[Neurological and psychiatric journals during the Third Reich : National socialistic and racist contents]

The aim of this study was to investigate scientific articles in three German journals for national socialist and racist contents. The three journals evaluated for the period of the Third Reich were the Der Nervenarzt, Deutsche Zeitschrift für Nervenheilkunde and the Archiv für Psychiatrie und Nervenkrankheiten. The specialist disciplines of neurology and psychiatry were united in the year 1935 and Ernst Rüdin, a neurological geneticist, was appointed as president (Reichsleiter) of the society. The universal idea of a degenerative development, which was believed to exert a negative influence on public health, was widely accepted in this time period; therefore, in some articles measures were called for, such as termination of pregnancy, sterilization and castration of diseased people and also of criminals. National socialist ideals became part of articles on nervous diseases, works of art of the mentally ill and suicidal tendencies. The recruitment of volunteers and informed consent for participation in human experiments were not described in scientific publications.