Abstract

The Möbius-Foundation was founded on the initiative of some co-workers and friends of Leipzig neurologist and psychiatrist Paul Julius Möbius, who had died in 1907. Their aim was to venerate the memory of Möbius and to gather support for his and their subjects. After a starting phase of structuring and consolidating, the "Möbius-Foundation" began, according to its statute, to honour achievements in the fields of neurology and psychiatry. The foundation gained reputation throughout Germany in both of these fields. Among the prizewinners of the "Möbius-Award" were Alois Alzheimer, Emil Kraepelin, Max Nonne, Cécile and Oskar Vogt, or Otfrid Foerster. The inflation of 1923 immensely reduced the capital stock of the foundation, sentencing it to inactivity. Until 1938 Johannes Bresler tried to revive the "Möbius-Foundation". Later, the foundation was absorded by the GDNP (Society of German Neurologists and Psychiatrists). However, due to the outbreak of WW II in 1939, the foundation was not able to take up its work again. The history of the foundation mirrors en miniature both the social changes in Germany and German psychiatry in the first half of the twentieth century.