Zwischen Klinik und Kaserne: Die Geschichte der Militärpsychiatrie in Deutschland und der Schweiz 1870-1914

The history of military psychiatry dates back to the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71. In the decades leading up to World War I, the military in Germany and Switzerland was a crucial field of profiling for the emerging field of psychiatry. The fledgling science of "mental illness" had a poor reputation around 1900, due in part to scientific deficiencies and a vocal anti-psychiatric civil rights movement. The prestigious institution of the military offered psychiatry an opportunity to make up for its poor image around 1900. Almost all of the important specialists of the turn of the century, from Richard von Krafft-Ebing to Emil Kraepelin to Carl Gustav Jung, participated in the development of military psychiatry. The book traces the specialist discussions surrounding the most important military mental illnesses, such as male hysteria, pathological imbecility, or the pathological wandering instinct. It also shows how the young military psychiatry asserted its interests with recruiting authorities and military courts. Thus, the first European intelligence tests were developed for the Wilhelmine army. The sensational results of the mass military psychiatric tests reinforced the contemporary horror of social degeneration. The study also takes a look at everyday life in the military and war as reflected in the medical reports of the sick. Behind the scenes of the "school of the nation" was not infrequently hidden a violent, male-bonding social life. [publisher]