This article reconstructs French readings and debates of German approaches to Vlkerpsychologie was a symptomatic approach during a transformative period in German, and indeed European, intellectual history: based on the idea of progressand on the belief in the primordial importance of the Volk, it represented the mindset of in an almost pure form. The relevance and importance of Vlkerpsychologie was not restricted to German academics: it was in France where central elements of VThlestin Bougle, Emile Durkheim, and Marcel Mausssocial sciencelkerpsychologie (...) was not a German oddity, but an integral part of the debates that led to the establishing of the modern social sciences, as its French reception shows. (shrink)

This article introduces the Völkerpsychologie of the German psychologist and liberal politician Willy Hellpach. It shows how Hellpach used the once venerable approach of Völkerpsychologie, introduced by Moritz Lazarus and Heymann Steinthal in the nineteenth century, to adapt to the Third Reich and distract the authorities from his political career. The article provides a close reading of Hellpach's main text on the subject, the Einführung in die Völkerpsychologie published in 1938, and explains the ease with which he was able to (...) make this approach compatible with Nazi ideology. Hellpach's case thus illustrates the proximity of national-liberal thinking to ?Nazi ideology?. Moreover, on account of the post-war reception of Hellpach's Völkerpsychologie by scholars such as Ralf Dahrendorf, the article examines the uneasy and incomplete repudiation of Völkerpsychologie after 1945. It concludes that the origins of widely used concepts such as ?national habitus? or ?national identity? can be traced back to the tradition of Völkerpsychologie and related studies of national character. (shrink)

This article assesses interactions between American and German eugenicists in the interwar period. It shows the shifting importance and leading roles of German and American eugenicists: while interactions and exchanges between German and American eugenicists in the interwar period were important and significant, it remains difficult to establish direct American influence on Nazi legislation. German experts of race hygiene who advised the Nazi government in drafting the sterilization law were well informed about the experiences with similar laws in American states, (...) most importantly in California and Virginia, but there is little evidence to suggest they depended on American knowledge and expertise to draft their own sterilization law. Rather, they adapted a body of thought that was transnational by nature: suggesting that the Nazis’ racial policies can be traced back to American origins over-simplifies the historical record. Still, the ‘American connection’ of the German racial hygiene movement is a significant aspect of the general history of eugenics into which it needs to be integrated. The similarities in eugenic thinking and practice in the USA and Germany force us to re-evaluate the peculiarity of Nazi racial policies. (shrink)