[In process.]

Abstract

Internationally, Helmut RENNERT (1920-1994) was one of the most renowned representatives of psychiatry in the GDR. From 1958 until 1984 he was the chair of the department of psychiatry and neurology at the Martin Luther University in Halle-Wittenberg. He was also the chairman of the Association for Neurology and Psychiatry of the GDR for many years. The textbook on neurology and psychiatry which he prepared together with Rudolf LEMKE (1906-1957) turned into the standard textbook for training and education in the GDR. RENNERT became well known primarily with his model of the universal genesis of endogenous psychoses in which he propagated the idea of unitary psychosis. In 1965 he became a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and as vice- president he represented the medical section. RENNERT belonged to the so-called second generation of professors which established itself at the end of the 1950s at university clinics in the GDR. As the leading experts and academic lecturers they influenced the field with respect to education and research for the entire time the GDR existed. This generation of professors maintained a strong bond with their academic teachers and continued their tradition in the sense of a "school" for the most part independent of political circumstances and restrictions.