Overview
- Examines works of four German-Jewish scholars who, in their exile, sought to probe the pathology of the Nazi mind
- Provides an introduction, a biographical sketch, a historical discussion of the development of each individual’s thought, and an explication of each of the four major works
- Includes discussions of Wilhelm Reich, Erich Fromm, Siegfried Kracauer, and Erich Neumann
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Table of contents (6 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
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").
Authors and Affiliations
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).
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Jewish Exiles’ Psychological Interpretations of Nazism
Authors: Avihu Zakai
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54070-8
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Religion and Philosophy, Philosophy and Religion (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-54069-2Published: 01 September 2020
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-54072-2Published: 01 September 2021
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-54070-8Published: 31 August 2020
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: V, 171
Topics: Religious Studies, general, History of World War II and the Holocaust, Psychoanalysis