Between resentment and aid: German and Austrian psychiatrist and neurologist refugees in Great Britain since 1933

ABSTRACT

This article is a historiographical exploration of the experiences that German and Austrian émigré psychiatrists and neurologists made in Great Britain since 1933, after the Nazi Governments in Central Europe had ousted them from their positions. When placing these occurrences in a wider historiographical perspective, the in-depth analysis provided here also describes the living and working conditions of the refugee neuroscientists on the British Isles. In particular, it looks at the very elements and issues that influenced the international forced migration of physicians and psychiatrists during the 1930s and 1940s. Only a fraction of refugee neuroscientists had however been admitted to Britain. Those lucky ones were assisted by a number of charitable, local, and academic organizations. This article investigates the rather lethargic attitude of the British government and medical circles towards German-speaking Jewish refugee neuroscientists who wished to escape Nazi Germany. It will also analyze the help that those refugees received from the academic establishment and British Jewish organizations, while likewise examining the level and extent of the relationship between social and scientific resentments in Great Britain. A special consideration will be given to the aid programs that had already began in the first year after the Nazis had seized power in Germany, with the foundation of the British Assistance Council by Sir William Henry Beveridge (1879–1963) in 1933.

KEYWORDS:

• Anti-Semitism
• assistance
• William Henry Beveridge (1879–1963)
• émigré neuroscientists
• Europe
• forced migration
• Great Britain
• political discourses
• social contexts
• twentieth-century neuroscience

Acknowledgments

The author would like to express her sincere gratitude to Dr. Frank Stahnisch and Prof. Paul Weindling for their advice and assistance in writing this article.

Funding

The author acknowledges support for this study through an open operating grant (PI: Dr. Frank W. Stahnisch, University of Calgary) by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (No/EOG-123690), as well as postdoctoral fellowship support by the Calgary Institute for the Humanities, University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Notes

¹ See also the article by Zeidman, von Villiez, Stellmann, and van den Bussche (2016) in this special issue.

² One of the notable neurologists and psychiatrists who survived the concentration camps was the Austrian born Viktor Frankl (1905–1997) who was imprisoned at Theresienstadt, Auschwitz, and Dachau.

³ The National Archives, Home Office 45/15882 Hoare, minute 23 November 1933.

⁴ Other camps were located in Cotton Mill, Bertram Mills Circus, Devon Holliday Camp, and Press Heath. A number of refugees were later deported to camps in Canada and Australia in 1940.

⁵ Bodleian Library, The Society for the Protection of Science and Learning (SPSL).

⁶ Bodleian Library, SPSL Collection, File Favel Kino.

⁷ For the purpose of this article I will focus on achievements of the most prominent organizations, namely, GJAC, CBF, SPSL and the RF.

⁸ TNA, JML/1988.488, Brochure issued by the German Jewish Aid Committeehttp://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/±/http://www.movinghere.org.uk/deliveryfiles/JML/1988.488/0/1.pdf (Accessed on December 15, 2016).

⁹ Bodleian Library Oxford University; Collection: The Society for the Protection of Science and Learning (fond no. L. 20.11.).

¹⁰ Bodleian Library, SPSL Collection, File Leopold Deutsch.

¹¹ Bodleian Library, SPSL Collection, File Max Schechlr.

¹² See also the article by Stahnisch (2016) in this special issue.

¹³ Bodleian Library, SPSL Collection.

¹⁴ The “re-establishment of the professional civil service” applied mainly to publicly funded institutions, including universities, where approximately 20% of all scholars were dismissed.

¹⁵ Rockefeller Foundation Report, 1940, according to which the RF allocated $ 775,000 on aid for refugee scholars of various disciplines. https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/app/uploads/Annual-Report-1940.pdf (Accessed on 10 December).

¹⁶ Approximately 20 medical refugees received financial support from the Rockefeller Foundation and many of them were employed at the Maudsley Hospital. Some were additionally supported by the SPSL, such as neuropathologist Alfred Mayer (1895–1990).

¹⁷ Prior to 1940, the Medical Research Council in London received $42,968 for research in endocrinology, psychiatry, neurology, and allied subjects (in 1940, it received $4,574.77); research in hereditary mental diseases prior to 1940 received $9,235.26 (in 1940, the amount was $2,510.27); the Royal Medico-Psychological Association of London prior to 1940 received $4,715 and in 1940 received $3,216.57 for teaching and training in psychiatry. The Travistock Clinic in London prior to 1940 received $17,859.38 and, in 1940, received $2,433.14 for research on psychosomatic medicine. The Maudsley Hospital prior to 1940 received $103,681.25 and, in 1940, was awarded an additional $26,257.13. The Rockefeller Foundation Report, 1940. https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/app/uploads/Annual-Report-1940.pdf (accessed on December 10, 2015).

Additional information

Funding

The author acknowledges support for this study through an open operating grant (PI: Dr. Frank W. Stahnisch, University of Calgary) by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (No/EOG-123690), as well as postdoctoral fellowship support by the Calgary Institute for the Humanities, University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada.