[Do German World War II victims fulfill PTSD-criteria?]

Abstract

Objective: Long-term psychiatric consequences of World War II are currently a main medical and political topic in Germany.

Methods: This retrospective study examined 33 psychogeriatric cases.

Result: PTSD-criteria following ICD-10 were fulfilled in every case. All patients had a delayed subtype of PTSD with a latency of 14-60 years between trauma and onset of disorder. No case of chronic PTSD was found. In 26 cases a depression was diagnosed.

Conclusions: Long latencies for PTSD are a typical feature in psychogeriatrics, possibly due to the situation in post-war-Germany probably even more in the Soviet occupied zone, the later German Democratic Republic (GDR). In the GDR it was not at all a public topic to speak about Russian violence (political taboo). The depressive and psychotic comorbidity of psychogeriatric PTSD-patients should be examined more specifically in future studies.