University - Asylum - Military Hospital: Heidelberg Psychiatrist Hans WGruhle (1880-1958) in Wuerttemberg, 1935-1945

Abstract

Heidelberg psychiatrist Hans Walther Gruhle (1880-1958) faced a harsh interruption of his academic career, when National Socialist authorities put into doubt his reliability in respect to their political goals in 1934. Holding a senior position at Heidelberg's psychiatric university clinic, Gruhle had been transmitted to the state-run mental asylums of Zwiefalten and Weissenau, both geographically located in Southern Wuerttemberg. In function and spatial perspective, Gruhle thus came close to forced sterilization and so-called central euthanasia, initiated by the National Socialist health administration in late 1939. From 1940 however, Gruhle found himself delegated to the military hospital at Winnenden, near Stuttgart, where he continued to be in charge until 1945. Seemingly in accord with the visions of the French Army Forces and their medical branch, Gruhle became an advisor of the French Army after the end of WW II. Sources of Baden-Wuerttemberg State Archives as well as sources from the archives of the regional mental asylums are presented here, in order to re-construct biography and functional aspects of a German psychiatrist during war time.