WEHER,MAX DEPRESSION - DOCUMENTS ON THE H ISTORY OF HIS ILLNESS BETWEEN 1897 AND 1903

This article on the German economist and sociologist Max Weber (1864-1 920) continues our pathographic and psychohistoric studies on the inte rrelations between his life, his illness, and his work on ''Protestant ic Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism''. In a former paper (Frommer u . Frommer, 1993) we focussed on Weber's definition of modern society a s an ''iron cage'' determined by Western rationalism. His theory, whic h shows that this cultural background demands a great amount of role c onformity from the individual, converges with current psychopathologic al approaches on the personality of depressed patients. In the second article we report on results of our research on further personal docum ents, and some medical certificates by Weber's physicians. These docum ents demonstrate the diagnosis of a severe depression in a narcisstic and hypernomic personality.