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 | ||
| 2010 | Opening of the residential home for therapeutic pedagogy, closing of the house Rietburg in Edenkoben and the house Madenburg in Klingenmünster | ||
| 2010 | Foundation of the Medical Service Centre Pfalzklinikum GmbH as an affiliate of the Pfalzklinikum; opening of the MSC in Kaiserslautern | ||
| 2011 | Opening of the day hospital for child and youth psychiatry in Pirmasens | ||
| 2011 | Inauguration of the modernised buildings 3 and 4 (southern wing of the main building) of the department of general psychiatry |