After the Catastrophe . . .

Carl Jung on what happened in WWII and the German people . . .

20,000 American attend a Nazi rally in Madison Square Garden, February 20, 1939

In 1945, after the horrors of WWII had lessened, Carl Jung wrote about the contagious mass psychosis of the German people that had been amplified and led by Hitler. Jung’s examination of the nature of that psychotic hysteria parallels the patterns incarnated by Trump and many members of the Republican party. It was and is a contagious phenomenon, and Jung ‘diagnosed’ it as such.

The subject of his essay was the rise and defeat of Hitler and Nazi Germany. Jung describes a psychological pattern, a mass psychosis, a hysteria that, nearly 80 years later, is repeating itself in America today. 

Jung spoke of the guilt of the German people for what they had inflicted on the world. He speaks of how Hitler had poisoned the air of society with his hatefulness and blame for the Jews, Gypsies, and ‘outsiders,’ and how the German people had breathed that air. Jung wrote, ‘The sight of evil kindles evil in the soul.’ And one can see how this ‘poison’ describes the psychology of Trump and the masses who support him. Jung wrote, ’When evil breaks into the order of things at any point, our whole circle of psychic protection is disrupted.’

In this essay, Jung throws light on the mass psychosis that had fallen upon the German people, who had perpetrated horrendous acts upon the world, and he spoke about what is necessary for people to free themselves from their hysteria:

”If a German is prepared to acknowledge his moral inferiority... before the whole world, without attempting to minimize it or explain it away with flimsy arguments, then he will stand a reasonable chance, after a time, of being taken for a more or less decent man, and will thus be absolved of his collective guilt.”

I believe it is valuable to consider Jung’s writings on this topic, as they illuminate the critical moment in history we have been and are now passing through as we approach the 2024 presidential election in the United States,

After the Catastrophe - Carl Jung (a selection from his Collected Works, Vol 10)

“Questions are being asked on all sides about the meaning of the whole tragedy. I know only too well that 'Germany' presents an immense problem and that the subjective views of medical psychologists can touch only a few aspects of this gigantic tangle of questions.

“Living as we do in the middle of Europe, we Swiss feel comfortably far removed from the foul vapors that arise from the morass of German guilt. But all this changes the moment we set foot, as Europeans, on another continent or come into contact with an Oriental people. What are we to say to an Indian who asks us: 'You are anxious to bring us your Christian culture, are you not? May I ask if Auschwitz and Buchenwald are examples of European civilization?' The world sees Europe as the continent on whose soil the shameful concentration camps grew.

“If the German intends to live on good terms with Europe, he must be conscious that he is a guilty man in the eyes of Europeans. As a German, he has betrayed European civilization and all its values; he has brought shame and disgrace on his European family so that one must blush to hear oneself called a European.

“If a German is prepared to acknowledge his moral inferiority... before the whole world, without attempting to minimize it or explain it away with flimsy arguments, then he will stand a reasonable chance, after a time, of being taken for a more or less decent man, and will thus be absolved of his collective guilt.

“Long before 1933 there was a smell of burning in the air, and people were passionately interested in discovering the locus of the fire and in tracking down the incendiary. When denser clouds of smoke were seen gathering over Germany, and the burning of the Reichstag gave the signal, then at last there was no mistake where the incendiary, evil in person, dwelt.

“The sight of evil kindles evil in the soul. Something of the abysmal darkness of the world has broken in on us, poisoning the very air we breathe and befouling the pure water with the stale, nauseating taste of blood.

“When evil breaks into the order of things at any point, our whole circle of psychic protection is disrupted.

“All these pathological features- complete lack of insight into one's own character, auto-erotic self-admiration and self-extenuation, denigration and terrorization of one's fellow men..., projection of the shadow, lying, falsification of reality, determination to impress by fair means or foul, bluffing and double-crossing- all these were united in the man who was diagnosed clinically [in 1918 at the psychiatric ward of the Reserve Hospital IV in Pasewalk by a Jewish doctor, Dr. Karl Kroner] as a hysteric [suffering from 'hysterical blindness'], and whom a strange fate chose to be the political, moral, and religious spokesman of Germany for twelve years. Is this pure chance?

“Hitler's theatrical, obviously hysterical gestures struck all foreigners (with an amazing few exceptions) as purely ridiculous. When I saw him with my own eyes, he suggested a psychic scarecrow (with a broomstick for an outstretched arm) rather than a human being. It is also difficult to understand how his ranting speeches, delivered in shrill, grating, womanish tones, could have made such an impression. But the German people would never have been taken in and carried away so completely if this figure had not been a reflected image of the collective German hysteria. 

“It is not without serious misgivings that one ventures to pin the label of 'psychopathic inferiority' on to a whole nation, and yet, heaven knows, it is the only explanation which could in any way account for the effect this scarecrow had on the masses. 

“These personal observations led me to conclude at the time (1937) that when the final catastrophe came, it would be far greater and bloodier than I had previously supposed. This theatrical hysteric... was not strutting about on a small stage but was riding the armored divisions of the Wehrmacht, with all the weight of German heavy industry behind him.

“One is at a loss to imagine how anything quite so monstrous ever came to power. But we must not forget that we are judging from today, from a knowledge of the events which led to the catastrophe. Our judgment would certainly be very different had our information stopped short in 1933 or 1934. At that time, in Germany as well as in Italy, there were not a few things that appeared plausible and seemed to speak in favor of the regime. An undeniable piece of evidence in his respect was the disappearance of the unemployed, who used to tramp the German highroads in their hundreds of thousands. And after the stagnation and decay of the post-war years, the refreshing wind that blew through the two countries was a tempting sign of hope.

“The essence of hysteria is a systematic dissociation. As a rule, there is amazing ignorance of the shadow; the hysteric is only aware of his good motives.

“Ignorance of one's other side creates great inner insecurity. This sense of insecurity is the source of the hysteric's prestige psychology, his need to make an impression, flaunt his merits and insist on them, and his insatiable thirst for recognition, admiration, adulation, and longing to be loved.”