Delirium tremens served as the primary subject for the 1890 doctoral thesis completed by Gustav Aschaffenburg at the University of Strasbourg. This initial research marked the start of a professional career that bridged the clinical practices of psychiatry and the structural study of criminology within the German Reich.
Academic Appointments and Clinical Psychiatry
Aschaffenburg developed his clinical foundation as an assistant to Emil Kraepelin at the psychiatric university clinic in Heidelberg. His career saw him hold positions at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg and the Akademie für praktische Medizin in Cologne, the latter of which became the University of Cologne in 1919. Throughout his tenure, he conducted extensive academic writing concerning Haltlose personality disorder and the distinctions between Haltlose and Gemütlose psychopathy.
Twenty questions, eight minutes on the clock, and a percentile measured against everyone who has taken it. No sign-up.
Take the IQ test →Contributions to Criminology
The 1903 publication of Das Verbrechen und seine Bekämpfung established Aschaffenburg as an early authority in forensic psychiatry and criminology. In this work, he conducted a systematic study of crime causes, weighing the impact of individual-hereditary traits against social-environmental factors. He explicitly challenged the theory proposed by Cesare Lombroso regarding the existence of a born criminal. This study gained international reach, appearing in English in 1913 as Crime and its Repression and receiving a Swedish translation by Olof Kinberg and Julia Kinberg.
Emigration and Final Years
During the 1930s, the Nazi edict Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums effectively ended Aschaffenburg’s academic tenure in Cologne. As a consequence, he emigrated to the United States. In the final phase of his career, he served as a professor at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and maintained an affiliation with Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He died in Baltimore in 1944 at the age of 78.
Fast facts
- Born: 1866, Zweibrücken
- Died: 1944, Baltimore
- Education: University of Strasbourg
- Primary Fields: Psychiatry, Criminology, Medicine
- Key Publication: Das Verbrechen und seine Bekämpfung (1903)
- Citizenship: German Reich
- Academic Employers: Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, University of Cologne, The Catholic University of America, Johns Hopkins University
Questions readers ask
What was the significance of Aschaffenburg’s criminology research?
He provided an early systematic study of criminal causes that balanced social-environmental factors against heredity and dismissed the concept of the born criminal.
Why did Aschaffenburg move to the United States?
His academic career in Cologne was terminated in the 1930s due to the Nazi edict known as the Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums.
Achievements
- Held posts at Johns Hopkins University, University of Cologne and The Catholic University of America
- Fields: medicine, psychiatry and criminology
.jpg)