Paul Näcke

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Paul Näcke

Paul Adolf Näcke (born January 23, 1851 in Saint Petersburg , Russian Empire , † August 18, 1913 in Colditz ) was a German psychiatrist and criminologist . Näcke is known for his numerous scientific writings on homosexuality . He introduced the term narcissism as a neologism into the psychiatric discussion at the turn of the century.

Life

Paul Näcke was born in Saint Petersburg in 1851 to a German father, a musician from the Saxon Erzgebirge , and a French-speaking Swiss woman. When he was five, Näcke came to Dresden to go to school. He attended the grammar school for the golden cross. As a schoolboy he showed great interest in languages, geography , art and cultural history . Näcke is said to have mastered seven languages ​​- spoken and written - and to have been a good expert on Italy , Great Britain , France and Spain .

He studied in Leipzig from 1870 to 1872 and in Würzburg from 1872 to 1874 , where he received his doctorate in 1873 (summa cum laude). The title of his dissertation is: On intestinal perforation and typhus abdominalis . After obtaining his license to practice medicine, he worked in various Parisian hospitals, with von Winckel at the gynecological clinic in Dresden and at hospitals in Danzig and Königsberg . He also worked briefly as a general practitioner.

He then turned to psychiatry and joined the psychiatric service of the Kingdom of Saxony on February 1, 1880, as an institution doctor . Until 1889 he was an institution doctor in Colditz and Sonnenstein , from 1889 in Hubertusburg . In 1894 he became senior physician , in 1902 medical advisor and a short time later medical director of the institution for mentally ill men at Hubertusburg Palace, in Wermsdorf near Leipzig. In 1912 he became director of the care house for incurable mentally ill people at Colditz Castle. In his time he was considered an "excellent psychiatrist".

Paul Näcke's grave in the Old Annenfriedhof in Dresden

Together with Hans Gross , a Graz professor for criminology and founder of criminology , he founded the archive for criminal anthropology and forensics in 1898 . He was an honorary and corresponding member of a good dozen scientific societies in different countries. He was awarded the honorary title "Professor" by the Kingdom of Saxony.

In November 1907 he examined Karl May's state of mind during a visit to Radebeul . There is a lively correspondence between the two of them.

Näcke died suddenly on August 18, 1913, after only two days of illness, of cardiac paralysis caused by arteriosclerosis . All his life he suffered from a neurasthenic syndrome, which he described in detail in the Neurologische Centralblatt in 1893. He was buried in the Old Annenfriedhof in Dresden.

Paul Näcke had been married to Fanny Helene Hänel since 1886 and had four children. One of his daughters followed in her father's footsteps and chose the same profession.

Näcke's ancestors include the brothers Gustav Heinrich Naecke (1785–1835) and August Ferdinand Naeke (1788–1838).

theory

It is not easy to get to the heart of the topics and objects that interested Paul Näcke. So he contributed scientifically to medicine , philosophy , history , ethnography , archeology , architecture . A list of the 146 main works can be found in No. 26 of the Psychiatrisch Neurologische Wochenschrift of September 27, 1913.

However, he made his most important contributions to criminology and criminal anthropology, sexology and psychology . The scriptures are more of a referential nature.

Criminology and criminal anthropology

In 1884 Paul Näcke wrote the first monograph on female crime in Germany. There he represented, pioneering for the time, the "reasonable emancipation of women", which of course did not mean equality . In relation to his clientele, this means that gainful employment prevents women from prostitution and crime .

Paul Näcke is considered a vehement opponent of the Italian or positive school of criminology , whose founder and main representative was Cesare Lombroso . Näcke described the works of Lombroso as characterized by "arbitrariness, exaggeration, hasty conclusions", so that they had to be denied the scientific claim. Näcke is largely responsible for ensuring that Lombroso's teaching did not find its way into Germany. Because, according to Näcke, criminals are primarily the product of external influences and not, as with Lombroso, of biological origin. This does not mean that Näcke rejected biological markers for crimes, but he argued for a more differentiated view and tried to find exact scientific methods in the description and identification of "criminals" and advocated new methods such as dactyloscopy .

Paul Näcke was one of the first advocates (1889) of the castration of certain classes and the sterilization of "degenerate criminals" and "degenerates" in general. He saw it as a state duty to render "degenerate" sterile. Around 1900 he published a work in the archive for criminology with the title Castration in certain classes of degenerate as an effective social protection . Internationally recognized and valued, he took part in the debate that is now considered racist about the unsuitability of the "negroes" for integration into American society through a review . In 1906 he discussed the question of the "so-called degeneracy of Romanic peoples, especially in France" in the Archive for Race and Social Biology (ARGB).

On the other hand, Näcke did not make a clear statement on the Jewish question. Although he stated the existence of a Jewish character, which was only described in vague and general lines, and named this as the reason for crimes committed by Jews, these crimes are no more common than among other races. Despite statements that are racist from today's perspective, he cannot be considered a racial hygienist , as has been shown at times. Näcke is always concerned with the question of guilt in a crime, not with the inferior race itself when it comes to castration or imprisonment . He advocates the thesis , which was progressive for his time , that everyone is a "latent criminal" and that one should rather subdivide into "the punished and the unpunished". In this respect, only "active" mentally ill criminals should and should be locked up in the Andex institutions affiliated with prisons , the others in sanatoriums .

He saw literature , for example the work of Émile Zola , as a means of spreading anthropological theories.

In 1912, Näcke wrote convincingly against the diagnosis of "moral insanity", which was common at the time, and rejected it as a separate form of illness.

Sexology

Influenced by Magnus Hirschfeld's research (or vice versa?), He developed the idea that homosexuality should not be viewed as an acquired mental illness , but that it is innate as a natural property. He represented the widespread thesis of the basic bisexual disposition of humans, whereby the homosexual withered in the course of puberty . If, on the other hand, the opposite-sex withered away, homosexuality would arise, both would remain intact, bisexuality . It is up to his colleague Emil Kraepelin to have rejected this view as untenable. Nevertheless, he is considered to be one of the first advocates of the "real" versus pseudo or casual homosexuality as observed by psychiatrists and prison directors among their clientele.

He published studies on the diagnosis and classification of homosexuality, with male menstruation as clear evidence of a continuum between male and female sexuality. There are also numerous studies on homosexuality in Romance countries and Berlin . For the latter, he let Magnus Hirschfeld guide him through the relevant Berlin districts. Näcke also examined the effects of sexual abstinence , the diagnostic value of erotic dreams, etc.

Psychology and psychoanalysis

Näcke introduced the term narcissism as "self-love" and "the most severe form of autoerotism" into psychological literature. This concept had a strong influence on Sigmund Freud . However, Näcke's narcissism is a very rare phenomenon (only a few in 1500 psychiatric patients examined) and must be distinguished from vanity . Narcissism only exists when someone gets into sexual arousal solely by looking at their own body , and this is then to be classified as perversion .

bibliography

  • Crime and madness in women with prospects for criminal anthropology in general: clinical-statistical, anthropological-biological and craniological investigations / Leipzig and Vienna: Wilhelm Braumüller, 1894 digitized
  • About Criminal Psychology / Vienna Clinical Review, 1896, No. 46-48.
  • Literature review. Criminal anthropology and prison science / journal for the entire criminal law science, 18, Berlin, 1897
  • Critical to the chapter on normal and pathological sexuality / Archive for Psychiatry, Berlin, 32, 1899, 356–386
  • Castration in certain classes of degenerate people as an effective social protection / archive for criminal anthropology and criminalistics, 3 (1900), 58–84.
  • Criminal Anthropology / Annual Report for Neurology and Psychiatry, Berlin, 1898
  • The accommodation of insane criminals / Halle a. S .: Marhold, 1902
  • About the so-called "Moral Insanity" / Wiesbaden: Bergmann, 1902
  • Judge and expert. Some words from the explanation / Neurological Centralblatt, Vol. 21 No. 9, Leipzig 1902, p. 386 f.
  • Emile Zola. In the memoriam. Its relationship with criminal anthropology and sociology. / Archive for Criminal Anthropology and Criminology, 11 (1903), 80–99.
  • Are the signs of degeneration really worthless? / Quarterly journal for judicial medicine and public sanitation, 32 (3), Berlin, 1905
  • On the alleged degeneration of the Romanesque peoples, especially France / Arch. F. Racial u. Society biology, 1906.
  • About family murder by the mentally ill / Halle a. S .: Marhold, 1908
  • About homosexuality in Albania , " Yearbook for sexual intermediate stages ", IX 1908, pp. 325-337.
  • The brain surface of paralytic: an atlas of 49 illustrations based on drawings / Leipzig: Vogel, 1909
  • Classification of homosexuals / Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie, 65 (1908), 109–128.
  • The diagnosis of homosexuality / Neurologisches Centralblatt, 27 (1909), 338–351
  • On the Shakespeare-Bacon Question (1910)
  • Warning against over-hasty acceptance of sadism and masochism / Archive for Criminal Anthropology and Criminology, 41 (1911), 157–158
  • Auto-sadism and auto-sadistic suicide / Archive for Criminal Anthropology and Criminology, 42 (1911), 171–172
  • About tardive homosexuality / sexual problems, Zeitschrift fur Sexualwissenschaft und Sexualpolitik, 7 (9), 1911.
  • Homosexuality in the Romance countries / magazine f. Sexology, 6, 359-364
  • A case of acute myeloid leukemia in childhood / Dresden: Gutzmann, 1931
  • A visit to the homosexuals in Berlin / 1991

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Isidor Fischer (1932/33). Biographical Lexicon of Outstanding Doctors of the Last Fifty Years, Volume 2 (p. 1097). Berlin and Vienna: Urban & Fischer
  2. ↑ Friedländer, Erich (1924). Paul Naecke. In Theodor Kirchhoff (ed.), German insane doctors. Individual images of her life and work (pp. 266–269). Berlin: Julius Springer
  3. ↑ Galassi, Silviana (2004). Criminology in the German Empire. History of a broken scientification (p. 164), Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner-Verlag
  4. ^ Näcke, Paul (1893). On the methodology of a scientific criminal anthropology. Centralblatt for Neurology and Psychiatry, 16 , p. 458
  5. ↑ Baumann, Imanuel (2006). On the trail of crime. A history of criminology and criminal policy in Germany, 1880 to 1980 (p. 51). Göttingen: Wallstein
  6. ^ Weingart, Peter, Kroll, Jürgen Bayertz, Kurt (1998). Race, Blood, and Genes. History of eugenics and racial hygiene in Germany (p. 284). Frankfurt a. Main: Suhrkamp
  7. ↑ Kesper-Biermann, Sylvia & Overath, Petra (2007). The internationalization of criminal law and crime policy (1870-1930): Germany in comparison (p. 139), Berlin BWV
  8. ^ Vyleta, Daniel (2005). Jewish Crimes and Misdemeanours: In Search of Jewish Criminality (Germany and Austria, 1890-1914) European History Quarterly, 35 , p. 306
  9. ↑ Broich, Ulrich, Linder, Joachim & Schönert, Jörg (1981). Literature and Crime: The Societal Experience of Crime and Law Enforcement as a Narrative Object. Germany, England and France 1850-1880 (p. 15). Tübingen: Niemeyer
  10. ^ Näcke, Paul (1899). The sexual perversities in the insane asylum. Wiener Klinische Rundschau , No. 27-30.
personal data
SURNAME Näcke, Paul
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Näcke, Paul Adolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German psychiatrist and criminologist
DATE OF BIRTH January 23, 1851
PLACE OF BIRTH Saint Petersburg , Russian Empire
DATE OF DEATH August 18, 1913
Place of death Colditz