The Working Class in Weimar Germany: A Psychological and Sociological Study, Erich Fromm. Barbara Weinberger (trans.). Edited with an Introduction by Wolfgang Bonss. Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press, 1984,  291 pp..

In this book the distinguished psychoanalyst Erich Fromm outlines the basis for a rudimentary but far-reaching attempt at integration of Freudian psychology and Marxist social theory. The aim of the survey as planned and carried out by Fromm and his coworkers from 1929 to 1931 was to understand the psychic structure of German manual and white-collar workers. With the aid of psychoanalytic theory they hoped to obtain evidence about the underlying systematic connections between psychic make-up and social development. To initiate this ambitious research program, they designed a comprehensive questionnaire with 271 items and distributed it to 3,300 recipients. By the end of 1931, 1,100 questionnaires had been returned to Fromm for analysis.

The study was undertaken as a first attempt at investigating the social and psychological attitudes of two large groups in Germany — manual and white-collar workers. The purpose of the questionnaire was to gain as comprehensive as possible a picture of the opinions, attitudes, and ways of life of the workers. The questionnaire contained two types of questions. Questions of the first type sought to ascertain objectively the situation of the respondent as a member of a social group, and they included: age, sex, marital status, income, occupation, and membership in various social, religious, and political groups. Questions of the second type were aimed at uncovering personality traits or attitudes which could not be obtained directly. For example, attitudes toward authority were determined by questions