Our history

The founders of the "Pfalzklinikum" did it for the best when, in 1857, they built a hospital for mentally ill people in the open countryside in the idyllic Southern Palatinate. Far away from their morbid environment, ill persons should recover amid beautiful scenery. Nevertheless, the concept of centralized psychiatric health care that had evolved over the years added to the mentally ill people’s social isolation and exclusion.

In the meantime, psychiatric hospitals are trying to move closer to community. The network of inpatient, day-care and outpatient treatment facilities is closely knit all over the region in order to treat mentally ill persons in their familiar surroundings close to their families and facilitate their reintegration into society. The regionalization of adult psychiatry has been terminated by now. In child and youth psychiatry, a first important step was made by opening a day-care hospital in Kaiserslautern.

Nowadays, the "Pfalzklinikum" offers treatment possibilities for mentally ill and disabled people at eleven places in the Palatinate – it has become a clinical centre for the whole Palatinate.

More about the time of National Socialism and the handling of this darkest chapter in the hospital’s history you can find on the following pages.

From the "Kreisirrenanstalt" to the "Pfalzklinikum"

1857			Opening of the “Kreisirrenanstalt” Klingenmünster (District Lunatic Asylum of Klingenmünster) with 250 beds
1859			Inauguration of the hospital cemetery
1866			Foundation of the company fire brigade
1870			Battlefield hospital during the Franco-Prussian War
1888			Completion of an outdoor pool, mainly built by patients
1893			Setting-up of the first open, not locked ward; opening of an agricultural enterprise (estate)
1895			More than 600 patients are looked after
1910			Change of name to "Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Klingenmünster" (Mental Hospital of Klingenmünster)
1913			Installation of electrical light
1914			Auxiliary military hospital in the First World War
1923			Old cell departments are redesigned into modern wards.
1929			More than 1,000 patients are looked after.
1933			Beginning of the entanglements into Nazi psychiatry
1939			Evacuation of the asylum to Bavaria as a consequence of the proximity to the front in the Second World War
1940			Return to Klingenmünster
1943			1,600 patients
1946			851 patients
1952			Reorganization of the asylum with care-giving and nursing character into a clinical therapeutic facility, e.g. setting-up of an occupational therapy ward
1953			Change of name from "Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Klingenmünster" (Mental Hospital of Klingenmünster) to "Pfälzische Nervenklinik Landeck" (Palatine Psychiatric Hospital Landeck)
1954			Opening of the nursing school
1957			1,500 patients
1960			Beginning of a series of new construction work
1969			1,930 scheduled beds
1973			1,580 beds, decrease in the number of beds due to the construction of nursing homes
1973			Inauguration of the new building of the department of Youth Psychiatry
1973			Demounting of the grilles in the wards of the old buildings
1973			Change of name from "Pfälzische Nervenklinik Landeck" („Palatine Psychiatric Hospital Landeck“ to "Pfalzklinik Landeck" („Palatine Hospital Landeck“)
1976			Conversion of hall-like sickrooms into smaller rooms
1978			Ground-breaking ceremony for the treatment, communication and service centre with cafeteria, indoor swimming hall, bowling alley, hairdresser et cetera.
1982			Structuring of the clinical centre into specialist departments; possibility to accommodate patients according to their symptoms and treat them specifically
1986			Beginning of day-care hospital work in Klingenmünster
1988			Opening of the Interdisciplinary Sleep Centre
1991			Opening of the first Psychiatric Outpatient Department in Klingenmünster
1993			Opening of the first psychiatric day-care hospital in Landau
1993			Inauguration of the memorial stone for the victims of Nazi psychiatry in Klingenmünster
1995			Opening of the first forensic housing group in Rhineland-Palatinate
1998			Foundation of the "Pfalzklinikum für Psychiatrie und Neurologie", the Palatinate Clinical Centre for Psychiatry and Neurology“ as institution under public law
1998			Publishing of the book "Die Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Klingenmünster 1933 - 1945" by Karl Scherer, Otfried Linde und Roland Paul
1999			Opening of the day-care hospital in Kaiserslautern
1999			Delivery of a newly built sports and multipurpose hall to the clinical centre intended for the Hospital of Forensic Psychiatry
2001			Opening of the day-care hospital in Kusel
2001			Opening of the housing group in Edenkoben
2002			Opening of the Hospital for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy in Rockenhausen
2002			Opening of the day-care hospital in Speyer
2002			Opening of the housing group in Dahn
2002			Opening of the ward "Cleaneck" in Klingenmünster, the first ward for professional drug rehabilitation with acupuncture in Rhineland-Palatinate
2003			Moving into the modernized building 8 with three wards of the Hospital for Forensic Psychiatry
2003			Foundation of the Southern Palatinate Nursing Centre in Klingenmünster - Cooperation of the nursing schools of the “Pfalzklinikum” and the “Klinikum Landau-Südliche Weinstraße”, a Landau hospital
2003			The “Pfalzklinikum” becomes an Academic Teaching Hospital of the University of Mainz
2004			Foundation of the Clinical Ethics Committee
2005			Opening of the Hospital for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy in Kaiserslautern
2005			Opening of the housing group in Rodalben
2005			Opening of the day-care hospital in Wörth-Maximiliansau
2005			Certification of the “Pfalzklinikum” according to KTQ (Cooperation for transparency and quality in the health care system)
2006			The department of General Psychiatry and, on an interim basis, the department of Neurology move into the new building 6 in Klingenmünster
2006			Opening of the Day-care Hospital for Child and Youth Psychiatry in Kaiserslautern
2006			Inauguration of the new logistics centre with control room and vehicle halls, also for the company fire brigade, in Klingenmünster
2007			Inauguration of the new building 11 with two wards and the occupational therapy ward of the Hospital for Forensic Psychiatry
2007			Foundation of the supporting organization "Outpatient rehab addiction"; beginning of the outpatient service in Landau; granting of the award for innovation by the Federal State of Rhineland-Palatinate by the end of the year
2007			Conversion and modernization of the House Guttenberg in the home area "Care – Foster – Live”
2008			Creation of the new offer “Outpatient psychiatric care"
2008			New construction of a car park in front of the hospital grounds by the side of the Wine Route with 207 car-parking spaces
2008			Inauguration of the “Palatine memorial for the victims of Nazi psychiatry" on April 11 at the hospital cemetery in Klingenmünster
2009			Public external session of the Landtag of Rhineland-Palatinate on the German commemoration day for the victims of Nazi dictatorship, January 27, at the "Pfalzklinikum"
2009			Beginning of "Outpatient psychiatric care" work at the region of Western Palatinate
2009			Moving into the modernized building 29 with three wards of the Hospital for Forensic Psychiatry
2009			Moving into the new building 49 with two wards for young patients
2009			Publishing of the book "Von der Kreis-Irrenanstalt zum Pfalzklinikum. Eine Geschichte der Psychiatrie in Klingenmünster" by Christof Beyer
2010			Inauguration of the renovated building No. 9 hosting three wards of the hospital of Forensic Psychiatry - completion of the complete reconstruction works in the forensic department