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The making of myths is not, of course, a prerogative of ancient civilizations. We are constantly creating our own. The cataclysm of war is a great breeder of myths, rumors and rumors of rumors. The author of the small volume under review is a well-known Freudian analyst whose writings have appeared in her native French as well as in translation. She was one of the small group of people who were instrumental in effecting the release of Sigmund Freud and his removal to England beyond the clutches of the Hitler gang.
As early as 1938, the very threat of a world war was sufficient to start the production of “myths,” more accurately legends, rumors and stories which seemed to crop up with fairly uniform content in various parts of Europe, South Africa, etc. Throughout the war years there were frequently current various “myths,” apparently adapting themselves to the changing tides of battle and fortune. The author has collected the more interesting (from a psychological standpoint, that is) and studied them analytically. The rationalist would class these “myths of war” as absurd, improbable. However, the psychoanalyst trained to take seriously the most preposterous-seeming mental productions was struck by the similarity of the various stories at various times. There must be a hidden meaning to these fantastic “myths.” Analysis revealed the ardently desired realization of a man's death. The man was Hitler, the arch-fiend. The stories all indicated the sacrifice of an innocent person to propitiate the angry God or Gods and bring about the desired end.