"Resources for each other." The society of German neurologists and psychiatrists and the Nazi "health leadership"

Abstract

The history of the German Association for Psychiatry and--after its merger with the Society of German Neurologists in 1935--the Society of German Neurologists and Psychiatrists (Gesellschaft deutscher Neurologen und Psychiater, GDNP) during the period of National Socialism has been subjected to only rudimentary research. The conventionally accepted idea that two independent professional associations were "coordinated" from above and turned into the extended arm of Nazi genetic health policy (Erbgesundheitspolitik) against their will must be reconsidered. This paper asks how the relationship between the GDNP and the Nazi state can be described adequately. Psychiatry and neurology as practice and science, and the biopolicy development dictatorship of National Socialism functioned, so the basic thesis, as "resources for each other" (Mitchell Ash).