Archiv der Kategorie: Zur Geschichte der Psychoanalyse und speziell zu Wilhelm Reich

A Marxist psychoanalyst of Jewish origins lives through the end of the Weimar Republic

After eighty-seven years, the original 1933 edition of Wilhelm Reich’s Mass Psychology of Fascism is published for the first time in its original form

Andreas Peglau


“Society must be in resistance to us, for we behave critically towards it; we prove to society that it is in large part itself the cause of neuroses.” (Sigmund Freud, 1910).

To be consistent, psychoanalysis, both as a social science and as a therapeutic method, must be critical of society. Given this, the original version of Wilhelm Reich’s Mass Psychology of Fascism, published in the late summer of 1933, can be regarded as one of the most important psychoanalytic books ever written. More particularly, Reich’s book was the first text to address the psychosocial underpinnings of the Nazi system, working in a field now referred to as right-wing extremism studies.

Nonetheless, the book’s first edition has been almost completely forgotten, only available in pirate editions or at high prices from antiquarian bookstores. Existing references to Mass Psychology of Fascism almost always mean the 1946 English-language third edition, which has been available in German since 1971. But this edition differs radically from the original version of the book. Weiterlesen →

Reich at the Marxist Workers‘ School MASCH

by Andreas Peglau[1]

Figure 1. The Schickler House on Litten Street, a few hundred metres from the Berlin Alexanderplatz. The MASCH headquarters took up an entire floor here, where Wilhelm Reich, among others, held lectures. (Photo Gudrun Peters 2007)

Initiated by the KPD in Berlin in 1925/26, the founding of MASCH marked the beginning of an educational project that was in many respects unique and unjustly almost forgotten.The aim of the MASCH was to provide workers with education, above all basic knowledge of Marxism, which was also claimed to be infallible: „No social question that Marxism cannot answer, […] no political situation that Marxism cannot shed light on“ (Gerhard-Sonnenberg 1976, p. 73). The opponents or competitors were seen as „the bourgeois and socialist so-called ‚universities'“. Weiterlesen →

What would a Wilhelm Reich-oriented psychoanalysis look like?

by Andreas Peglau[1]

From a lecture given at the spring conference of the German Psychoanalytic Association (DPG) in Kassel, 6.6.2015.

„The question of what psychoanalysts can and should do here and now for the preservation of peace – at least where it is still possible to speak of peace at all, i.e. not least in Central Europe – is, in my view, by far the most important reason why a profound discussion of Reich within psychoanalysis should urgently – for the first time – be put on the agenda.“ Weiterlesen →

The Unified Associations for Proletarian Sexual Reform and Maternity Protection and Wilhelm Reich’s real role in the German „Sex-pol“

by Andreas Peglau[1]

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CP mass organisations

Through the creation of mass organisations, the KPD attempted from 1924 onwards to reach broader sections of the population and at the same time to draw them away from the SPD. With this aim in mind, for example, the Kampfgemeinschaft der Arbeitersänger, the Arbeitermandolinisten or the Verband Proletarischer Freidenker Deutschlands came into being. This was not always accompanied by large membership numbers, which was often concealed by „corporate memberships“: other associations joined as members – which made the membership numbers skyrocket on paper. Nevertheless, these organisations as a whole had an impressive following. The Freidenker (Freethinkers) had 170,000 members in 1932, the Rote Frontkämpferbund between 100,000 and 250,000, and the Rote Hilfe Deutschlands had an estimated 530,000 members in 1933. The Internationale Arbeiterhilfe (IAH, International Workers‘ Aid) had „in March 1931 602 associations and organisations with 1,225,000 members“. However, even the IAH only had a few tens of thousands of individual members, i.e. „natural persons“. Weiterlesen →

A small Sensation: The camouflage edition of Wilhelm Reich’s „Massenpsychologie des Faschismus“ (1933) has surfaced

by Andreas Peglau

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Germans who read in late 1933 or later Mystische Erhebung. Ein Buch für junge Männer by Pastor Friedrich Traub, had no reason to be surprised at first: one more church representative who paid homage to the Nazi regime. Right at the beginning it said:

„With a strong hand, National Socialism, under God’s guidance, has swept away materialism and Bolshevism, individualism and liberalism, and in general everything un-German and un-Christian from our public life.“

If they stopped reading at this point and refrained from further investigation, they might have seen no reason why the possession of this writing could endanger them. On closer examination, however, they would have come to a very different conclusion. Weiterlesen →

A visit to the Wilhelm Reich Archive in Boston in the year 2012

by Andreas Peglau[1]

Before Wilhelm Reich died in the U.S. on Nov. 3, 1957, he had stipulated in his will that his legacy would not be made available to the public until 50 years after his death. In November 2007 the time had come.

As part of my book and dissertation project „Unpolitische Wissenschaft? Wilhelm Reich und die Psychoanalyse im Nationalsozialismus,“ in January 2012 I visited – apparently as the first German-speaking researcher – this archive, located at the Medical School of Boston’s Harvard University.

Medical School, Boston’s Harvard University.

Weiterlesen →

Wilhelm Reich and Willy Brandt as „High Traitors“

by Andreas Peglau[1] 

Announcement of an astonishing find: the psychoanalyst Reich and the later German Chancellor Willy Brandt were jointly targeted by the Nazi People’s Court for high treason in 1939. The role, perhaps decisive for Reich’s survival, of a hitherto unjustly unknown person is also revealed: Martin Mayer. Weiterlesen →

Were there psychoanalytic writings against fascism?

Results of an (almost futile) research lasting several months.

by Andreas Peglau[1]

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Already in the 1920s, Nazi greats such as Alfred Rosenberg had threatened leftist and liberal journalists who attacked the National Socialists with reprisals for the time after a possible Nazi takeover (Rosenberg 1940, pp. 92-112, 119, 401f.). Carl von Ossietzky was among those who actually paid with their lives for their contributions critical of Hitler during the Weimar Republic.
Likewise, Erich Mühsam’s published warnings against fascism probably played a decisive role in his imprisonment and murder in the Oranienburg concentration camp on July 10, 1934.
Ehm Welk was sent to the same concentration camp for three months in 1934 because he had reacted ironically to a Goebbels speech in a newspaper article (Longerich 2010, p. 260). The „National Bolshevist“ Ernst Niekisch’s book Hitler – ein deutsches Verhängnis (Hitler – a German Doom), published in 1932, and other publications critical of the regime earned him an eight-year prison term, from which he was released only in 1945, severely physically damaged (Niekisch 1932; Haffner 1980, p. 255).
The successful conservative author Ernst Wiechert was also imprisoned in 1938, first in the penitentiary and then in the Buchenwald concentration camp, after he had shown solidarity with the politically persecuted Martin Niemöller and refused to participate in the referendum on the annexation of Austria. Wiechert survived the five months of his imprisonment only with the help of fellow prisoners (Barbian 1995, pp. 398-409, 2010b, pp. 405f.; Wiechert 2008). Afterwards, Goebbels made it clear to him personally that he would be returned to the camp „at the slightest occasion,“ but then „for life and with the goal of physical extermination“ (ibid., p. 135f.; cf. Longerich 2010, p. 405).
Jan-Pieter Barbian balances: „[S]henever open criticism of the National Socialist state or the NSDAP was voiced, the Minister of Propaganda did not shy away from the threat of physical violence“ (Barbian 1995, p. 398); as soon as „a writer overstepped the political boundaries set for him by the regime, he risked not only his membership in the Reichsschrifttumskammer and thus his professional existence, but in extreme cases also his life“ (Barbian 2008, p. 20).

But to what extent did this affect psychoanalysis? Which psychoanalytic authors – before and after 1933 – exercised such unequivocal criticism in their publications? Weiterlesen →

Interview zur „Rede an den kleinen Mann “ bei Radio Corax

Wilhelm Reich im Radio

Am Dienstag, 21. Februar, 15 Uhr, lief die „Rede an den kleinen Mann“ (siehe unten) bei Radio CORAX, dem Freien Radio im Raum Halle/ Saale (und darüber hinaus).
Wer sie nicht hören konnte, kann das weiterhin hier nachholen.

Vorab hatte mich Jan Ermentraut zu Reichs Text und dessen aktueller Bedeutung befragt. Dieses Interview wurde am selben Tag bei Radio Corax ausgestrahlt:

Wilhelm Reichs „Rede an den kleinen Mann“ (Auszüge) – Hörbuch kostenlos herunterladen und anhören

Gelesen von Felix Würgler.
Produziert im Dezember 2022 im Hörbuch-Tonstudio Berlin.
Ton und Schnitt: Berthold Heiland.
Auswahl und Zusammenstellung, Einleitung, Produktion und Regie: Andreas Peglau.
Covergestaltung: Jan Petzold.
Klavier: Andreas Gotthilf.
Dauer: 50 Minuten.

Aus der Einleitung:

1946 feierte Wilhelm Reich seinen 49. Geburtstag, publizierte die dritte Auflage seiner „Massenpsychologie des Faschismus“ und verfasste die ursprünglich nicht zur Veröffentlichung gedachte „Rede an den kleinen Mann“. Diese Rede sei, schrieb Reich, „ein menschliches, kein wissenschaftliches Dokument“, solle „niemand überzeugen, gewinnen oder erobern“. Er nehme für sich nur jenes Recht zur „persönlichen Äußerung“ in Anspruch, welches „man dem Dichter oder Philosophen nie bestritten“ habe.  Weiterlesen →