The history of psychiatry in Würzburg

The members of the CMH are very concerned about the role of psychiatry during the National Socialist era 1933-1945, especially because Werner Heyde, the Würzburg professor of psychiatry at the time, played a leading role in the so-called T4 campaign. Behind this name hides the systematic murder of more than 200,000 people with physical, mental and psychological illnesses under the direction of the Central Office T4 between 1940 and 1945. This group of people was considered unworthy of life and their murder was justified as "euthanasia".

Memorials in stone

In 2008, a stumbling block in memory of one of the euthanasia victims was laid in front of the building in Füchsleinstraße, and another one in 2017. In 2014, as part of a symposium on "Euthanasia" and forced sterilization in Würzburg at the time of National Socialism, a commemorative stele was erected in the old archway of the psychiatric clinic. One of the almost 1000 women who fell victim to this crime in Würzburg was the patient Margarete Höppel. On the initiative of the CMH, the address of the psychiatric clinic was renamed from Füchsleinstraße 15 to Margarete-Höppel-Platz 1 in 2016 in memory of her and on behalf of all other victims.

Exhibition and education

In 2017, the CMH brought the travelling exhibition "Captured, traced, destroyed. Sick and Disabled Persons under National Socialism" of the German Society for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Psychosomatics and Neurology (DGPPN) to Würzburg for two months. The documentation with higly emotional photos of victims and perpetrators, of measures and procedures in the implementation of the political program of a racial hygiene policy was shown nationally and internationally at 76 locations in eight different countries and on five continents.