ‚DDR-Psychiatrie' erscheint ihr daher "nur eingeschränkt sinnvoll" [84]. Natürlich ist bei dieser Argumentation im Blick zu behalten, dass das Fachgebiet der Psychiatrie sui generis eine große Bandbreite aufweisteben auch an therapeutischen Varianten.…”