The psychiatrists Oscar Wattenberg and Johannes Enge and the history of psychiatry in the Hanseatic City of Lübeck between 1900 and 1945

* Address for correspondence: Prof. Dr. med. Horst Dilling, Psychiatric Department, Medical University of Lübeck, Ratzeburger Allee 160, D-23538 Lübeck, Germany. From the late nineteenth century until the Second World War the history of psychiatry in Germany was determined by important social, political and economic changes. The history of psychiatry in Lfbeck can be seen as a representative example of German psychiatry during that period. Though rather small when it comes to the number of patients, most important aspects of the psychiatric development can be recognized in the history of the Lfbeck asylum. These aspects include the no-restraint movement, the building of pavilion-style asylums, opening of mental health care office, introduction of work therapy according to Simon, the change of psychiatric ethics after the First World War, the increasing influence of Social Darwinistic ideas, the ideology of ’racial hygiene’ with sterilization laws and finally the ’Euthanasia’ programme during the Third Reich. In that time the history of psychiatry in Lubeck was greatly influenced by