Hermann Simon (doctor)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hermann Simon
The married couple Hermann and Elisabeth Simon around 1900
Hermann Simon and his brother Alexander Simon, who worked as an engineer in Bavaria, around 1928
Gravesite of Hermann and Elisabeth Simon in the hospital cemetery of the LWL-Klinikum Gütersloh

Hermann Simon (born March 22, 1867 in Zweibrücken , † November 14, 1947 in Gütersloh ) was a German psychiatrist and founder of modern occupational therapy .

Life

Simon studied medicine in Munich, Heidelberg, Berlin and Strasbourg. In 1891 he became an assistant at the sanatorium and nursing home in Saargemünd . In 1896 he became senior physician in Aplerbeck , where he married his wife Elisabeth (born von Bomhard, 1876–1950). The couple had two sons and a daughter. In 1902 he worked at the clinic in Lengerich (Westphalia) . From 1905 Simon was director of the Provincial Healing and Nursing Institution Warstein (today: LWL-Klinik Warstein ) before he was appointed medical director of the Provincial Healing and Nursing Institution in Gütersloh, which was newly opened in 1919 (today: LWL-Klinik Gütersloh ). From 1914 to 1918 he was in the military. After his retirement in 1934, he worked as a doctor in the Bethel reserve hospital until 1942.

plant

Simon systematized the more or less planned, simple occupations of mentally ill people in agriculture and housekeeping or the institution's own workshops into regular work assignments. Simon propagated this kind of work therapy from 1929 onwards. The positive influences of what he called “more active treatment of the sick” on both the condition of the sick and on the dreary institutional environment met with such a positive response that these experiences were already taken into account when planning the Gütersloh institution appropriate facilities have been implemented.

The new treatment method, which was intended to help overcome the treatment concepts that had hitherto been based on permanent residence for the mentally ill in institutions, spurred social psychiatry across Europe, especially in England and Holland. Simon did not publish his therapy concept until 1929 in a monograph , which provoked a conflict with the psychiatrist Otto Dornblüth , who referred to earlier work on this subject.

In accordance with his view of rigorously combating inaction, lack of cooperation and neglect of duty, Simon, as a staunch social Darwinist and hereditary biologist, not only advocated the forced sterilization of the “inferior” and “ ballast ”, but also their elimination, which he called “redemption”. He denounced the "pampering care" for the cripples, the weak and the sick and therefore welcomed Hitler's rise to power, as he saw the National Socialist race and health policy as a welcome opportunity for "social parasitism" as a contribution to the racial and biological recovery of Germany To stamp out the people. In 1929 Simon asserted: "We live in an age of general care for everything weak, sick and unfit!" And asked further: "Are we gradually getting to the point where one half of our people cares for and cares for the other, weaker half?" he group of people allegedly inferior: the physically weak, the sickly, the feeble, the moronic, the cripples, the mentally ill and came to the conclusion: "It will have to be died again." Ernst Klee criticized Hermann Simon in a speech on August 6, 2006 at the University of Hamburg, that through this definition he laid the foundation for the later murders of the sick under National Socialism .

Because of his critical stance towards the Hitler regime, he resigned from the NSDAP .

Hermann Simon Prize

Hermann Simon zu Ehren has been awarded a prize by the German Society for Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Neurology (DGPPN) for outstanding work or services in the field of social psychiatry since 1971 , donated by the Lundbeck company in Hamburg. This prize has not been awarded since 2009.

literature

  • Hermann Simon: Estate. LWL archive office for Westphalia in Münster.
  • Hermann Simon: More active treatment of the sick in the insane asylum. de Gruyter, Berlin et al. 1929 (reprint. With a foreword by Asmus Finzen and notes by Christine Teller. (= Werkstattschriften zur Sozialpsychiatrie. Vol. 41). Psychiatrie-Verlag, Bonn 1986, ISBN 3-88414-071-X ).
  • Angela Grütter: Hermann Simon. The development of work and occupational therapy in institutional psychiatry. A biographical consideration (= studies on the history of social medicine and psychiatry. Vol. 7). Murken-Altrogge, Herzogenrath 1995, ISBN 3-921801-79-6 (at the same time: Aachen, Technical University, dissertation, 1995).
  • Franz-Werner Kersting : Institution doctors between the German Empire and the Federal Republic. The example of Westphalia (= research on regional history. Vol. 17). Schöningh, Paderborn 1996, ISBN 3-506-79589-9 (also: Siegen, University, habilitation paper, 1996).
  • Hans Ludwig Siemen: Reform and radicalization. Changes in Psychiatry in the Great Depression. In: Medicine and Health Policy in the Nazi Era. Edited by Norbert Frei , R. Oldenbourg, Munich 1991 (= series of the quarterly books for contemporary history, special issue), ISBN 3-486-64534-X , pp. 191-200; here: p. 192 ( reforms and economic crisis )
  • Bernd Walter : Hermann Simon - psychiatry reformer, social Darwinist, nationalist? In: The neurologist. Vol. 73, No. 11, 2002, ISSN  0028-2804 , pp. 1047-1054, doi : 10.1007 / s00115-002-1431-z .

Web links

Wikiversity: Hermann Simon: More active sick treatment in the insane asylum (1929)  - course materials

supporting documents

  1. ↑ Achim Thon: War Victims of Psychiatry. The example of the sanatoriums and nursing homes in Saxony. In: Medicine and Health Policy in the Nazi Era. Edited by Norbert Frei , R. Oldenbourg, Munich 1991 (= series of the quarterly books for contemporary history, special issue), ISBN 3-486-64534-X , pp. 201–216; here: p. 206
  2. ↑ Thomas R. Müller: So employment is universal medicine. In: Soziale Psychiatrie Nr. 4, 2016, S. 12 with reference to: Simon, Hermann: About the open care for the mentally weak and inferior. Report, made at the meeting of the medical officers of the administrative district of Minden on September 28, 1929. In: LWL archive, inventory 661 / Simon estate
  3. ↑ quoted from: Simon, Hermann: inferiority care. Lecture manuscript from October 22, 1931. In: Archiv LWL, inventory 661 / Simon estate
  4. ↑ Ernst Klee: NS-Disabled Murder: Mocking the victims and honoring the perpetrators
  5. ↑ Neue Westfälische Nr.103 from May 4, 2011 , accessed on May 9, 2011
personal data
SURNAME Simon, Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German psychiatrist and founder of modern work therapy
DATE OF BIRTH March 22, 1867
PLACE OF BIRTH Zweibrücken
DATE OF DEATH November 14, 1947
Place of death Gutersloh