[Leucotomy in the early Federal Republic of Germany]. / Leukotomie in der frühen Bundesrepublik Deutschland.

Leucotomy was introduced in 1936 in Europe as a therapy for mental illness. With the end of World War II leucotomy was also introduced in the early Federal Republic of Germany. Leucotomy was applied in cases of, for example schizophrenia, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorders or even some psychopathic disorders. The operations were carried out in neurosurgical departments outside psychiatric hospitals or patients were also transferred to those which had been established in psychiatric and neurological clinics. Based on published conference reports, retrospective case reports, dissertations as well as representative samples from medical files, the use of leucotomy in West Germany until the early 1950s is presented. It becomes obvious that the introduction of leucotomy in West German post-war psychiatry was encouraged by American psychiatry and neurosurgery.

[Shock therapy and psychosurgery in the early German Democratic Republic (GDR)]. / "Schocktherapien" und Psychochirurgie in der frühen DDR.

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.

["Shock" therapies in Nazi Germany. The example of Berlin psychiatry]. / "Schocktherapien" im nationalsozialistischen Deutschland. Am Beispiel der Berliner Psychiatrie.

The idea that "shock" therapies were introduced by "Nazi-Psychiatry" very early and used radically in a cruel way darkens the image of these therapies until today. A case analysis of patient files of psychiatric hospitals in Berlin is used to recapitulate the introduction of insulin coma, metrazol and electroconvulsive therapy during the National Socialism era. Contrary to the false assumption that these "shock" therapies would have been introduced and preferred by psychiatrists involved with the Nazi regime and "euthanasia", in the case of Berlin these therapies were delayed by them and seldom used.