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Ernst Simmel (1882-1947) was a committed psychoanalyst who believed in the social mission of psychoanalysis. At the time of the Weimar Republic, he participated in the creation of the world’s first psychoanalytic institution in Berlin in 1920. He also founded the first psychoanalytic establishment for treating hospitalised patients. The Schloss Tegel was opened to psychotic patients, drug addicts and alcoholics, between 1927 and 1931. The discovery of the superego’s destructive effects, which Simmel had observed in the war neuroses, would orient his practice at the Tegel. Despite its limited character, this experience was supported by Sigmund Freud who saw it as an indispensable complement to the psychoanalyst’s training.