[In the shadow of the parades: memories of an instrumentalized psychiatry in the GDR].

Objective: Based on contemporary witness statements, the study examines how employees in the psychiatric institutions of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) dealt with mentally ill people at social events.

Methodology: In this study 63 contemporary witnesses who worked in psychiatric institutions in the GDR were interviewed. The interviews were evaluated qualitatively.

Results: The interviews show that there were restrictions and admissions for certain social events, such as national holidays or state visits, that were not medically indicated. These instructions were handled differently. Noncompliance with these instructions was largely not reported as having serious consequences.

Conclusion: People with mental illnesses were supposed to be kept away from public events during certain social events. The staff in psychiatric institutions dealt with this differently. This indicates a certain degree of flexibility. The removal from society represents a stigmatization of mentally ill people. Psychiatry in the GDR was also instrumentalized for political purposes.