BOOKS
477
documents "Dora's" identity as Ida Bauer, sister of Qtto Bauer, one
of Austrian social democracy's key leaders. Dora's identity has been
well known to insiders in the psychoanalytic movement for decades,
most especially by those trained by the Vienna Psychoanalytic Insti–
tute.) In his study of Herzl, Loewenberg draws on diaries, autobio–
graphical novels and short stories, and letters. He does not attempt
to unearth and answer all the secrets about the founder of modern
Zionism, but shows how he oscillated between dismal self-regard and
swelling omnipotence which resulted in a blurring of boundaries be–
tween fantasy and reality, ideas and people, action and dream. With–
out denigrating his achievement, Loewenberg's portrait humanizes
and demythicizes Herzl, places him in a particular time and place ,
and fleshes out the inner dimensions of his life history.
In the essay on Victor and Friedrich Adler, Loewenberg inge–
niously illustrates father-son generational conflict, hatred and love.
He argues that Fritz's assassination of the Prime Minister of Austria
in 1916 can be understood as a displacement and acting out of ag–
gressively murderous urges toward his own father; his psychoanalytic
sounding thereby includes the symbolic significance of this act of
murder. In another essay, Heinrich Himmler is unable to integrate
his unconscious sadism, cruelty, and severely regressed tendencies
into a coherent identity. Identification with Hitler and incorporation
of the anti-Semitic ideology and demonology had healing effects for
Himmler while leading to horrendous consequences for European
Jewry. Although it would be erroneous to generalize that all Nazi
leaders had a schizoid personality structure, Loewenberg's portrait
makes us reflect on political leaders, past and present, who over–
value toughness and who deny emotions .
Loewenberg's analysis of Nazi youth is a
tour de force
and a
shrewd account of the mass psychology of the led. For German youth
who came into consciousness in the late 1920s and early 1930s, un–
employment became the shared massive trauma. Millions of men and
women who found themselves helpless, confused, psychologically
disorganized and fragmented, were receptive to irrational appeals
and simplistic explanations for their difficulties. Therefore, a clever
mythomaniac like Hitler could easily fill the political and emotional
vacuum with his message of racial violence, revenge, and national
honor. Loewenberg explains how the Fuhrer's personality and ideol–
ogy simultaneously tapped into the longings of German youth for
both paternal protectiol) and maternal care .
