The formation of the German Psychoanalytic Association (DPV): regaining the psychoanalytical orientation lost in the...

The author of this paper is concerned with exploring the motives for the so-called split in the German Psychoanalytical Society (DPG) that took place in 1950 with the foundation of the German Psychoanalytical Association (DPV) and the way this has been described in recent accounts. Considering alternative interpretations which assume a positive development of psychoanalysis in the Third Reich that have recently been put forward (e.g. Dührssen, 1994) in the light of archival evidence (particularly circular reports written by Otto Fenichel), the author postulates that the so-called split in 1950 had its roots in the dissolution of the DPG during the Third Reich, which in reality deserves the characterisation as schism, and that the foundation of the DPV was actually an attempt to repair the damage caused by the violation of civilised standards and the ways these were responded to by psychoanalysts at the time. The author questions the ahistorical tendency in accounts which deny the discontinuity of civilisation after 1933 and concentrate on the policy issues of the 1950s. He suggests that the foundation of the DPV was part of a conscious technical and scientific objective, namely the restoration of a psychoanalytical orientation that had become lost and buried in the Third Reich.