Hirnforschng und Krankenmord. Das Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Hirnforschung 1937 - 1945

In the years from 1940 - 1945, some 700 human brains emanating from mentally ill or disabled victims of the Nazi euthanasia were examined by scientists at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research in Berlin. The institute was linked to the apparatus of euthanasia in a variety of ways. This close association was initiated in 1937 when a change in the leading personnel at the institute effected a conceptual reorientation and a reorganization of its structure. A tight network of relations between brain research and psychiatric clinics in and around Berlin emerged. In addition, the decision to participate in research pertaining to euthanasia was considerably influenced by the military structures that had developed within the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research since 1939. Besides these decisive changes immediately preceding the mass murder, there is, however, a more long-term development within brain research to be traced, one which went back to a period much earlier than 1933 and which was favourable to opening up this field to eugenics.