Clios Psyche 11-1.2.3.4 June 2004-Mar 2005
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Clio’s Psyche Understanding the "Why" of Culture, Current Events, History, and Society Volume 11 Number 1 June 2004 The Memoirs of the Hitler Family Reflections on Civilians Doctor: Eduard Bloch in Warfare David Beisel Peter Petschauer SUNY-Rockland Appalachian State University Dr. Eduard Bloch (1872-1945) is well known My essay explores the experience of civilians in to historians of twentieth century Germany, espe- war and its implications for them and society. It is also cially to Hitler scholars. As the Hitler family physi- about the effects of war on my family, my friends, and cian during Adolph’s childhood and adolescence, he me. Though I have never fought in war, I have always treated Hitler for various minor complaints, and was lived with its effects. Upon reflection, it is apparent to the first to diagnose then treat his mother Klara’s me that, even in the U.S., few people have avoided its breast cancer. This essay is a review of “The Autobi- influence. ography of Obermedizinalrat Dr. Eduard Bloch,” My own experiences with war placed me at the (Continued on page 8) periphery of the “Italian Theatre” during WWII. A unit of the German army (the Wehrmacht) was sta- tioned in our village, Afers (Eores), in northern Italy. Philip Pomper: A Psychohistorical We children enjoyed the fun of playing with the sol- Scholar of Russia diers, including sitting on their laps as they shot their cannons at American and British planes droning over- Paul H. Elovitz head on their mission to bomb Austria and Germany. Ramapo College The FLAK (anti-aircraft artillery) hit some of the planes, sending them crashing into our mountains and Philip Pomper is a distinguished scholar of forests. As soon as we deemed the situation safe, we Russia and Communist leaders as well as the William children ran to investigate what was left of these un- F. Armstrong Professor of History at Wesleyan Uni- usual “things.” I remember one plane in particular that versity. He was born on April 18, 1936 in Chicago had gone down in a forest near our farm in the spring of 1945. It remained relatively intact and we crawled (Continued on page 13) all over it for hours; the cockpit was especially intrigu- IN THIS ISSUE Parenting on Trial at DC Sniper Trial.…... 7 In Memoriam: Fiedhelm Nyssen…….…….… 25 Dan Dervin Peter Jüngst The Challenge Posed by Bollas…………. 21 In Memoriam: Rita Ransohoff (1916-2003)… 28 Review by Dan Dervin Joan Wynn with Paul H. Elovitz A Psychohistorical Critique……………… 22 Bulletin Board…………………………….... 29 Review by Peter Petschauer Call for Papers: Psychology of Women……. 30 Page 2 Clio’s Psyche June 2004 thing was wet, clammy, and smelly. My excitement ing. The modern machinery fascinated us, and we about the adventure was matched by my mother’s debated for weeks about the functions of parts of dread. At the war’s end in May of 1945, my mother what we had seen. On one occasion, one of the ac- spent weeks under house arrest, and lost both her companying fighters chased “our” farmer and his job with a local newspaper and her apartment. She horse and plow, the bullets causing little springs of quickly became malnourished; the only photo of the dirt to fly in the air. Another time, an English pilot time shows her as very thin and careworn. At the landed in the village and because the inhabitants very end of the war, my younger brother died of were pro-German and, in addition, none understood diphtheria; in a massive snowstorm right after him, they turned him over to the German military. Christmas, we could not transport him quickly He returned in the mid-1950s with his wife to thank enough to the hospital in Brixen. My mother did the villagers for not killing him. not know how to cope with this loss and never for- gave us, and me, for it. After my father’s second In the meantime, my mother lived in Brixen year in American prisons, this loss was followed (Bressanone), about 15 km away, trying to stay with my parents’ divorce; the war and its immediate alive. The same bombers that the gunners tried to and later consequences were too much for their re- shoot down with FLAK were also bombing bridges lationship. as well as other key sites in and around the city. One evening, my mother and I ran into a bunker Far away, but during the same period, the that had planks on the ground and in which every- future second wife of my father worked in Königs- berg (Kaliningrad) as an actress and then, after it fell to the Soviets, in Nürnberg as a factory worker. Clio’s Psyche During one of the bombings, the factory was com- Vol. 11 No. 1 June 2004 pletely destroyed and in another raid her parents’ apartment was demolished as their entire street ISSN 1080-2622 went up in flames. Huddling in the basement of the Published Quarterly by The Psychohistory Forum house, they had survived because the bomb landed 627 Dakota Trail, Franklin Lakes, NJ 07417 on the other side of the main staircase, killing eve- Telephone: (201) 891-7486 ryone there. Aside from the immediate physical e-mail: [email protected] dangers, by early 1945 hunger had never left them, Editor: Paul H. Elovitz, PhD she and her closest friend traveled for miles on their bikes to find potatoes and bread. Editorial Board C. Fred Alford, PhD University of Maryland • James W. Anderson, PhD Northwestern University • David The war stories of my friends and acquaintan- Beisel, PhD RCC-SUNY • Rudolph Binion, PhD ces go on and on because of the older generation of Brandeis University • Andrew Brink, PhD Formerly of Europeans, every single one has directly experi- McMaster University and The University of Toronto • enced an aspect of war. In addition, volume after Ralph Colp, MD Columbia University • Joseph volume has now been written about these experi- Dowling, PhD Lehigh University • Glen Jeansonne, PhD University of Wisconsin • Peter Loewenberg, PhD ences and their consequences, both on the individu- UCLA • Peter Petschauer, PhD Appalachian State als who experienced them and their neighbors. All University • Leon Rappoport, PhD Kansas State of us, regardless of nationality, were civilians when University we experienced war’s traumatic events, whether we Subscription Rate: are Russians, Jews, Germans, Poles, Frenchmen or Free to members of the Psychohistory Forum Czechs; but our ethnic affiliation made a difference. $25 yearly to non-members We are the other casualties of war. Almost every- $40 yearly to institutions (Both add $10 outside U.S.A. & Canada) one who cares to ask assumes that civilians will be Single Issue Price: $15 involved in warfare, whether they are so by choice We welcome articles of psychohistorical interest or by force. Nevertheless, prior to September 11, that are 500 - 1500 words. 2001, many U.S. citizens assumed that they would never be involved in warfare; that no bombs would Copyright © 2004 The Psychohistory Forum June 2004 Clio’s Psyche Page 3 ever rain down on them, and that no member of reiterate this point, these civilians were members of some barely known group would be successful in ethnic groups that were perceived to be less than the attacking us. leading ethnic groups. Even now, we live in a land of illusions. We But WWII also introduced a very significant are afraid that a terrorist might hurt some of us, but and widely practiced shift from attacks on members surely that will not happen in most of the country, of non-dominant ethnic groups to those of dominant especially rural America; such calamities are re- ethnic groups. Thus, Germans bombed Belgians, served for New York, L.A., and Washington, DC. Dutchmen, Englishmen, Frenchmen, Russians, and Thus, most of us live on without grasping the perva- so on; and Englishmen and Americans bombed sive immediacy and unspeakable horror and conse- Germans, Italians, and so on. These attacks came quences of being involved as civilians in war. In not only in the form of bombs, but also in the form this way, we are similar to Germans in the 1930s of partisan warfare in parts of Russia and Yugosla- and, much more recently, Yugoslavians, Israelis, via. Retaliatory raids by all sides used civilians as Palestinians, and Iraqis. pawns in order to make a point. Of course, while people were being killed, various cultural expres- Civilian involvement in warfare may be sions were also destroyed, often systematically, as viewed from at least three perspectives. The first in Yugoslavia. Since then, organized and disparate involves civilians of leading national or ethnic groups in various parts of the world have refined groups, the second relates to those of non-leading this approach to killing people while destroying ethnic groups, and the third highlights the cultural their heritage. For example, we have the apparently heritage of both, or either of these groups. The tra- organized horrors inflicted in Rwanda and the mis- ditional view and the one that is caught up in an eries imposed on the weaker groups in the disinte- ideal view of European civil-ness, applies more to grating Yugoslavia. This brings to mind the even dominant than subordinate ethnic groups. I am more recent and organized efforts of al Qaeda and thinking, for example, of the civilians in Vienna at other terrorist groups. They are, in many respects, the outset of the nineteenth century, who were to- no different from the anti-Russian fighters in the tally astonished when Napoleonic troops were as- mid-Nineteenth-Century Caucasus, the Russian signed to their houses.