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Introduction
(2020)
>Jewish Exiles’ Psychological Interpretations of Nazism< examines works of four German-Jewish scholars who, in their places of exile, sought to probe the pathology of the Nazi mind: Wilhelm Reich’s >The Mass Psychology of Fascism< (1933), Erich Fromm’s >Escape from Freedom< (1941), Siegfried Kracauer’s >From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film< (1947), and Erich Neumann’s >Depth Psychology and a New Ethic< (1949). While scholars have examined these authors’ individual legacies, no comparative analysis of their shared concerns has yet been undertaken, nor have the content and form of their psychological inquiry into Nazism been seriously and systematically analyzed. Yet, the sense of urgency in their works calls for attention. They all took up their pens to counter Nazi barbarism, believing, like the English jurist and Judge Sir William Blackstone, that >scribere est agree< (to write is to act).
>The Mass Psychology of Fascism< (1933) was the first psychological inquiry into Fascism. In this work the psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich (1897–1957) explores how Fascists came into power, and explain their rise as a symptom of sexual repression. It was followed by other psychological interpretations of Nazism by Jewish exiles from the Third Reich, from Erich Fromm’s >Escape from Freedom< (1942), to Siegfried Kracauer’s >From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film< (1947), and Erich Neumann’s >Depth Psychology and a New Ethic< (1949).
Erich Fromm was a German social psychologist and psychoanalyst who was associated with the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. He was known for developing the concept that freedom was a fundamental part of human nature and for challenging the theories of Sigmund Freud. In his works he presented the view that understanding of basic human needs is essential to the understanding of society and mankind. In >Escape from Freedom< Fromm explores humanity’s shifting relationship with freedom, with particular regard to the personal consequences of its absence.
Epilogue
(2020)
Recent decades have witnessed a surge of important studies dealing with intellectuals’ confrontation with fascism and Nazism, and the societal roles that they can play, especially during such “dark times.” This is an area that is close to my study, and it is therefore important to mark the difference between some of these studies and mine in terms of content and form and with regard to the meaning and significance intellectuals assigned to their works.