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Palgrave Macmillan

Forensic Psychology in Germany

Witnessing Crime, 1880-1939

  • Book
  • © 2018

Overview

Authors:
  1. Heather Wolffram

    1. History, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

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  • Provide an overview of the interdisciplinary and highly contested development of forensic psychology in Imperial and inter-war Germany

  • Illuminate the evolution of this field through attention to forensic practice as well as theories and debates

  • Aims to open a dialogue with other scholars about the multi-disciplinary roots and early history of forensic psychology in the German context

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Table of contents (8 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-vii
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction: Witnessing Crime

    • Heather Wolffram
    Pages 1-19

  3. The Birth of Forensic Psychology: The Berchtold Trial

    • Heather Wolffram
    Pages 21-58

  4. Establishing the Psychology of Testimony

    • Heather Wolffram
    Pages 59-93

  5. Forensic Psychology Beyond the Witness

    • Heather Wolffram
    Pages 95-111

  6. Expertise Contested: Weimar Debates over Psychological Expertise

    • Heather Wolffram
    Pages 113-153

  7. Psychological Expertise in the Courtroom: The Frenzel Trial

    • Heather Wolffram
    Pages 155-194

  8. Forensic Psychology Under the Swastika

    • Heather Wolffram
    Pages 195-219

  9. Conclusion: Forensic Psychology on the Eve of the War

    • Heather Wolffram
    Pages 221-226

  10. Back Matter

    Pages 227-257
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Keywords

About this book

This book examines the emergence and early development of forensic psychology in Germany from the late nineteenth century until the outbreak of the Second World War, highlighting the field’s interdisciplinary beginnings and contested evolution. Initially envisaged as a psychology of all those involved in criminal proceedings, this new discipline promised to move away from an exclusive focus on the criminal to provide a holistic view of how human fallibility impacted upon criminal justice. As this book argues, however, by the inter-war period, forensic psychology had largely become a psychology of the witness; its focus narrowed by the exigencies of the courtroom. Utilising detailed studies of the 1896 Berchtold trial and the 1930 Frenzel trial, the book asks whether the tensions between psychiatry, psychology, forensic medicine, pedagogy and law over psychological expertise were present in courtroom practice and considers why a clear winner in the “battle for forensic psychology” had yet to emerge by 1939. 

Authors and Affiliations

  • History, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

    Heather Wolffram

About the author

Heather Wolffram is Senior Lecturer in Modern European History at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. She is a historian of modern Germany with interests in the histories of medicine and forensics and is the author of The Stepchildren of Science: Psychical Research and Parapsychology in Germany, c. 1870-1939 (2009).

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