Читать книгу Fritz Perls in Berlin 1893 - 1933 - Bernd Bocian - Страница 10

This book is not only the first biographical study of the forty years Friedrich Salomon (»Fritz«) Perls spent in Berlin, and therewith also a book about the pre-history of Gestalt Therapy, it also simultaneously incorporates part of the history of the so-called »Expressionist generation.« The formative years in the lives of these social outsiders and pioneers of modernity began with the trauma of the First World War and extended to the era of the Weimar Republic and their emigration from Nazi Germany. Perls’s life exemplifies the suffering that was typical for this generation and brings its enormous creativity to light.

Furthermore, in describing Perls’s years in Berlin I am providing a missing piece in the mosaic of the social and intellectual history of the psychoanalytic movement. Perls came from the left wing of the Berlin Institute and as a psychoanalyst numbered among the »nonconformists, heretics, and truth seekers who were prepared to take risks« (Dahmer 1995). Until the end of his life, he remained a creative, inconvenient, and independent-minded thinker. Perls represented a species that was mourned not only by Anna Freud after its members emigrated and vanished from psychoanalytic organizations. For a deep understanding of Perls as an individual and of the historical context to be discussed here, I also consider it indispensable to know the social and psychological phenomena implied by the concept and mode of experience of a »German Jew.« German Jews made significant contributions to the Expressionist movement, both personally and in terms of content, and it was almost entirely they who carried the psychoanalytic movement. In addition to that, Perls’s central theoretical positions, such as his positive evaluation of autonomy and his critical attitude toward confluence phenomena, can only be understood against this background.

The years Perls spent in Berlin and which we will portray here reflect the fascinating and ultimately tragic history of an avant-garde, European-oriented urban culture. Beginning in 1933, the protagonists of this culture either fled from Europe and Germany, were expelled, or killed. Fritz Perls and his wife Lore managed to escape the destruction of this culture and its representatives, and they were able to integrate into their own therapeutic approach, and thereby preserve, many of the protagonists’ life and survival experiences that have lasting value for the future. As a European and in particular as a German Gestalt therapist, I felt that using Fritz Perls as an example to remember this culture, the emigrants, and the individuals was an inner obligation. It was also a matter that was close to my heart.

I would like to express my thanks to Erhard and Anke Doubrawa and to Hammer Verlag for the opportunity to make this monograph accessible to an interested public. Further, I would like to thank Hartmut Frech and Regine Reichwein for giving me the opportunity to submit an initial version of this study as a doctoral dissertation at the Technical University of Berlin. The present edition has been substantially expanded and revised, and I have added footnotes containing important information and explanations.

I would like to express special thanks to the individuals listed below who provided concrete assistance during my years of investigation and research, among them in particular the many psychoanalytic colleagues who supported me with unexpected openness and generosity as if it were a matter of course.

And finally, my thanks to my Italian wife Gabriella and my little daughter Mirta who in part grew up along with this book.

Bernd Bocian

Genoa, September 2006

Following are those who helped me to find and obtain biographical material and documents pertaining to the history of the times:

Mitchell G. Ash, Berlin/Vienna

Andreas Bocian, Münster

Gerhard Brändle, Pforzheim

Ms. Bruckmann, Berlin

Dieter Essig, Pforzheim

Ernst Federn, Vienna

Hildegard Feidel-Mertz, Frankfurt

Volker Friedrich, Hamburg

Rainer Funk, Tübingen

Birgit Gregor-Jerke, Berlin

Sabine Hank, Berlin

Ludger M. Herrmanns, Berlin

Michael Hubensdorf, Berlin/Toronto

Alfred Hübner, Pforzheim

Dagmar Kicherer, Freiburg

Helga Krohn, Frankfurt

Michael Laier, Frankfurt

Hans-Friedrich Lockemann, Berlin

Regine Lockot, Berlin

Kurt Mühlberger, Vienna

Thomas Müller, Berlin

Bernd Nitzschke, Düsseldorf

Johannes Reichmayr, Vienna

Hans J. Rothe, Frankfurt

Channa Schütz, Berlin

Milan Sreckovic, Nice

Anna Sreckovic, Nice

Albrecht Goetz von Olenhusen, Freiburg