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On 14 May 1964, the German psychoanalyst Alexander Mitscherlich delivered a remarkable speech at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. Thirty years after the Nazis had forced the elite of psychoanalysis out of Central Europe, 25 years after the German invasion of Poland had triggered World War II and 15 years after the awkward and hapless attendance of the German delegation at the first post-war International Psychoanalytic Congress in Zurich, Mitscherlich spoke in a frank and self-confident manner about the history of German psychoanalysis since 1945. Mitscherlich was seen by his audience as the most credible representative of German psychoanalysis on the international stage and his account of the ‘Reconstruction of Psychoanalytical Thinking in Post-War Germany’, the title of his New York paper, sketched an impressive image of the development of German post-war analysis. Mitscherlich was witty and charming and closed his discourse with an amiable homage to his audience: ‘We are glad to be able to participate once more in the totality of psychoanalytical research and make use of our psychoanalytical knowledge as doctors and members of our society’ (Mitscherlich 1964, p. 24).
Mitscherlich's speech is a good starting-point to explore the history of German psychoanalysis after 1945. This is the first goal of this article. But there were more than mere historical facts in his speech: Mitscherlich