during World War I. He was elected Rector of Jena University in 1927. In 1924, Berger succeeded in recording the first human electroencephalogram (EEG), a term he coined. Filled with doubt, he took five years to publish his first paper in 1929, which demonstrated the technique for "recording the electrical activity of the human brain from the surface of the head." His findings were met with incredulity and derision by the German medical and scientific establishments. Having visited the EEG laboratory at Jena in 1935, American roboticist William Grey Walter noted that Berger:... was not regarded by his associates as in the front rank of German psychiatrists, having rather the reputation of being a crank. He seemed to me to be a modest and dignified person, full of good humour, and as unperturbed by lack of recognition as he was later by the fame it eventually brought upon him. But he had one fatal weakness: he was completely ignorant of the technical and physical basis of his method. He knew nothing about mechanics or electricity. After British electrophysiologists Edgar Douglas Adrian and B. H. C. Matthews confirmed Berger's basic observations in 1934, the importance of his discoveries in electroencephalography (EEG) were finally recognized at an international forum in 1937. By 1938, electroencephalography had gained widespread recognition by eminent researchers in the field, leading to its practical use in diagnosis in the United States, England, and France. In 1938, at the retirement age of 65, Berger was made Professor Emeritus in Psychology. According to biographers Niedermeyer and Lopes da Silva, the appointment occurred in an unceremonious manner as his relationship with the Nazi regime was particularly strained. Numerous sources report that, given their hostile relationship, the Nazis forced Berger into retirement that same year with a complete ban of any further work on EEG. These biographical accounts were contradicted in 2005 by Ernst Klee, a German journalist specializing in the exposure and documentation of Nazi medical crimes. In 2005, Dr. Susanne Zimmermann, medical historian at the University of Jena, found evidence that Berger had not been forced into retirement but had "served on the selection committee for his successor" Berthold Kihn, who was sacked as a Nazi after the war. Moreover, official records at the University of Jena dating from the 1930s proved that Berger had served on the Erbgesundheitsgericht (Court for Genetic Health) that imposed sterilizations, while his diaries contained