About Us

Conscious of the horrors in psychiatry during Nazi-rule in Germany,  the Walter-von-Baeyer-Society for Ethics in Psychiatry (GEP), previously known as the German Association on the Political Abuse of Psychiatry (DVpMP), was co-founded in 1977 by Prof. Walter von Baeyer. Prof. Von Baeyer, head of the Psychiatric Clinic of the University of Heidelberg, was previously Vice-President of the World Psychiatric Association. During the first two decades of its existence, the Society fought psychiatric abuses in the former Soviet Union. By this work GEP became aware of ethical challenges in psychiatry in other countries and became aware of other more subtle forms of abuses in the West.  

GEP exists exclusively by the contributions of its members, gifts of private persons and the honorary work of its representatives. The annual contribution for the members amounts to 60. Euro. 

GEP’s president is Friedrich Weinberger M.D., a neurologist and psychiatrist, now retired, in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Bavaria. 

Deputy president is Dr. Klemens Dieckhoefer, a professor for psychiatry and history of medicine at the University of Bonn.

Members of GEP’s Board are:

- Dietrich Koch Ph.D., Dipl.Phys. who was arrested in 1970 and interned in a psychiatric hospital by the Communists for having participated in alleged preparations to leave the country (in reality for having participated in a public protest against the destruction of an ancient church in Leipzig).

- Christine Gattinger, a co-founder of GEP and a former speaker of a local group of Amnesty International.

- Dietmar Eckstein M.D., a physician who was interned forcibly in psychiatry for his oppositional activities during Communist rule in the GDR in 1986 and 1989.

-  Horst Bürke M.D, a forensic psychiatrist, working in Berlin.

Members of GEP’s Council are

Ernst-Eberhard Weinhold M.D., a Professor for General Medicine and previously a highly acknowledged representative of the Medical Establishment,

Robert Wilcocks Ph.D., a Professor for modern French literature at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada,

Jacques Bénesteau, clinical child psychologist of  the children's hospital attached to the University of Toulouse, France and

Max Scharnberg, PhD, a former Assistant Professor in the Department of Education Uppsala University, Sweden

Wilcocks, Bénesteau and Weinberger, together with others scholars, have founded the International Network of Freud Critics in the fall of 2003.