Preface to the 1988 revised German pocketbook edition

Summary

Since the publication of the first German edition of this book, a number of studies on the history of science in the Third Reich have been published. It has become clearer and clearer that in the Nazi period science was neither the victim of systematic persecution nor abused against its own intentions and perceptions. Many scientists were persecuted for their origins or their convictions, while their discipline - carrying on business as usual - compromised itself and their colleagues willingly placed themselves in the service of the new regime.

The persecution of scientists was often mistaken for the persecution of science. For example, because, as Jews, many psychoanalysts suffered under Nazi terror, the opportunities that remained for psychotherapy were ignored by many. Recent publications have made it necessary to reconsider this, giving rise to much controversy. It seems that psychoanalysis, which was willing to accommodate itself to Nazi power, received official support.

The history of psychology in the Third Reich is confused not only with that of psychoanalysis, but also with that of psychiatry. In discussions, someone always asks whether psychologists were, like psychiatrists, involved in selecting victims for sterilization or euthanasia. In a comprehensive study of forced sterilization in the Third Reich, Gisela Bock (1986) showed how psychiatrists and other doctors made such decisions about unwilling victims at health offices and courts for hereditary health. Much material has also been collected that shows that medicine helped to rationalize the machinery of killing (Aly, Masuhr et al. 1985; Kudlien 1985), and that civil servants, judges, doctors, and medical staff all played a part (Aly, Ebbinghaus et al. 1985).