Jung on war, politics, and Nazi Germany : exploring the theory of archetypes and the collective unconscious

413 Pages·2009·2.5 MB·English

by  Jung

Jung on War, Politics
and Nazi Germany
Exploring the Theory of Archetypes
and the Collective Unconscious
Nicholas Adam Lewin
BSc (Econ), MA, PhD
First published 2009
by Karnac Books Ltd.
118 Finchley Road
London NW3 5HT
© Nicholas Adam Lewin
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilised in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission
in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts and diagrams from the following works are reproduced by
permission of Taylor & Francis Books UK: The Organism of the Mind by
Gustav Heyer © 1933 Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd.; The
Psychology of C.G. Jung by Jolande Jacobi © 1950 Routledge & Kegan Paul;
ABC of Jung's Psychology by J. Corrie © 1927 Kegan Paul; The Seminars -
Volume 3: Analytical Psychology by C.G. Jung, ed. W. McGuire © 1990
Routledge; Nietzsche’s Zarathustra Notes of the Seminar (in two volumes)
by C.G. Jung, ed. J. Jarrett © 1989 Routledge & Kegan Paul; Visions: Notes
of the Seminar Given in 1930-1934 by C.G. Jung, ed. Claire Douglas © 1998
Routledge; Collected Works, vols. 4, 5, 7, 9i, 10, 11, 15, 17, 18 by C.G. Jung,
trans. R.F.C. Hull © 1953-1978 Routledge & Kegan Paul. Excerpts from
Jung, My Mother and I by J. Cabot Reid © 2001 are reproduced by
permission of Daimon Verlag, Einsiedeln.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A C.I.P. is available for this book from the British Library.
ISBN-13: 978-1-85575-457-7
Printed and bound in Great Britain.
www.karnacbooks.com
C
ONTENTS
Acknowledgements.................................................................................5
Introduction..............................................................................................9
1. Concerning Freud and Jung on International Politics and War..19
2. Jung and His Politics.........................................................................30
3. Jung on International Politics and the Causes of War..................72
4. From the Individual to ‘The Collective’:
Examining Jung’s Progression from Clinician to Grand Theorist..99
5. The Layered Model of the Collective Unconscious.....................110
6. Archetypes:
‘Towards the Distant Goal of a Genetic Psychology’......................161
7. The Effect of the Archetypes in the Political Arena.....................196
8. The Test Case: Wotan and Nazi Germany.....................................211
9. Jung on Hitler:
A Case Study for Archetypal or Typology Theory?........................288
10. Post-Jungian Archetypal Theory and International Politics....306
Appendix A
The Question of Anti-Semitism in the Zofingia Lectures...............324
Appendix B
The Freudians and Collective Theory...............................................326
Appendix C
Jung’s Perspective on International Politics After 1945..................329
Appendix D
Adolf Bastian and Elementargedanken................................................338
Appendix E
Key Dates For Jung During the Nazi Seizure of Power.................340
Notes......................................................................................................342
Bibliography.........................................................................................376
Index......................................................................................................405

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
W
riting a book is in many ways a journey of discovery on
which one learns both something of a subject and maybe
more than one had bargained for about oneself! Many people have
helped me along the way and it is a pleasure to remember all those
who have contributed.
Firstly I would like to thank my parents for without their sup-
port this book would not have been possible. Not only have they
provided endless practical assistance but also they have been brave
enough to read the manuscript and my father has provided invalu-
able IT support. For this I also have to thank my late aunt, Gill
Rickayzen, for her gift of a scanner and Mr and Mrs Benson who
very generously provided my present PC.
At the beginning of these acknowledgements I must express
deep gratitude to the late Venerable Myokyo-ni Sama who started
my interest in Jungian psychology and over the years laboured to
develop my education.
Among the staff at Essex University I gratefully recall how my
supervisor, Professor Renos Papadopoulos showed great humour
and hospitality and continually strove to broaden my focus and
improve my writing style. From the other staff I must also thank
Professors Robert Hinshelwood and Joan Raphael-Leff for excellent
fortnightly doctoral seminars in my first year and the suggestions
provided at the annual supervision board by Professors Karl Figlio,
Renos Papadopoulos, Andrew Samuels and the late Ian Craib. I
would also like to express my gratitude to the departmental secret-
5
6 JUNG ON WAR, POLITICS AND NAZI GERMANY
ary Mrs Marilyn Ward, whose patience, humour and help were in-
valuable during my time at Essex.
In the course of the work many people have been exceptionally
kind in the help that they have given. I cannot give too many
thanks to Andrew Burniston, a scholar and teacher of rare quality
who was always willing to give advice, help with queries and offer
suggestions. I also derived much benefit from his reading groups
at the C.G. Jung Analytical Psychology Club. From the Club I must
also express my thanks to Ann Colcord for her willingness to let
me use the library at inconvenient times and for her unfailing hos-
pitality to our reading group.
Friends and scholars have been very generous with their time
and help so it is a great pleasure to thank Andrea Cone-Farran, Dr
Gottfried Hauer and Harriet Cookson for reading through the
manuscript and offering comments. I would also like to thank Pro-
fessor Paul Bishop for his encouragement, Dr Sonu Shamdasani for
his help and advice and Professor Sir Bernard Crick who was kind
enough to make time and shared his thoughts on an early draft.
Nor can I forget the late Nicholas Battye for all his help on tracing
sources.
For the undercurrents of war that run through the book I re-
main deeply grateful to all my teachers at Aberystwyth Depart-
ment of International Politics and Kings College Department of
War Studies. From the former, I would especially like to thank Pro-
fessor Booth who began my interest in the psychological dimen-
sion of strategy and, from the latter, Professor Bond who was a
great role-model for me of methodical scholarship and encouraged
my wider reading on the German Resistance that provided a basis
for the part of the book on Nazi Germany.
While working on the book it was necessary to undertake as
much study as possible to broaden my psychological understand-
ing. In my first year some tutorials with Peter Berry provided an
eloquent guide to Klein and Freud. I was also lucky enough to be-
nefit from Dr Desmond Biddulph’s Jung course at Birkbeck Uni-
versity; various reading groups of Molly Tuby; the IAAP confer-
ence at Cambridge in 2002 and Dr Martin Liebscher’s courses at
the German Institute on Jung and Nietzsche was useful back-
ground and he has continued to offer help and advice along the
way.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 7
Many people have helped and encouraged me with the book.
While it is not possible individually to thank thank them all, I must
express my great debt to Dr Fritz Böbel and his wife Eva for their
continued hospitality, Wagnerian encouragement, and invaluable
advice, and to this add equal thanks to Dr Fredrick Böbel and his
wife Heike for the time I stayed with them and all their help. In
England I would especially like to thank again my fellow students
Dr Gottfried Heuer and Dr Mary Addenbrooke for their advice
and support and it is with pleasure that I recall my stays with Mr
and Mrs Tokeley in Wivenhoe and Mr and Mrs Hadley in Cam-
bridge. I must also thank the late Sylvia Swain for her encourage-
ment, and remember Colonel Sylvia Quayle who gave me invalu-
able support at a difficult time.
Lastly may I add my thanks to Mrs Marie Salter for her IT sup-
port and conclude with a pleasant duty of acknowledgement of the
vital role librarians play in any research project. I would like to ex-
tend especial thanks to the library and interlibrary desk of Essex
University, the library at The Goethe Institute and the Libraries at
the Wellcome Institute and the Analytical Psychology Club Lon-
don.
Many people have helped me along the way with advice and
information that I have tried to learn from, but any errors that may
have occurred are my own and I beg the reader’s indulgence.

INTRODUCTION
M
any people know that C.G. Jung was one of the key psycho-
analytic innovators in the twentieth century, but what has
often been underestimated is how international politics impacted
on his life and how he came to devote a significant part of his work
trying to understand wider events. In old age, Jung recalled in his
biography how before the outbreak of the First World War he had
suffered from apocalyptic dreams that showed Europe almost sub-
merged in a sea of blood (Jung, 1963 [1961], p169). As events unfol-
ded, Switzerland was spared the horrors of war, though Jung
found himself directly involved on the sidelines as a commandant
of an internment camp for enemy soldiers. Once the dust of battle
settled Jung began to look for ways he could use his clinical work
and theories to explore how irrational emotions had driven the
conflict. Later, in the thirties, Jung was to make increasing use of
these theories to try to explain what was happening in Europe and
Nazi Germany as the continent drifted again towards war. This
evolution of Jung’s ideas came to fruition in the 1936 essay on
‘Wotan’ where he used his theory and eloquence to try to convey to
the reader the danger of the times.
HOW TO GET THE MOST FROM THIS BOOK.
This book covers a range of topics to appeal to different audiences.
Some readers will be drawn to look at how Jung applied his theory
to Nazi Germany. Others are interested in the issue of war and
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