War Shiver

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Soldiers who suffered from a specific form of post-traumatic stress disorder - the so-called war trauma (or war neurosis ) - were referred to as war tremors or shaking neurotics in German-speaking countries during the First World War and also afterwards . Among other things, was the constant shelling very distressing ( garnet shock , English shock Shell or Shellshock ). Most of those affected trembled uncontrollably (hence the name); many also had one or more of the following symptoms :

  • they could no longer stand on their own feet,
  • they could no longer use weapons,
  • they could no longer eat or refused to eat,
  • they had before banal objects such as B. hats or shoes panicked fear.

Causes and consequences

The clinical picture was caused or triggered by mental overload of the soldiers in situations to which they were exposed during the war. Originally, leading neurologists such as Hermann Oppenheim (1857-1919) believed that these disorders were caused by mechanical causes. At the time, psychiatrists and psychologists also assumed with him that the disturbances were caused by the pressure waves of exploding grenades or by loud explosion noises, the result of which were small concussions. Around 2003, the condition was also referred to as non-organic tremor and assigned to conversion disorders or viewed as a disease of expression . In 2020, the clinical picture can be classified under F44.4 in ICD-10-GM-2020. There dissociative movement disorders are described ( in psychology, dissociation describes the separation between consciousness and sensations or motor control).

The Allies called the disease Bomb Shell Disease or shell shock because it was initially believed that the pressure waves from the explosions had pressed the brains against the walls of the skull and thus damaged them.

With the exception of a few cases, there was practically no cure, as there were no therapies for such disorders at that time. The victims were mostly in need of care for the rest of their lives.

Ordinary crew soldiers were treated with extremely painful electric shocks (as opposed to officers who were given baths or sedatives) , which were intended to serve as " surprise " ("shock" and "surprise", especially as suggestive therapeutic procedures, are from all times and cultures known.). As the war went on, suspicions of hysterical simulations were increasingly voiced and those affected were accused of wanting to benefit from unproductivity and pension payments. Doctors were therefore urged to keep the number of pensioners as low as possible and to achieve cure rates between 95 and 100 percent. Propagandistic reports and films from psychiatric clinics gave the impression of "miraculous healings" more quickly. In the institutions, some of these patients died between 1915 and 1918 from diseases caused by malnutrition , as allocations to psychiatric institutions were too scarce and in some cases the death of “useless eaters” was passively accepted. In addition, physicians created a military topography based on the model of epidemic-infectious diseases in order to record the phenomenon of war emotions , which particularly emphasized an apparently clear contrast between a male-dominated front zone and a female-dominated home front (with a fluctuating stage area). For example, a doctor considered “letters from home” to be a stronger fear and excitement trigger and therefore a potentially more dangerous moment than immediate war experiences. The Tübingen internist Gustav Liebermeister saw the greatest risk of infection for war neuroses in the home area, “ where we not only have war victims, but also their relatives, a large part of the female population and otherwise very many people who act as disease vectors. “After a law of July 3, 1934, during the Nazi era , mental illnesses were no longer recognized as a result of war trauma, between 4,000 and 5,000 mentally ill veterans of the First World War were finally killed as part of the Nazi euthanasia murders.

In France, traumatized people from the First World War were referred to as “émotionnés de la guerre” (illness after a terrible event, sudden fear or the sight of dead soldiers) or “commotionés de la guerre” (mechanical shock, e.g. from a grenade explosion with a suspected consequence of finest nerve lesions). French psychiatrists excluded some clinical pictures from the general category of hysteria (which could easily come under simulation suspicion) and discussed the role of the fear of war ("anxiété", "angoisse" or "peur de la guerre"). By creating this new category, sick soldiers could be accorded the same honors as the physically disabled. Albert Devaux and Benjamin Logre , two students of Ernest Dupré , accordingly called soldiers with anxiety states "Invalides du Courage" ( invalids of bravery).

Further occurrences

In the Second World War , the specific forms of "war tremors" hardly occurred. Although there were post-traumatic stress disorders here too, these were mostly expressed in a different way.

It is believed today that it was the special form of combat of World War I, in which those affected by the war grave their natural instinct to flee have not met and again several days of bombardment were exposed. However, when the fighting conditions were similar, such as in the Battle of Stalingrad , the familiar symptoms of the war tremor reappeared .

Movie

The topic related to the First World War is dealt with in the British drama series Peaky Blinders , which is set in Birmingham in the 1920s. The topic also plays a major role in the German crime series Babylon Berlin , which is also set in the 1920s. In both series, the respective protagonists are affected by war tremors or war neuroses.

See also

literature

Web links

Wiktionary: War tremors  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ In horror: traumatized soldiers in World War I
  2. ↑ Ludwig Mann: New methods and points of view for the treatment of the war neuroses. In: Berliner Klinische Wochenschrift. Volume 53, 1916, pp. 1333-1338.
  3. ^ Thure von Uexküll : Basic questions of psychosomatic medicine. Rowohlt Taschenbuch, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1963, chap. The history of psychosomatic medicine, p. 17.
  4. ↑ ICD-10-GM-2020 F44.4 Dissociative movement disorders - ICD10. Retrieved February 8, 2020 .
  5. ^ Shell shock . In: Edward Shorter : A historical Dictionary of Psychiatry. Oxford University Press, New York 2005, ISBN 0-19-517668-5 , pp. 224 ff. And 290.
  6. ↑ See also Sigmund Freud : Expert opinion on the electrical treatment of war neurotics. [1920] In: Sigmund Freud, Collected Works, supplementary volume, texts from the years 1885–1938. Pp. 704-710.
  7. ↑ See Reinhard Platzek: The psychiatric treatment according to Kaufmann - is it really medical torture? A reflection on the modern perception of electrosuggestive therapy. In: Medical historical messages. Journal for the history of science and specialist prose research. Volume 34, 2015 (2016), pp. 169–193, on the term “surprise”, especially p. 173 f. and 179-182.
  8. ^ Gerhard Schütz: Therapeutic shock methods .
  9. ↑ Mardi Gras in Hell. The First World War and the senses. House of History Baden-Württemberg, Stuttgart 2014, p. 108 f., P. 156–159 and 166.
  10. ^ A b Susanne Michl: Emotional Worlds: Concepts of Fear in War Psychiatry. In: Deutsches Ärzteblatt. 2014, 111 (33-34), pp. 1218-1220. on-line
  11. ↑ War trauma: Hardened souls by Christoph Wöhrle from February 7, 2020 on Spiegel.omline (based on the book Illness: War by Maria Hermes-Wladarsch)