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Alexander Mitscherlich, Professor of Psychosomatic Medicine at the University of Heidelberg and Director of the Psychoanalytic Institute in Frankfurt, has undertaken a tremendous task in writing this book, an outgrowth of his experiences as psychoanalyst and suffering observer of what happened in Germany. In 1949 and again in 1960 Dr. Mitscherlich published collections of documents demonstrating the horrible acts which a number of physicians, men of high academic standing, had committed during the Hitler regime.1 His present work investigates certain psychological effects of industrial mass society and conditions that make it possible for cultural and moral norms to break down to such a degree. The title of the book shows the influence of Paul Federn, who in 1919 published a paper, Zur Psychologie der Revolution: Die vaterlose Gesellschaft (On The Psychology of the Revolution: The Fatherless Society).
Mitscherlich applies modern biology, social science, and psychoanalysis to understanding present-day man in Western civilization. A review can only attempt to present the main theme. Man, he says, a newcomer in each of his cultures, does not come into this world with an inherited pattern that determines his behavior toward his environment. In contrast to animals, governed by instincts, man has no inborn steering mechanism for his drives; control must be learned from his group in the manner specific to it. Birds of passage orient themselves by inherited abilities but we need for this purpose to acquire knowledge accumulated by many generations. This means that man depends on his environment to learn mastery of his drives and must accept its solutions. The natural sciences demonstrate the development of life from primitive forms to the stage in which life becomes conscious of itself. This development