Psychiatric governance,völkisch corporatism,and the German Research Institute of Psychiatry in Munich (1912–26). Part 1

Introduction ¹

In his memoirs, Emil Kraepelin described the establishment of the German Research Institute of Psychiatry (Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Psychiatrie, henceforth DFA) in the midst of World War I as a serendipitous convergence of two supposedly chance occurrences (Kraepelin, 1983: 202–3). The first was a visit to Munich in October 1915 by Germany’s pre-eminent industrial magnate and arms producer, Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach. As a board member of Germany’s national research funding agency, the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Society, Krupp had learned of Kraepelin’s plans to build a research institute for psychiatry and urged him to pursue them. The second was a ‘conversation with an American gentleman’ that soon resulted in a substantial financial gift from him and his relatives. In Kraepelin’s account, after securing additional funding from the chemical industry, he and his collaborators established an endowment and proclaimed the founding of a German Research Institute of Psychiatry on 13 February 1917 in Munich. ²

But these two occurrences and the subsequent founding of the research institute – the world’s first institution devoted solely to psychiatric research – were no chance occurrences. On the contrary, they transpired in the context of a complex web of events and relationships that were anything but serendipitous. Accordingly, this article examines the political strategies and networks that Emil Kraepelin used to recruit support for the nascent institute. It argues that his efforts at psychiatric governance can best be understood as a form of völkisch corporatism that sought to mobilize and coordinate a group of players in the service of higher biopolitical and hygienic ends. The article turns first to pre-World War I plans for the construction of a psychiatric research institute. It then examines the wartime arguments used to justify the institute, as well as the protagonists who were actively engaged in recruiting financial and political support, the various social, scientific and political networks that they exploited, and the local contingencies that had to be negotiated in order to found the DFA.

Pre-war plans

Plans to construct a psychiatric research institute in Germany predated World War I. In the wake of the meeting of the International Congress for Mental Health Care in Berlin in October 1910, the director of the university psychiatric clinic in Giessen, Robert Sommer, proposed plans for a social-psychiatric ‘Imperial Institute for Psychiatry’ that would take the form of either an independent institution or a psychiatric department within the Imperial Health Agency (Sommer, 1910: 297). ³ Sommer’s proposal coincided with a proclamation of the German Kaiser Wilhelm II announcing a programme to create a broad array of non-academic research institutions under the imperial umbrella of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften (Kaiser-Wilhelm-Society for the Promotion of Science, KWG). The Kaiser’s proclamation spawned intense discussions within psychiatric circles about the profile of a prospective research institute. For example, in addition to Sommer, Kraepelin’s colleague in Munich, Alois Alzheimer, argued that the prospective institute should focus its research on racial hygiene (Alzheimer, 1911). Siegmund Auerbach, a neurologist from Frankfurt, recommended that it should emphasize the prophylaxis of mental illness (Auerbach, 1912). Others, warning of the ‘degenerate progeny’ and ‘parasites’ that burdened the human race, called for the ‘concentration of the psychiatric elite’ in a large central research institute devoted to therapeutic intervention (Dobrick, 1911: 382). Kraepelin’s own response to the Kaiser’s proclamation was simply to reflect generally on the relationship between research institutes and universities, without offering specific recommendations for the psychiatric research facility (Kraepelin, 1911). ⁴

A coordinated psychiatric response to the Kaiser’s programme emerged from a paper delivered by Fritz Siemens at the annual meeting of the German Psychiatric Association in May 1912 in Kiel. Siemens proposed a research institute that stressed research in endocrinology, describing it as a ‘biological research institute for the somatic foundations of mental illness’ (Siemens, 1912). ⁵ In response to this paper, Kraepelin proposed that the Association commission him to compile a report to be presented at the next annual meeting in 1913 in Breslau, where plans for the institute would be put to a vote and then submitted to the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Society. ⁶

Kraepelin’s report of 1913 placed special emphasis on clinical research and envisioned a generously equipped clinico-experimental department. In addition to a hospital ward, which he considered to be an ‘absolutely essential part’ (Kraepelin, 1916: 12) of the research institute, the department would include its own chemical, sero-bacteriological, and psychological subdivisions. The report also envisioned two other far more modestly conceived anatomic and genealogic-demographic departments. But these departments were clearly less important; indeed, Kraepelin even contemplated removing the genealogic-demographic department to the Imperial Health Agency in Berlin, believing that its connection with the Institute’s other research priorities was ‘less intimate’ (Kraepelin, 1916: 30). The strong clinical orientation of Kraepelin’s report clearly distinguished his early vision of the DFA from the endocrinological focus that Siemens had recommended, as well as from the topographic priorities of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institute for Brain Research in Berlin. ⁷ Yet it was precisely the clinical aspect of Kraepelin’s plan that seems to have become its Achilles heel, probably providing the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Society – which was loath to fund hospital beds – with the grounds needed to reject the plan shortly after it was proposed. ⁸

The biopolitics of war

The advent of World War I undoubtedly lent renewed urgency to these plans. Indeed, it is difficult to underestimate the impact that the war had on Kraepelin’s subsequent efforts to create a psychiatric research institute. The war expanded and exacerbated his deep-seated political, moral and medical concerns about the biological degeneration of the German Volkskörper and about Germany’s embattled international standing. To his mind, these concerns came down to a ‘fundamental question of our peoples’ existence’ (Grundfrage unseres völkischen Daseins) (Kraepelin, 1918c: 200) and comprised the driving force behind much of his day-to-day work routine, his public health initiatives, and his political activism during the war. ⁹

Largely because of these concerns, Kraepelin became involved in domestic politics during the early years of the war. In particular, he actively supported right-wing efforts to undercut German peace initiatives, intensify submarine warfare, and annex territory so as to ensure Germany’s lasting economic independence and political dominance as a major European power. ¹⁰ It would be a mistake, however, to identify Kraepelin’s ardent nationalism with Prussian militarism or with the semi-feudal agrarian interests of its landed nobility or Junker class. Instead, his political views are better characterized as those of a so-called ‘second right-wing’ (zweite Rechte) (Breuer, 2001). Disparaging of democratic principles and profoundly sceptical of the emerging politics of mass society, these right-wing, politically engaged citizens, far from defending the status quo at all costs, were rather more open to the processes of modernization. They identified themselves with – and were deeply invested in – such modern phenomena as nationalism, imperialism, scientific progress and technological innovation. In fact, the challenges of modernity prompted them to draft comprehensive social and biopolitical plans to re-engineer entire societies and inspired visions of a technologically saturated future that can hardly be captured within more traditional notions of ‘conservatism’. The call to arms in August 1914 ultimately reinforced such biopolitical visions and, as war casualties mounted, helped to expand the horizons of mental health policy and research.

The war not only aggravated a number of existing public health concerns, but also spawned several new ones. ¹¹ Confronting the challenges of wartime malnutrition, the spread of venereal disease and alcoholism, the treatment of psychiatric casualties, the recruitment of adequate numbers of mentally healthy soldiers, and more broadly the challenges of enhancing the mental hygiene of the general wartime population, demanded the mobilization of enormous resources. Efforts to respond to these challenges gathered pace as Germany entered its second year of war and the military’s voracious demand for resources began impinging on almost every aspect of daily life on the home front. Throughout the country, wartime officials moved to ensure the optimal utilization of scarce national resources, including medical resources.

It was against this backdrop that, in October of 1915 and apparently at the urging of Germany’s largest arms manufacturer, Gustav Krupp, Kraepelin began revising the very plans for a research institute that had lain dormant since the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Society had rejected them in 1913. Kraepelin published his revised plan in the Zeitschrift für die gesamte Neurologie und Psychiatrie (Kraepelin, 1916: 1). In this new plan he envisioned an affiliation with the university psychiatric clinic such that the research institute would not itself include a ward for psychiatric patients. This plan foresaw the university clinic’s laboratories being transferred to the DFA and the clinic’s directorship being split in two, with one director responsible for research and the other for teaching. It also placed all five departments of the prospective institute on an equal footing, thus correcting the clinical predominance of earlier plans. ¹² It was from this revised plan of 1 November 1915 that the DFA ultimately evolved.

Dramatis personae: Krupp, Loeb, Kraepelin

The prospects of Kraepelin’s plans coming to fruition were significantly enhanced at the end of 1915 once Gustav Krupp and James Loeb had endorsed and begun funding them. But the motives behind the support of these two donors differed markedly. Krupp was the most prominent supporter of brain research in Germany before World War I. Thanks almost entirely to his substantial and long-term financial support, Oskar and Cécile Vogt were able to establish their Neurobiological Laboratory in 1899 and later see it evolve into the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institute for Brain Research in Berlin. That Krupp now, in the midst of war, also began to support Kraepelin’s plans was probably due to a public scandal that surrounded the Vogts in 1915 (see Richter, 1996; Satzinger, 1998). ¹³ While out walking with her Swiss governess in Berlin, Cécile Vogt, a French national, had become involved in an altercation with another pedestrian because she had been speaking French with her companion. The incident resulted in litigation that saw Oskar Vogt being convicted of gross mischief in October 1915; national press reports complained about his lack of ‘national tact’ and insisted that professors should embody ‘an especially deep and subtle völkisch sensibility’. At the same time, Cecilé Vogt was aggressively criticized at a meeting of the Berliner Naturforschende Freude for having ‘brazenly insulted German military physicians’ (both quotes cited in Satzinger, 1998: 86). Shortly thereafter, in November 1915, the construction of the Brain Research Institute in Berlin was suspended indefinitely. ¹⁴

Given Krupp’s long-standing support for the Vogts’ research and the xenophobic attacks against them, the scandal threatened to undermine Krupp’s own public standing. While there is no direct evidence linking the two events, their timing and the context of feverish debates about war aims in late 1915 suggest that Krupp’s shift towards the DFA was related to Kraepelin’s own right-wing political views and his active support for annexationist war aims. ¹⁵ As a response to charges that he was enabling the research of a French neurologist, Krupp’s support for the DFA would have been politically expedient. In addition, as Germany’s chief manufacturer of arms and submarines, and as a strong proponent of a Central European economic zone under German influence, Krupp’s economic interests dovetailed with the aggressive annexationist war policies at the core of Kraepelin’s own robust political engagement during the war (Portz, 2000: 262–3, 265).

Altogether different considerations motivated the DFA’s most generous financier, the German-American philanthropist and banker James Loeb. ¹⁶ His support needs to be interpreted against the backdrop of his status as a US citizen who, living abroad in wartime Germany, was eager to secure political protection against reprisals that could have seen him incarcerated or his property confiscated. As the war dragged on, and especially after the sinking of the Lusitania on 7 May 1915, the question of America’s neutrality was widely discussed in Germany and the prospect of the USA entering the war against Germany loomed increasingly large. For his well-calculated generosity, Loeb was guaranteed the protection of the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior and the military high command and given immunity from restrictions that affected other foreign nationals (Burgmair and Weber, 1997: 94). Furthermore, two additional motives undoubtedly influenced Loeb’s support for the DFA: his long-standing involvement in philanthropic endeavours – most notably the ‘Loeb Classical Library’ of ancient Greek and Roman texts – as well as his own affliction with manic-depressive illness, for which he had sought treatment from Kraepelin as early as 1906.

Besides the specific personal interests of these influential benefactors, Kraepelin’s own motives were also part of the mix. His long-standing concerns about alcoholism, syphilis and hereditary degeneration intensified over the course of the war. ¹⁷ To his mind, the battle against these public ills became a biopolitical necessity. In numerous publications he pointed to the damage inflicted by the war on the German population (Volkskörper) as justification for establishing the DFA. In his revised plans of late 1915, he was already suggesting that scientific research needed to help ‘secure victory for our people in their struggle for survival’ while simultaneously invoking the spectre of a Volkskörper brought low by a ‘hoard of mildly abnormal people that we variously describe as nervous, eccentric, psychopathic or as imbeciles, inferior types, or as degenerates and sociopaths’ (Kraepelin, 1916: 2). In his address at the inauguration of the DFA he again called on his listeners to take up battle against the ‘domestic enemy’ and insisted that the war had ‘clearly demonstrated what effective weapons science had been able to forge for us to use against a world of enemies’ (Kraepelin, 1918b: 270). At the second public meeting of the DFA’s board of trustees (Stiftungsrat) on 24 May 1918 Kraepelin insisted that the nation’s fate hinged solely on that most important public health question of ‘whether in the long run the destructive or the invigorating forces of existence would gain the upper hand’ in the German population (Kraepelin, 1918c: 195). ¹⁸ If, as required by its statutes, there was any common thread that joined together all the departments of the DFA, then it was precisely this ‘fundamental question of völkisch existence’ (Kraepelin, 1918a: 335; 1918c: 200; see also Kraepelin, 1920: 315) which the war had made so unavoidable.

Völkisch corporatism

One can only assume that both Krupp and Loeb generally agreed with these views, regardless of their narrower personal and political motives. But Kraepelin also had to put his case for the DFA to other influential players. Members of the DFA’s board of trustees included not just philanthropists, but also representatives from the Bavarian Ministry of Education, the German and Bavarian Psychiatric Associations, the local medical faculty, the university, the city of Munich, the district of Upper Bavaria, and later the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Society (Kraepelin, 1920: 311). ¹⁹ All of these representatives brought their own specific, and by no means always mutually compatible, set of priorities to the table.

No doubt one of Kraepelin’s most significant political achievements as a scientist was to have harnessed such divergent interest groups and brought them together within the institutional framework and biopolitical agenda of the DFA. In spite of the fact that at the DFA’s inception he was still yearning for an ‘unimpeded ruler’ who could ‘ruthlessly intervene in people’s personal lives’, the DFA was not an achievement of ‘autocratic’ governance. Nor was it founded on democratic principles that involved moulding public opinion and building majorities in parliament. On the contrary, Kraepelin’s recruitment efforts were conducted in decidedly non-public forums. At the meeting of the board of trustees on 24 May 1918 he reminded his associates that the establishment of the DFA had been achieved ‘outside the limelight’ (ganz in der Stille): ‘The public learned nothing of the developments; there was no need to resort to using the press; there was no promotional work to speak of. And so we are justified in saying that what transpired here did so, in a manner of speaking, of its own accord; the determined will of a few people sufficed’ (Kraepelin, 1918c: 169).

In light of the DFA’s early goals and organization, Kraepelin’s strategy of governance can be best described as a kind of völkisch corporatism. ²⁰ As a model of sociopolitical organization that sought negotiated resolutions of the divergent interests of large social groups (industrial sectors, unions, professions, universities, etc.), corporatism represented a political alternative to principles of democratic governance and majority rule. This kind of mobilization of interest groups – outside, but often in cooperation with state institutions – reflected one of the most significant sociopolitical developments of late Imperial Germany (see Nipperdey, 1992: 576–95; Wehler, 1995: 1038–66). Carl Duisberg’s chemical conglomerates IG-Farben and the Verein chemischer Reichsanstalt, which he founded together with Eduard Arnhold, Heinrich Caro and Wilhelm von Siemens, were typical examples of this kind of corporate consolidation and governance. Likewise Oskar von Miller’s efforts to link large electrical systems to networks of production and consumption drew on corporate notions of governance in order to enhance the nation’s efficiency and technocratic prowess (Duffy, 2007).

Kraepelin’s own political activities in other arenas were likewise characterized by these strategies of corporate governance. Several examples help to illustrate this point. In terms of national politics, he hoped to see his ‘fatherland’ governed neither by monarchical decrees nor by democratically promulgated laws, but rather by scientific and technocratic experts who, he believed, could ameliorate mounting sociopolitical discontent in a society riven by class and ideological differences. Accordingly, in public health policy, his work to curb alcoholism and syphilis aimed at consolidating the efforts of different stakeholders within the temperance movement in order to advance a public health agenda (Edition, VI: 53–6). Furthermore, as one of the co-founders of the national Academic Faculty Day (Hochschullehrertage), he promoted the interests of university faculties and sought to mobilize and channel their influence in order to implement reforms in higher education policy. ²¹ After the war he was actively involved in a commission of the Bavarian Psychiatric Association which established state- and district-wide commissions designed to promote and protect the professional interests of psychiatric professionals. ²² Such corporate strategies, involving the marshalling and coordinating of a group of players in the service of higher biopolitical and hygienic aims, decisively influenced the establishment and development of the DFA.

Mobilizing networks

In his efforts to harness these different social players, Kraepelin exploited a number of distinct, albeit interconnected, networks of scientific elites in the Kaiserreich. One of the most important networks was the governing council (Vorstandsrat) of the German Museum in Munich. More so than any other institution in late Imperial Germany, this museum was the very embodiment of self-confident belief in scientific progress, technological enthusiasm, scientism and national prowess. In his memoirs, Kraepelin reported that it was the director of the German Museum, Oskar von Miller, who facilitated the first meeting between him and Krupp (Kraepelin, 1983: 201–2). The DFA was probably a topic of deliberation at the annual meeting of the Museum’s governing council in early November 1915 in Berlin, where several individuals intimately involved in the DFA’s early development had gathered, including Krupp, Emil Fischer, von Miller and Adolf von Harnack (Portz, 2000: 37). Around the same time, Kraepelin had also consulted with Georg Kerschensteiner, who after the war became a member of the Museum’s board and who also sat in the Reichstag as a member of the Democratic Party (Kraepelin, 1983: 201). The significance of the German Museum was explicitly underscored in the early statutes of the DFA which stipulated that the annual meetings of its board of trustees ‘be held directly after meetings of the German Museum in Munich’ (Kraepelin, 1920: 313, §4).

No less important were contacts with members of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Society’s administrative committee (Verwaltungsausschuß). Kraepelin and his associates consulted with nearly every member of that committee about the DFA. In preparing his original plans for the DFA, Kraepelin himself had contacted the president of the KWG, von Harnack (Kraepelin, 1983: 168). Krupp and the Nobel prize-winning chemist Fischer, who helped establish contacts with Duisberg and the chemical industry, were co-vice presidents of the KWG. And James Loeb successfully recruited support for the DFA from two secretaries of the KWG, the Silesian coal magnate Eduard Arnhold as well as the Member of Parliament and chemical industry representative Henry Theodore von Böttinger (Burgmair and Weber, 2003: 352, 370–2).

From the outset, the DFA enjoyed close ties to the chemical industry. ²³ Indeed, the proposal advanced by Siemens (1912: 731) had already envisioned the active support of the chemical-pharmaceutical industry. ²⁴ Certainly the most important contact in this respect was Duisberg, the general director and chairman of the board of the Bayerschen Farbenfabriken and founder in 1916 of the industry’s main interest group IG Farben. Duisberg agreed to provide financial support for the chemical department and facilitated Kraepelin’s contacts with other circles within the chemical industry (Kraepelin, 1983: 205–6). Kraepelin was also in contact with Richard Willstätter, the Nobel laureate in chemistry who had just been appointed professor at the University of Munich. Further contacts with the chemical industry were facilitated by Kraepelin’s former patient Amalie Caro. As the daughter of the BASF’s chief chemist and technical director Heinrich Caro, she was among the earliest supporters of the DFA. ²⁵

The examples of Amalie Caro and James Loeb suggest a further network that Kraepelin sought to exploit: former patients and their relatives. Kraepelin considered these individuals to be optimal targets for his appeals for support. ²⁶ In addition to Caro and Loeb, Loeb’s cousin Alfred Heinsheimer was being treated by Kraepelin and his Munich colleagues. ²⁷ Kraepelin also turned to the wealthy sister of Stanley McCormick, heir to the fortune of the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, whom Kraepelin had treated on his trip to the USA in 1908. ²⁸ Gustav Krupp’s brother had also been treated in Kraepelin’s clinic after suffering head injuries during the war. ²⁹ After World War I, the brother of Paul and Max Warburg, Aby Warburg, had also been treated by Kraepelin for his mental illness (Binswanger and Warburg, 2007: 9–13, 89, 114).

Kraepelin’s engagement in right-wing political circles in the early years of World War I also facilitated access to important benefactors. Although in his memoirs Kraepelin took pains to distance his political activities from the founding of the DFA (Kraepelin, 1983: 191–4, 201–4), in reality an important, common group of actors was involved in both endeavours. Indeed, it is impossible to isolate the emergence of the DFA from either the war effort itself or from the radicalization of domestic German politics beginning in late 1915. For example, at the meeting of the Directoral Council of the German Museum in early November 1915, members embarked on a broad-ranging debate about war policy and aims (Portz, 2000: 221–2). Furthermore, Kraepelin’s contacts with Duisberg – a leading member of the Unabhängiger Ausschuß für einen Deutschen Frieden and alongside Kraepelin an important figure in efforts to oust the German Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg during World War I – embodied the overlapping interests of the chemical industry and right-wing political groups that stoked discontent with the Imperial government and pushed for more aggressive and uncompromising war aims. ³⁰

When Kraepelin announced the pending creation of the DFA at the war-time meeting of the German Psychiatric Association in 1916, he was also in a position to exploit a network of psychiatric colleagues. ³¹ As a member of the executive committee of the Association, he had marshalled his colleagues in support of his vision for the research institute and was soon able to secure financial support of 50,000 marks from the Association. ³² Kraepelin also appealed to his professional colleagues in his efforts to staff the institute and to build up its library holdings and specimen collections (Kraepelin, 1917/18; 1983: 212–13). After the war, he extended his appeals to colleagues abroad. Recognizing that there was little prospect of garnering support for the DFA from either state or private sources in resource-strapped Germany, he appealed to professional solidarity abroad, asking Adolf Meyer, Smith Ely Jelliffe and others about support from sources in the USA. ³³ But from the outset, these early international contacts were clearly burdened by the war’s legacy and Kraepelin’s own relative lack of enthusiasm for international cooperation. ³⁴

Negotiating local contingencies

Kraepelin recognized that the emergence of the DFA from such an eclectic mix of interests and actors endangered the institution’s independence as a research facility. Hence, the DFA was structured so as to counterbalance these influences: the research posts that were offered could be terminated without notice in order to strengthen the DFA’s ‘complete independence and freedom of movement’; the DFA’s board of directors recruited representatives from numerous interest groups in order to prevent any one donor from recasting the institution’s ‘fundamental principles’; and finally, the jurisdiction of the board of directors was limited to financial concerns and did not extend to the DFA’s internal administration. ³⁵

Anticipating inevitable tensions within the DFA itself, Kraepelin also implemented structures designed to pre-empt and resolve disputes, for example the parity of department heads and regular meetings of the administrative council (Verwaltungsrat) that were designed to ‘arbitrate nascent disputes’ (Kraepelin, 1920: 323). ³⁶ But the desired equilibrium between the DFA’s different departments never really materialized. In early plans from 1915, the prospective institute was to have anatomic, chemical, bacteriologic-serologic, psychological and genealogic-demographic departments. But when the institute opened on 1 April 1918 it comprised two histopathological departments under Franz Nissl and Walter Spielmeyer, as well as one each for histotopography (Korbinian Brodmann), serology (Felix Plaut), genealogy and demography (Ernst Rüdin) and experimental psychology (Kraepelin and Johannes Lange). Lack of funds and space curtailed the development of the chemical and psychological departments, and the deaths of Brodmann (August 1918) and Nissl (August 1919) wrought havoc on early organizational planning. ³⁷ Furthermore, in September 1918 Spielmeyer was still preoccupied with his ‘military responsibilities’ and nearly accepted a call to the chair in psychiatry at the University of Heidelberg. ³⁸ By contrast, as early as 1915 the genealogic-demographic department under Rüdin was assuming the role of primus inter pares, not least because it profited directly from the demographic and biopolitical challenges posed by the war and because Kraepelin’s abiding concern for the so-called ‘degeneration question’ prompted him to insist that Rüdin ‘be granted the greatest possible latitude’ in conducting his research (Kraepelin, 1916: 30). ³⁹

In addition to these internal imbalances, external forces also impinged upon the development of the DFA. Although Kraepelin’s revised plans visualized a close affiliation with the university, relations between the DFA and the University of Munich were fraught with difficulties (Kraepelin, 1920: 311–12; Weber, 1991: 77). It was not until July 1916 that he entered into negotiations with the university, demanding that the DFA have the right to use the wards of the university psychiatric hospital, that the entire inventory of its laboratories be loaned to the DFA, that department heads of the DFA continue to receive their remuneration from the university, and that ‘all non-clinical research staff’ be transferred to the DFA. ⁴⁰ In effect, he was demanding that virtually all psychiatric research at the University of Munich be conducted under the auspices of the DFA. Not surprisingly, Kraepelin’s demands met stiff resistance within the medical faculty, which voiced grave concerns about the threat posed by the DFA to the cohesion of the hospital’s clinical, didactic and research missions (Kraepelin, 1983: 210). ⁴¹ Echoing these concerns, the university’s academic senate insisted that the DFA and the psychiatric clinic be headed by two different individuals, prompting Kraepelin to threaten the DFA’s wholesale evacuation from the clinic to the local hospital in Schwabing, where the city of Munich had promised the DFA a plot of land and – after some handwringing – control over a hospital ward with 30 beds. ⁴² Although a complete breach in relations with the university did not occur, the contractual arrangement that was drawn up and signed in September 1917 underscored the provisional character of the relationship. The contract provided for the DFA’s use of the clinic’s facilities and allowed Kraepelin to remain head of both the clinic and the DFA, but it also ensured the medical faculty a say in the appointment of Kraepelin’s successor as head of the DFA. ⁴³

Kraepelin’s relationships with state authorities in Bavaria and Berlin were marked by considerable ambiguity. On the one hand, he sought state endorsement of the DFA as a public foundation under the patronage of the Bavarian crown. In accordance with the statutes of the DFA, a representative of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Medical Affairs chaired the board of trustees, and all important resolutions required special ministerial approval (Kraepelin, 1920: 313). Kraepelin also sought funding from the Imperial Health Office by pointing to the common scientific and state interests in exploiting the resources of the public health system in order to collect and evaluate data for medical research. ⁴⁴ The DFA was also ‘enthusiastically’ supported by numerous state agencies, such as the Prussian Ministry of the Interior (Kraepelin, 1983: 207). Finally, Kraepelin’s cooperation with the Bavarian government in organizing a conference on ‘Maintaining and Improving the Strength of the German People’ illustrates how the corporatist strategies of his scientific management aimed not only to influence state policy, but also to exploit its resources (see Edition, VII: 43–4).

On the other hand, however, the DFA was founded in large part by mobilizing not state but private resources. Indeed, Kraepelin believed that ‘he could never rely on the state – constrained as it was by consideration of tax-payers’ concerns – to provide the resources needed to support large-scale institutional research. Here it was necessary for private foundations to become involved’ (Kraepelin, 1918a: 337, original italics). By the same reasoning, Kraepelin also hoped to ensure ‘greater autonomy’ for the DFA. All told, when it came to the scientific and hygiene questions that were most important to him, he preferred collaboration with corporate interests rather than the unwieldy negotiations and intangible outcomes that characterized relations with state actors, be they of democratic, monarchic or even – as in Munich in early 1919 – socialist convictions. ⁴⁵

[Part 2 of this article will be published in History of Psychiatry 27(2).]