Jewish Exiles' Psychological Interpretations of Nazism

Avihu Zakai's Jewish Exiles' Psychological Interpretations of Nazism provides a valuable new contribution to the scholarly debate on intellectual leadership in 'dark times.' Building on his earlier work The Pen Confronts the Sword, Zakai again addresses the larger Kulturkampf leveled against fascism and Nazism. In this concise, accessible book, he demonstrates how four exiled German-Jewish thinkers-Wilhelm Reich, Erich Fromm, Siegfried Kracauer, and Erich Neumann-confronted Nazism through psychological inquiry and how their interpretations help us to make sense of the cultural response to totalitarianism.- Mark Clark, Kenneth Asbury Professor of History, The University of Virginia's College at Wise, USAThis 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).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).