Jewish Exiles' Psychological Interpretations of Nazism

by Avihu Zakai

Overview

This book 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 inquiries 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, who wrote in 1753 - scribere est agere ("to write is to act").

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783030540722
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	08/31/2020
Edition description:	1st ed. 2020
Pages:	171
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x (d)

About the Author

Avihu Zakai is Emeritus Professor of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is also the author, most recently, of The Pen Confronts the Sword: Exiled German Scholars Challenge Nazism (2018).

Table of Contents

Introduction.- Wilhelm Reich and the Sexual Roots of Fascism.- A Psychological Inquiry into Totalitarianism: Erich Fromm’s Escape from Freedom.- Siegfried Kracauer’s From Caligari to Hitler: Weimar Cinema as Pandora’s Box.- Erich Neumann and the Western Crisis of Ethics.- Epilogue.