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opmental perspective was followed by a more Kleinian "projective"
one, and then discussed by "opponents." Comments from the audi–
ence, of course, reiterated the commentators' theoretical convictions:
from the level of applause it was clear that IPA friendships develop
along theoretical wavelengths and that these do, in fact, cross national
boundaries. Another means of overcoming them has been through
cooperation in organizing the bi-yearly congresses. That is how the
leading figures from each country have gotten to respect (or dislike)
one another.
After this congress, an increasing number of Germans will
become
persona grata
in this network of organizers.
That
was why they
pushed the Freudians to come to Hamburg. Whether the best of the
German analysts, like oil on water, will float to the top, is not yet
clear. For anyone who attended this meeting was aware that Nazism
both lives on and is being conquered. But to have gone to Hamburg,
I believe, helped psychoanalysts of the world to face the issues and
to initiate a dialogue. A few young Germans
did
learn that so many
"foreign" analysts are Jewish; a few others
did
realize that profes–
sional descent from Freud was different from being born Jewish. Yet
when a young German got up during the closing session and said he
was pleased finally to have met Jews, the past unexpectedly reap–
peared in yet another form, and the tone of the German training
analyst who took offense at this remark recalled it further. Still, the
Americans learned that there are more
good
Germans than they
knew, and that it is worthwhile to cooperate with them.
Dieter Ohlmeier, who invited me and knew I would report on
this congress, had the courage to preside over the cacophony of con–
flicting interests, ideas, politics and memories. But the Freudians
who came were courageous as well: a few of them, recalling Auschwitz,
were unable to take showers; others relived painful details of their
emigration; yet others could not sleep; and a Dutch analyst recalled
having been "saved" by an official who refused to turn her family
over to the Gestapo.
That was how the Freudians recalled the horrors the Nazis had
wrought, and they fortunately were too busy to note that during the
same week a sixty-eight year-old former Nazi who had "assisted in
the murder of at least one hundred Jews," was sentenced to three
years in prison. Given the presence of this past, one must credit the
German analysts for their painstaking efforts at rehabilitation. In
their uphill struggle, many of them were helped by intense and per–
sonal encounters with visitors, and by the ensuing honest-though
