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[Ernst Rüdin--a Swiss psychiatrist as the leader of Nazi psychiatry--the final solution as a goal]. 1996

U H Peters
Klinik für Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie der Universität zu Köln.

The study of work and life of the Swiss-German psychiatrist Ernst Rüdin, honoured up to our time as "father of psychiatric genealogy", lead to different views. Rüdin early in his life became a racial fanatic, and as a propagandist for the purity of the "Germanic people" he constantly demanded preventive coercive measures against the reproduction of the mentally ill and other, in the racist's view, undesirable persons. With this objective in mind he started his psychiatric research. The results of Rüdin's monograph about the genetics of dementia precox do not withstand scientific criticism but confirmed his preexisting opinions. They served however as scientific reasoning for the forced sterilisation by the Nazis, for which Rüdin's comments were obligatory. The next step, to the holocaust of the mentally ill and the undesirable, was not only tacitly agreed with by Rüdin. Max Weber, Karl Jaspers and others realised at an early time the dangers arising from racial hygienics and voiced their warnings in a plain language. The surviving victims are still waiting for compensation.

UI MeSH Term Description Entries
D011056 Political Systems The units based on political theory and chosen by countries under which their governmental power is organized and administered to their citizens. Political System,System, Political,Systems, Political
D011570 Psychiatry The medical science that deals with the origin, diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of mental disorders.
D005053 Eugenics The attempt to improve the PHENOTYPES of future generations of the human population by fostering the reproduction of those with favorable phenotypes and GENOTYPES and hampering or preventing BREEDING by those with "undesirable" phenotypes and genotypes. The concept is largely discredited. (McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms, 6th ed) Negative Eugenics,Positive Eugenics,Eugenics, Negative,Eugenics, Positive
D005858 Germany A country in central Europe, bordering the Baltic Sea and the North Sea, between the Netherlands and Poland, south of Denmark. The capital is Berlin.
D006801 Humans Members of the species Homo sapiens. Homo sapiens,Man (Taxonomy),Human,Man, Modern,Modern Man
D049673 History, 20th Century Time period from 1901 through 2000 of the common era. 20th Century History,20th Cent. History (Medicine),20th Cent. History of Medicine,20th Cent. Medicine,Historical Events, 20th Century,History of Medicine, 20th Cent.,History, Twentieth Century,Medical History, 20th Cent.,Medicine, 20th Cent.,20th Cent. Histories (Medicine),20th Century Histories,Cent. Histories, 20th (Medicine),Cent. History, 20th (Medicine),Century Histories, 20th,Century Histories, Twentieth,Century History, 20th,Century History, Twentieth,Histories, 20th Cent. (Medicine),Histories, 20th Century,Histories, Twentieth Century,History, 20th Cent. (Medicine),Twentieth Century Histories,Twentieth Century History

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