Gerhard Fichtner 1932-2012

Gerhard Fichtner (born 4 April 1932), Professor of the History of and Director of the Institute for the History of Medicine in Tübingen, died of cancer of the liver on 4 January 2012. He will be remembered with gratitude by historians of psychoanalysis for his essential contributions to their field of study.

Many knew him only for his dedication to Freud historiography. He had, of course, another side, or several other sides. After studying theology in Leipzig and medicine in West Germany and Switzerland, Fichtner switched from his earlier intention of becoming a medical missionary to an academic career. At Tübingen University his interests developed in geographically local yet intellectually far-ranging directions, from the 15th century Tübingen botanist Leonard Fuchs to the 20th century Swabian artist HAP Grieshaber. In the history of medicine he compiled bibliographies of Hippocrates and Galen (Corpus Galenicum and Corpus Hippocraticum): one aspect of his study of early 19th century psychiatry was his interest in Hölderlin's last years of mental illness in Tübingen.

Fichtner was one of the earliest scholars in the field to take advantage of the electronic revolution: even before the arrival of desktop computers in the 1980s he cooperated with the university computer department in devising a database that could deal with free text. The resulting programme, known as TUSTEP, continues in service as a highly effective method of processing and searching free text. Fichtner organized the electronic transcription of Freud's Complete Works and all known published and unpublished correspondence. With J. Keith Davies of the Freud Museum London he compiled the published database of Freud's library catalogue. Together with Ingeborg Meyer-Palmedo he published the bibliography of Freud writings, including his letters, and a concordance of his work. As the acknowledged expert in Freud's handwriting he transcribed a huge proportion of the unpublished letters: it was his transcri