[The playwright Johannes Schlaf in Altscherbitz 1895-1897 Medical records, personal testimonies and stigma]

The author and playwright Johannes Schlaf (1862-1941) is considered one of the most important representatives of the literary movement of "naturalism." It is already known that Schlaf had to be treated in psychiatric institutions several times from 1892 to 1898 due to a mental illness. His medical records from the Altscherbitz Provincial Asylum for the Insane in Schkeuditz near Leipzig, where he spent a total of twelve months between 1895 and 1897, now made accessible here, provide new insight into the nature and extent of his illness, as well as into the inner workings of this institution, which was considered internationally exemplary at the time. After his release from Altscherbitz in 1898, a dispute erupted between Schlaf and the poet Arno Holz (1863-1929) over the authorship of a jointly written work. Holz publicly exposed Schlaf's "mental illness" in an attempt to discredit him. Schlaf, in turn, attempted to ward off this stigmatization by portraying his illness as a mere "nervous crisis."