[Psychoanalysis and psychoanalysts in France between 1939 and 1945]

France was affected by a deep psychoanalytic silence, both in theoretical and clinical fields, throughout the four years of German occupation. The psychoanalytic Institute closed its doors and the Revue française de psychanalyse interrupted its publication as soon as the armistice of 1940. Some people, e.g. Rudolf Loewenstein or Princess Marie Bonaparte, emigrated, others fought, e.g. Sacha Nacht or Paul Schiff. Daniel Lagache went on with his researches within the works of the University of Strasburg, which had sought shelter in Clermont-Ferrand. René Laforgue cooperated with the German occupant; after the Liberation of France in 1944 he was discarded from a group in which, a few years before, he may have entertained the hope of playing an outstanding part. Quite a few of those he analyzed remained faithful to him--which will have an important bearing on the evolution of the psychoanalytic movement in France after 1945. In 1945, indeed, the new generation emerging from the last convulsions of the war, will gather around the most influential potential leaders: Sacha Nacht and Jacques Lacan. Only after the latency of those silent years, only after those years of violent struggles and cowardice, will the psychoanalytic elaborations appear, and also the institutional feuds to which they gave vent--in a conflictual climate amounting to the schism of 1953.