Psychiatry Beyond the Asylum: The Origins of German Military Psychiatry Before World War I

This study examines the co-operation between psychiatry and the army in Germany between 1870 and 1914, leading to the establishment of military psychiatry as an independent discipline. Arguing that military psychiatry played a key role in the history of modern clinical psychiatry, the paper points out how the first generation of military psychiatrists developed innovative diagnostic technologies, such as the intelligence test, and established crucial institutional alliances between psychiatric clinics, military authorities, and local and national administrations. The early history of military psychiatry marks the transition of psychiatry from a medical sub-discipline to a more generally applicable `social technology' assessing the borderline between normality and abnormality in multiple social contexts.