In Reich's view, the symbolism of the swastika, evoking the fantasy of the primal scene (and reproduced hundreds of thousands of times), showed in spectacular fashion how Nazism systematically manipulated the unconscious. Reich denounced the authoritarian family (which he described as "antisexual," as a "central, reactionary cell") strict, repressive education (which oppressed and subjugated the individual) nationalistic feelings and religious indoctrination -all fertile ground, he argued, for sanctifying a charismatic leader brandishing obscure myths of blood, race, and soil in mystical defiance of human reason. Their frustrations, resentments, fears, envies, and hatreds together formed what Reich called an "emotional plague," which found release and gratification in the themes and imagery pounded out by Nazi propaganda and ideology. A genuinely burning question lay at the heart of the book: How did Hitler succeed in imposing himself ? More specifically, how could a people of seventy million cultivated, hardworking individuals let themselves be seduced by a manifest psychopath? Even beyond the period when it was formulated, which culminated in horror, this question is surely still fundamental to any serious political thinking.Īs a militant well versed in Marxism and the author of "Dialektischer Materialismus und Psychoanalyse" (Dialectical materialism and psychoanalysis 1970a), Reich set out to analyze "the economic and ideological structure of German society between 19." He wanted to illuminate the state of mind of the middle classes and the petite bourgeoisie. It was written in 1933 the first editionĪppeared in September of 1933 and the second edition in April of 1934, in Denmark" (1970b, p.
As Wilhelm Reich notes, his The Mass Psychology of Fascism "was thought out during the German crisis years, 1930-33.
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