Alexander Mitscherlich (psychologist)

Alexander Mitscherlich was a German physician and psychoanalyst, born in Munich on 20 September 1908 and died in Frankfurt on 26 June 1982. He grew up in Hof in northern Bavaria, studied history, art history and philosophy before entering medical school in 1932, and was arrested by the Gestapo in 1937 for his opposition to National Socialism. After the war he was among the minority of German physicians whom the Allies regarded as politically trustworthy, and he headed the German medical commission that reported on the Nuremberg doctors' trial, publishing the documents with Fred Mielke as a record of medical crimes. He helped restore psychoanalysis in Germany, founded the journal Psyche in 1948, worked to have the German Psychoanalytic Association recognized by the International Psychoanalytic Association, and in 1960 helped found the Sigmund Freud Institute in Frankfurt, which he directed until 1976.