Herbert Lewin Prize honors research on life stories in psychiatry under National Socialism
Magdeburg medical historian shows how five people in annexed Alsace experienced psychiatric treatment, exclusion, and violence between 1941 and 1944
Medical historian and physician Dr. med. Dr. phil. Lea Münch from the Department of History, Ethics, and Theory of Medicine at the Medical Faculty of Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg has been awarded the Herbert Lewin Prize. The prize honors research on the role of the medical profession during the Nazi era. In her second dissertation, Münch reconstructs the lives of five people who were forced to undergo psychiatric treatment in annexed Alsace between 1941 and 1944. The study shows how differently those affected experienced these events, ranging from stressful treatments and exclusion from their families to forced labor and lethal violence during the Nazi era.
Five life stories as a window into everyday life in clinics during the Nazi era
While there are already many studies on German and French psychiatry during the Second World War, there has been a lack of fundamental insights into how patients themselves experienced the treatment and conditions on site. To this end, Münch evaluated medical records, letters, transport lists, photos, and conversations with relatives.
The people portrayed—an opera singer, a Ukrainian forced laborer, a gardener, a young mother, and an Alsatian factory worker—offer different perspectives on everyday psychiatric life between 1941 and 1944. Their experiences range from electroconvulsive therapy, which was considered a modern treatment at the time, to long-term confinement and deportation to the Hadamar killing center. One hundred people from Alsace were taken there, and only three survived.
“Many of these people never had the opportunity to talk about their experiences or be heard. Our task as researchers is to make their experiences visible and to show the consequences that Nazi tyranny had on their individual experiences of illness,” says Münch.
The story of factory worker Alphonse Glanzmann illustrates this particularly clearly. He survived the murders in Hadamar, but his experiences were omitted from his biography and medical history after his return. “Many relatives did not know what had happened to their loved ones. The silence often continued for generations,” explains Münch.
Photo: Award ceremony for the 10th Herbert Lewin Prize 2025: Congratulations to medical historian Dr. med. Dr. phil. Lea Münch (right) from the University of Magdeburg by Dr. Romy Ermler (left), President of the German Dental Association, and jury member Prof. Dr. Volker Hess (center), Director of the Institute for the History of Medicine and Ethics in Medicine at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. Photographer: BZÄK/axentis.de
What research reveals about everyday life in clinics
The study shows how differently psychiatric institutions functioned. In the psychiatric clinic of the so-called “Reich University” in Strasbourg, electroconvulsive therapy was frequently used from 1942 onwards. In around 15 percent of cases, patients were transferred to sanatoriums and nursing homes in rural areas. The Nazi forced labor policy was also reflected in everyday clinical practice: at least 27 forced laborers were treated without their living conditions being taken into account in their diagnoses.
Many sources are from the perspective of the treating physicians. Only discussions with relatives made it possible to reconstruct a more complete picture. “The medical records tell only part of the story. Only by evaluating additional sources and talking with relatives was it possible to reconstruct an approximate picture of the patients' lives beyond their stay in the psychiatric hospital,” says Münch.
Why the findings are important today
The study shows how long those affected and their families remained invisible, in some cases until the 1980s. In Alsace, it took particularly long, as border shifts and conflicts between France and Germany made it difficult to remember.
“If we want to understand how exclusion arises, we also need to know the stories of the people who were considered ‘different’ at the time,” emphasizes Münch. The biographies point to the consequences that a fascist dictatorship can have for people who are considered different and foreign in any way. “In view of the rise of right-wing and radical right-wing movements in Europe, I believe it is particularly urgent to pay attention to their life stories,” says Münch.
Against this backdrop, the research findings—everything we have learned about these people, their previously hidden and invisible lives, and the intergenerational effects—provide a basis for shaping a European culture of remembrance. Integration into various public memorial sites is being considered. Münch also plans to have her dissertation translated into French. “I want the families of those affected to have access to these stories, across national borders,” she says.
The dissertation was written as part of the independent, international historical commission on the history of the medical faculty of the “Reichsuniversität” Strasbourg (1941–1944) and was funded by the Université de Strasbourg. The Herbert Lewin Prize is awarded jointly by the Federal Ministry of Health, the German Medical Association, the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians, the German Dental Association, and the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Dentists.
Original publication
The work will be published in January 2026 under the title “Psychiatry Experiences in Alsace. Life Stories between Strasbourg and Hadamar under National Socialism” by Brill-Verlag
Scientific contact:
Dr. med. Dr. phil. Lea Münch, Research Associate, Department of History, Ethics, and Theory of Medicine, Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, lea.muench@med.ovgu.de