Politics, Ideology, And The Psychoanalytic Movement Before, During, And After The Third Reich

After Vienna, arguably the most important city to figure in the early history of psychoanalysis is Berlin. The most prominent organizations were the German Psychoanalytic Association (Deutsche Psychoanalytische Gesellschaft [DPG]) and the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute (Berliner Psychoanalytisches Instituted [BPI]). Interest in the history of German psychoanalysis, particularly the question of whether psychoanalysis survived the Nazi assault during the Third Reich, began to emerge in the 1970s and the 1980s. Contributions to our knowledge of the period were made by psychoanalysts, historians, and psychologists both in books and journal articles (Brecht, Friedrich, Hermanns, Kaminer, & Juelich, 1985; Cocks, 1985, 1997; Dührssen, 1994; Goggin & Goggin, 2001; Lockot, 1985; Spiegel, 1975). There are many ways to tell the story of the journey of psychoanalysis from its earliest days in Kaiser Wilhelm's Germany with Karl Abraham and Max Eitingon, through the periods of the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich and World War II, to the postwar period. One intriguing way is to explore the impact of political systems (forms of government), ideologies, belief systems, and cultural factors upon the science and practice of psychoanalysis. The term “politics” in this article refers to Nazi politics and the political power struggles within the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA). We will attempt to show the complex interaction of these forces and their effect on psychoanalysis before, during, and after the Third Reich. In these interactions we will demonstrate how the psychoanalytic movement in Central Europe failed to follow Freud's own warnings and by so doing failed to