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German psychiatry and pharmacology both enjoyed an extraordinary international reputation prior tothe promulgation of the Third Reich. However, with the triumph of eugenic ideas and the imposition of aracial hygiene policy by the !a"i regime, various organs of the German health system saw themselvesinvolved in a perverse system of social control, in which the illicit use of psychopharmacological toolsbecame customary

#irst of all, it should be stressed that the discovery of the majorityof the psychotropic drugs available in the $rst half of the %&thcentury or of their therapeutic applications saw the substantialinvolvement of German scientists ' leaders of pharmacology onthe world stage ' either in university laboratories, including themedical faculties and their research institutions, or in industriallaboratories belonging to pharmaceutical companies, or indeed incooperative projects between the two

(odern pharmacology was born, in the opinion of most specialists,in )*+, in the former German city of -orpat now Tartu,/stonia0, when Rudolf 1uchheim )*%&')*20 was appointed 3rofessorof (edicine, -ietetics and (edical History at its university,where he founded, in )*4&, Germany5s $rst 6nstitute of 3harmacologyPharmakologische Institut0. 1uchheim5s great contribution liesin the study of the actions of the drugs available at the time with anexperimental physiological approach, in contrast to the traditionalempirical7observational one

6t should also be borne in mind that in German academiclaboratories crucial research was carried out on basic aspects ofneurochemistry and neurophysiology. 8f particular importancein this regard was the wor9 of 8tto :oewi

:oewi developedan experimental model through which he demonstrated thatstimulation of the vagus nerve in the frog heart released a substance' vagusstof ' which, appropriately collected, was capableof reproducing on another, isolated heart the same e;ects as onthe original organ . Together with /rnst !avratil )2&%')220,:oewi eventually identi$ed this substance as acetylcholine ,whose existence in mammals would be demonstrated in )2?? by@ilhelm A. #eldberg )2&&')22?0. :oewi5s $ndings won him the!obel 3ri"e for(edicine and 3hysiology in )2?4, jointly with HenryH. -ale )*=')24*0. His research also enabled Hermann #uhner)*)')2++0 to discover the enhancing e;ect on acetylcholine ofphysostigmine

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The German pharmaceutical industry, in the $rst twenty yearsof the %&th century, was dominated by two powerful companies,Hoechst #arbwer9e vorm. (eister :ucius und 1ruening0 and1ayer #arbenfabri9en vorm. #riedrich 1ayer Eo.0, which constitutedthe pharmaceutical core of a new industrial corporation,6.G. #arben 6nteressen7Gemeinschaft #arbenindustrie DG0 #ig. %0.

German psychiatry andindeed, medicine in general0 enjoyed an excellent internationalreputation before the accession to power of the !ational Aocialistparty in )2??, a date considered by some authors as the yearGerman psychiatry went ban9rupt

-uring the second half of the )2th century, the growth of somaticistapproaches led to the increasing popularity of the pessimistichypothesis of degeneration, which proposed that mental disorders,as a prototypical expression of degenerations,were nothingmore than degenerative morbid alterations transmitted by heredity

Thus, in the $rst third of the %&th century eugenicist conceptionsgained more and more ground, especially in the Eentral /uropeancontext, and it was the espousal of such conceptions thatwould eventually lead to the tragedy of the Holocaust. 3restigious

German scientists, ta9ing inspiration from popular -arwinist perspectivesregarding natural selection among species and survivalof the $ttest, widely propounded such ideas after )2&& 6t was on these pseudoscienti$c bases that the !a"igovernmentwould later introduce a policy of racial hygiene Rassenhygiene0in Germany, with extremely harmful political, social and scienti$cconseBuences.

psychiatry had an especially prominent role, since theyplaced enormous political power in the hands of psychiatrists, insofaras it was they who had to diagnose whether patients were, forexample, schi"ophrenic ' and should therefore be sterili"ed ' orwhether they were free of any mental disorder . Thus, prestigiousprofessionals were suc9ed into this !a"i whirlpool that ledinexorably to the /uthanasia 3rogrammes

neuropsychopharmacology,understood as a scienti$c discipline in its own right, andeven as a branch of the pharmacology that commands such presenceand relevance today, did not exist at the time of the ThirdReich. 6n reality, scienti$c psychopharmacology was born in the)2=&s, an authentic golden decade , which saw the discoveryand mar9eting of the principal groups of psychoactive drugs, as we9now them today antipsychotics, anxiolytics, antidepressants andmood regulators0

@ith the antecedent represented by the enactment of the!uremberg :aws, and given the imminence of war which wouldreBuire thousands of hospital beds to be freed up for wounded soldiers0,Hitler signed, on )st Aeptember )2?2 the day @orld @ar66 bro9e out0, a -ecree specifying that incurable patients, after acritical assessment of the state of their illness, will be permitted

a euthanasic death . This -ecree constituted the basis ofthe 3rogramme of /uthanasia, Gnadentod mercy 9illing0, 9nownpopularly as 8peration T+ orAktion T4, due to the location ofits administrative oIce at number + Tiergartenstrasse in 1erlin

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concentration camp prisoners, political dissidents, common criminals,vagrants, etc.0, was responsible for the deaths of more than%&&,&&& people , including ?,&&& psychiatric patients

Two years after its inception, on %+th Dugust )2+),Aktion T4was suspended, due to popular protests and to the needs of the war e;ort on the /astern #ront, though this did notsignal the endof the 9illings, which continued in furtive manner, out of sight of

public opinion, typically using less violent methods, such as leavingpatients to die of starvation . Auch procedures, carried outin the very health institutions in which the patients were beingattended, have been described as @ild /uthanasia. 3atients weremurdered through the reduction to the minimum of food rations,which practically became limited to boiled vegetables diet /0, orby turning o; the hospital5s heating system in winter . 6nsome cases doctors, psychiatrists and nurses accelerated the deathsof patients through the prolonged administration of barbiturates atlow doses, resulting in terminal pneumonia , while elsewherethe murders were carried out less discreetly, through the intravenousinjection of air or the lethal injection of various drugs, suchas opiates #ig. *D0 and scopolamine

Though lesswell 9nownthan research carried out in othermedical$elds, there is documentary evidence of some neuropsychiatric

research projects. Dmong these was a wide7ranging programmeAktion T40 on diverse forms of mental retardation and epilepsydirected by Earl Achneider )*2)')2+40, 3rofessor of 3sychiatryat the Jniversity of Heidelberg0, involving the assessmentand exhaustive long7term study of live patients from the neuropsychological,physiological and therapeutic perspectives, andculminating in the anatomopathological study of their brains aftersubjecting them to the /uthanasia 3rogramme at one of the speci$cinstitutions mentioned above. Achneider5s correspondencereveals his great interest in obtaining the approval of the programme5sassessors, and there is evidence that at least )2+ brainswere analy"ed in his department

D similar project was that coordinated by 3rofessor FuliusHallervorden )**%')24=0, sub7director of the 1erlin71uch Kaiser7@ilhelm 6nstitut K@60 for 1rain Research and senior pathologist at

one of the hospitals in the Atate of1randenburg,whoselectedfor hisresearch themost interesting brains frompatients at 1randenburg5seuthanasia centres, given his 9nowledge of their diagnosis priorto execution

Eoncentration camp prisoners constituted the principal source ofrecruitment for pharmacological studies, in which other sectorsof the !a"i regime5s health system played a substantial role 'principally the chemical7pharmaceutical industry, also lin9ed tomedical research in the death camps, where they could test drugspractically unfettered

6n any case, the real contributions to medical scienti$c progressof the all these research programmes founded on crimes by theAtate were practically non7existent. 6n the words of :eo T. Dlexander)2&=')2*=0, one of the Dmerican medical consultants for the

prosecution at !uremberg, and inspirer of the !uremberg EodeLthe result was a signi$cant advance in the science of murder, or9tenology

3ossibly the most relevant experiments carried out by !a"i doctorsand psychiatrists with psychopharmacological agents werethose related to mental control techniBues, whose immediateantecedents could be found in the so7called sleep cures withbarbiturates, developed in the )2%&s for schi"ophrenic patientsand agitated maniacs by the German psychiatrist Fa9ob Klaesi. These sleep cures or prolonged narcosisDauerschla, Dauernarkose0, proposed by Klaesi in )2%&, were

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widely advocated at the time, especially among psychiatrists inthe German sphere of inMuence. They directly involved Aomnifen#ig. )E0, a mixture of diethyl and dipropenyl7barbituric acidand diethylamine $rst mar9eted in )2%& by the Awiss pharmaceuticalcompany Ho;mann7:a Roche, and developed underthe guidance of (ax Eloetta )*4*')2+&0, 3rofessor of 3harmacologyat Nurich Jniversity. The method introduced by Klaesiinvolved a pre7medication based on morphine &.&) cm?0 and

scopolamine &.&&)cm?0 administered subcutaneously, and theinjection ?&'4& min later, either intravenous or subcutaneous,for 4' days, of Aomnifen %'+cm?0. However, there werenumerous variations on this methodology, it being customaryto prolong the state of narcolepsy for up to two wee9s at atime . (ortality rates with this procedure were very high,with deaths occurring particularly as a result of bronchopneumonia,a circumstance the !a"i authorities too9 advantage of,as outlined earlier, to implement their criminal programmes ofwild euthanasia.