SCHERRER TRIAL, 1942–1944 COMMENTARY

On June 19, 1941, Prof. Dr. med. Hans Wolfgang Maier, director of the Burghölzli University Psychiatric Hospital in Zurich, submitted his resignation effective October 15, 1941, citing health reasons (heart and eye conditions). In May 1942—that is, seven months after his resignation—the Zurich attorney Dr. Karl Scherrer launched, without any warning, a nationwide campaign against H. W. Maier by distributing a printed brochure containing a statement against Hans W. Maier made by an intern (SS) who had been entrusted to him in late 1931, as well as private correspondence from H. W. Maier to SS, which contained descriptions of embarrassing intimate scenes. The authenticity of these letters cannot be verified, and no originals exist. Nevertheless, Karl Scherrer printed thousands of copies at an unknown location in an unknown printing shop and distributed them throughout Switzerland to state and cantonal governments, medical societies, politicians, etc. To this day, this brochure has been sold and distributed. Furthermore, it was available for viewing in the State Archives without any indication that it was a smear campaign and not an official, legally valid document. As a result, this smear piece by Karl Scherrer has, for example, been cited by the Swiss Historical Dictionary since 2002 as a historical source describing the dissolute lifestyle of Hans Wolfgang sexual assault and impregnation of a patient, initial denial of the child’s paternity, and subsequent dismissal from the clinic. For decades, no Swiss historian verified this information; that is, no one first looked for a complaint filed by a patient alleging rape by a doctor and pregnancy—instead, they were content to rely on the statements in Karl Scherrer’s defamatory pamphlet, which was likely influenced by anti-Semitism. Please find the whole process in the shop.