[Psychogenic blindness caused by a command to kill]

Corporal H.M. was detailed to shoot Jews as a member of a firing squad in 1941 during the German advance in White Russia. First at all, a shooting practice was to take place on the subsequent day. He became blind in his right eye overnight and as a right-handed marksman was no longer able to shoot properly. He was transferred to the front, where he was wounded. He spent 18 months in military and civil hospitals and a sanatorium until he was discharged from the army in the middle of the war because of his weak vision and "autonomic vasomotor neurosis". His psychogenic amblyopia lasted 52 years until he was afflicted with amaurotic blindness in his left eye owing to an attack of glaucoma which had not been treated in time. The vision of his right eye increased again for the first time to 0.1 (10%), but remained reduced owing to a brunescent cataract.