After that he was able to resume his medical career in the Soviet occupation zone / German Democratic Republic, achieving eminence both as a senior hospital physician and as a professor with the teaching chair in Psychiatry and Neurology at the prestigious Karl-Marx University (as it was known between 1953 and 1991) in Leipzig.
Following a falling out with the authorities he relocated to the German Federal Republic (West Germany) in 1971, pursuing his clinical career in Essen, while in the short term retaining an academic strand to his work as a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
[1][2][3] Dietfried Müller-Hegemann was born in Laibach (as Ljubljana was known until) 1918), a multi-ethnic provincial capital within the Austro-Hungarian empire, much of which at that time was newly rebuilt following a major earthquake.
Müller-Hegeman joined the government backed "Nationalsozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund" (NSDStB / " National Socialist...Students' Union"): he was a member until 1939.
However, his work triggered a serious and protracted disagreement with the institute director Harald Schultz-Hencke, who himself published a scholarly paper on the same topic at the same time.
Those who pushed the merger through may have intended that it should subsequently extend across all four of the military occupation zones into which the western two thirds of Germany had been divided, but that never happened.
[3][12] Back in Berlin, Müller-Hegemann discovered that he was a Pavolovian physiologist, and in December 1950 he became senior doctor (head of department) at the Psychiatric Clinic in Leipzig.
In 1957 a professorial teaching chair in Psychiatry at the university medical faculty was added, together with directorship (headship) of the Leipzig Psychiatric Clinic.
[2][3] It is apparent, at least for those making use of the access to records provided by the subsequent passing of half a century, that as early as 1960 Müller-Hegemann's high-flying medical-academic career at Leipzig was becoming less secure than professional comrades might have supposed.
It is not obvious whether these carefully filed reports were based on criticism passed on by professional rivals following disputes over Psychiatric theory and practice, or whether more politically influential sources were involved.
The deaths had been caused, it was alleged, by the administration of "obsolete psychotropic drugs" and application of Ivan Pavlov's (by this time officially discredited) views on hypnotherapy.
Archival research subsequently undertaken indicates that the real problem was concerns on the part of certain elements lower down in the party hierarchy who felt that the Leipzig head of department was becoming "ideologically suspect".
[16] He was cleared following an investigation by the state prosecutor, but his accusers had won their battle: there would be no return for Dietfried Müller-Hegemann to the stellar career he had been enjoying in Leipzig.
[9] The reaction of East Germany's elite psychology establishment, whose presence at the conference had been mandated, fell short of uncritical endorsement.
In a letter dated 10 May 1971 and addressed to his former deputy at the Wilhelm Griesinger Psychiatric Hospital he wrote that he had decided to stay behind in the west only with a heavy heart.
It was indeed a path along which Müller-Hegemann himself had already taken the most important step, and one that had since been followed by several more formerly senior members of the East German psychology establishment whose positions gave them access to the exceptional travel privileges needed for a trouble free crossing.
Back in 1964 he had generated headlines in the west by identifying the then little considered mental illness which he called "KZ-Syndrom" ("Concentration Camp syndrome").