File:Arthur and Fritz Kahn Collection 1889-1932 (20345633841).jpg

Title: Arthur and Fritz Kahn Collection 1889-1932
Identifier: arthurfritzkahn_03_reel03 (find matches)
Year: [1] (s)
Authors: Kahn, Arthur and Fritz
Subjects: Kahn, Fritz 1888-1968; Kahn, Arthur David 1850-1928; Natural history illustrators; Natural history
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Contributing Library: Leo Baeck Institute Archives
Digitizing Sponsor: Leo Baeck Institute Archives

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The New York Times Book Review, ,1pnl 4, 1943. 1 Nazism, A Ger man Disease 18 OSRMANY INCURABLEf By Richard M. Brickner, M. D. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company. %B. By GEORGS N. SH Uff TSR DR. BRICKNER is a com- petent psychiatrist. His purpose in this book is to discuss the conduct of the German people, viewed as more than mildly insane, and to suggest a remedy. In his opinion, Hitler is not an accident but a Channel through which national character- istics are made manifest. It would be a mistake to focus all atten- tion upon the leader and to ignore the equally befuddled followers. For added together they are "paranoids." The term needs analysis, and Dr. Brickner de- scribes what he means in con- siderable detail, taking his illus- trations both from individual case- histories and from historical sources. All this makes absorb- ing reading. He does not make the mistake of pinning the label on every German. His contention is that during more than a Cen- tury the basic characteristics of German society have been path- ological, that the "trend" has been toward paranoia. This the outside world failed to realize (we are told), to its own undoing. Whereas countless ob- servers testified to the iron dis- cipline which mied in the Ger- man family, to social Conventions which gave free rein to the will to dominate, and to the popular- ity of ruthlessness among soldiers and statesmen, observers in non- paranoid countries did not under- stand the Situation and tried to deal with Hitler as if he were a normal human being. The fact that you cannot "appease" a para- noid was ignored until the fate- ful hour when an insatiable mad- man decreed the march into Po- land—not on his own initiative alone but with the approval of millions who had been formed by the Pan-German and other Propa- ganda of decades. What has hap- pened since is common knowledge. It is the social case-history of paranoids run amuck. EJvery disease of this kind has its roots in the past. Dr. Brick- ner cites a great deal of comment by German and other writers. Much use is made of writers like Anne Topham and Wilfred Trotter, who in the past cat- alogued sundry of the special ills of German life. But on the other band—and one says this without implying that Dr. Brickner's case is necessarily weak—there is a great deal of evidence which is not introduced. After all, men like Cardinal Faulhaber and Ernst Wiechert, the editors of periodicals which bravely held their own until the outbreak of the war itself, and a great many industrialists, were also Germans and by no means unrepresenta- tive ones. Nevertheless, any one who reads the arguments presented in this and similar books cannot help concluding that modern Germany has been desperately ill. The Ob- servation that Hitler is a para- noid who has fashioned millions after his own Image is far from
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"You may have begun man—but /, Adolf Hitler, will finish him." Low C in All Countries. being novel. One can assure Dr. Brickner that most of the "ap- peasement" group in Ehigland looked at the Nazis as hopeless psychotics. Their error was a different one entirely, and to some extent it is shared by Dr. Brick- ner. It was believed that "crazy *men" could not possibly maintain a stable economy, and that' there- fore the Nazis would surely de- feat themselves. Unfortunately, there are worse things than para- noia. There has existed in Ger- many since the last war a wholly Unmoral ruthlessness which calm- ly weighs the chances of success with methods which civilized men are unwilling to employ. It is one thing to trace a parallel be- tween Wilhelm II and Adolf Hit- ler, both of them egomaniacs. But it is another thing entirely to forget that Bethmann-Hollweg and Ribbentrop are not the same person. That is why the value of the treatment outlined by Dr. Brick- ner for post-war use by the victorious enemies of Germany is highly questionable. He ad- vocates giving to the German polity exercises and medicines comparable to those which are administered to an individual paranoid. Thus he would deprive the infected Germans of all Chance to exercise authority, either in government, in the schools, or in the molding of public opinion. Strict censorship would be imposed. Paranoid par- ents would be allowed to marry only if their children were reared by the State. This regimen is worth discussing, even if one is rendered somewhat dubious of re- sults by one's inability to forget that Hitler's own ancestors were hardly paranoids and that the man was not even a German. But if the disease is a Compound of Paranoia and something worse (I believe it is), Dr. Brickner's eure would not only be fantastically difficult to apply but also fantas- tically inadequate. Accordlngly one c€Ui only urge that the sole approach to the ex- tremely difficult task of living with Germany after this war is over lies through the acquisition of objective knowledge. It will not do even for a scientist as able and well-intentioned as Dr. Brick- ner to bend history to his pur- pose. Yes, one may comment on the relative subservience of many German women to their husbands. But the fact remains—as there are many writers besides Nora Waln to prove it—that resistance to Nazism has been kept alive in vast districts of the Fatherland by firm motherly insistence. Per- haps all German domestics were slaves, but they had a labor union and a very strong one at that. It Is incorrect to say that the purchase of Rosenberg's diatribe was not obligatory, but it is a serious fault of Omission not to observe that since 1933 the sale of the Bible in Germany has grown by leaps and bounds. The historian may legitimately trace the development of Nazism through obscure periodicals of the past three generations. But he will not look upon those Jour- nals as the sole exponents of the Grerman spirit, any more than he would identify yellow Journalism with American culture. And so, perhaps, one of the principal merits of Dr. Brickner's treatise is that even a reader who finds it more subjective than sci- entific will be moved to sense the extraordinary difficulties which must be surmounted by those who undertake to rebuild Europe. How can even the best economic and juridical plans be made to werk unless men are willing to cooper' ate in the spirit of a commitment to decency? Where is the guar- antee of that willingness save in the hope that the grave disorders of Western society which culmi- nated in the madness of Hitler will have branded a terrible les- son on the hearts of millions? Man must cleanse himself of viru- lent and suicidal fevers. Perhaps psychiatry will help. But it seems to me that much more than that is needed if the Job of healing is really to be done. Cardboard Emperor PA88EN0ERS TO MEXICO: The Last Invasion of the Americaa. By Blair Niles. 390 pp. New York: Farrar <£ Rinehart, Inc. $3. • By HERBERT OORMAN urr\ HE last Invasion of the Americas" was that monstrous attempt by Nai^oleon III to put and establish the Austrian Archduke, Ferdinand Maximilian Josef, on the throne of a gimcrack Mexi- can empire that existed only in the conniving minds of a small group of corrupt double-dealers and fools. It would never have been at- tempted had not the United States been rivcn by Civil War and so incapable of exercising sufficient pressure and force against it. Washington was com- pelled to bide its time, but its time came (after Appomattox), and when it did, the short-lived imperial papier-mäch^ edifj^ce crashed like an eggshell beneäth a determined heel. A ridiculous dream became an absurd tragedy. Aiaximilian's fate depended on the presence of French troops, and when they were withdrawn at Seward's demand (and Napo- leon III knew that the American Secretary had hundreds of thou- sands of veteran troops to back up his demand), the impossible drama reached its tragic finale. Maximilian was shot at Quer6- taro and Napoleon m moved un- suspectingly on toward Sedan. And that portion of the Monroe Doctrine concerned with His- panic America showed that it had teeth in it. The Story of Maximilian and his Empress Carlotta has been told scores of times and there has been a lot of excess romanti- cization of it, but "Passengers to Mexico" teils it in a new way and one that brings sharply home the human Clements in it. We some- times forget those. Mrs. Niles has written a sort of swift-moving biographical his- tory of those years, and what formal history has set down in rather cold type she has pre- sented in warm flesh-and-blood. To do this she has extricated from the less accessible docu- mentation of the past a number of actual figures, all of whom came to Mexico during the period and most of whom are slight footnotes or nothing at all in the weighty tomes. It was an excel- lent idea and she has handled it most successfully. We see it through the eyes of Thomas Corwin, United States Minister to Mexico; Sara Yorke, who came from France at the age of 15 and went on to a useful life in Philadelphia; Liouis Noir, a French Zouave; Captain Lau- rent of the Chasseurs d'Afrique, Captain Charles Blanchot, who married Sara's sister; d^harles Lempriöre of London, Dr. Basch, Maximilian's physician; Jos6 Blasio, his private secretary; Countess Kollonitz, a lady-in- waiting; Matias Romero, Mexi- can Minister to Washington; the astounding Princess Salm-Salm, who was bom Agnes Joy of Ver- mont; Prince Felix Salm-Salm, and a group of Confederate offi- cers, including Sterling Price, "Joe" Shelby and Magruder, who fled across the border after Lee's surrender to Grant. From their letters, Journals and memoirs Mrs. Niles has pieced together a coherent chronological narration that moves with speed and is im- pregnated with color. It may be a popularization, but there is more blood and reality in it than in scores of heavier tomes that are praised for a season and then gather dust in College li- braries. Emerging from the nar- rative is a Maximilian much less romanticized than usual (we see him through eyes too near to him to be affected by those pleasant rose-hued veils of distance) and also a Carlotta who is, as we have always guessed, a pathetic and unbalanced creature. V

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