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PARTISAN REVIEW
has not changed, why are there no death camps in Germany today?
Karl Hyman:
The only reason is the guilty conscience of the world,
which allowed the creation of Israel.
David Gress:
That's probably true.
Charles Krutoff:
I'm a psychologist. My question is addressed mostly
to Dr. Mitscherlich. I believe there are national characteristics. It seems
to me that Germany had a"paranoid episode, and it assumed the power
paranoid people usually believe they have. The German military, which
had the actual strength, was able to realize that power. And it exercised
it as a paranoid does. The German Nazis killed their imagined enemies,
the Jews, five or six million of them; they killed twenty million Russians
as well as many Allied soldiers, as a result of this paranoia. Now, my
question has to do with the prognosis, which to a large extent depends
on the recognition of the guilt. Guilt to a certain extent is civilizing.
Without the development of the superego, the agency that governs
guilt, there would not be the kind of civilization that we have today.
The question is, will this guilt be recognized and addressed by the cur–
rent generation of Germans? If guilt to a large extent is being denied, if
there is no recognition but denial, this subtle, underlying, fermenting
paranoia that exists in a portion of the German people, then what is the
prognosis?
Margarete Mitscherlich:
It's a very difficult question to answer. In–
deed, ours was the bloodiest century since human beings have existed.
One must say, too, thatthe exhibition in Hamburg proves that even if
not all of us were Nazis, almost no one really resisted when told to do
something - kill the Jews, kill the Russians. They did what they were
told. But why? The question of guilt covers wide territory. My analyst,
an emigre from Hungary, Michael Balint, often told me to be careful
with making people feel guilty. They react paranoically. Why they
become so would really be a very interesting question. But if you have a
strong superego, and do all you are told to do, you can't tolerate
normal guilt feelings; you can't even differentiate between healthy and
unhealthy guilt feelings.
So the Germans became paranoid when told to do this and that,
that if you don't do it, you are guilty of going against your nation.
Under a totally paranoid Fuhrer, they became paranoid, and out of this
paranoia they were able to do things no other people ever did. So,
what is the prognosis? One side wants the Germans to accept their past
