Hysterical Men: War, Psychiatry, and the Politics of Trauma in Germany, 1890-1930 (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Hysterical Men: War, Psychiatry, and the Politics of Trauma in Germany, 1890–1930 Donald Loffredo Lerner, Paul. Hysterical Men: War, Psychiatry, and the Politics of Trauma in Germany, 1890–1930. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2003. xi + 326 pp. In his new book, Hysterical Men, Paul Lerner painstakingly chronicles the histories of trauma and male hysteria in German Society and the efforts of German Psychiatry and the German State to deal with both. Beginning with the industrial accidents of the 1880s, Lerner carefully reconstructs the evolution of male hysteria as a recognized psychiatric problem and the treatment systems designed to deal with it, particularly during and immediately after World War I. In this volume, Lerner manages to touch on the cultural history as well as the medical history of this important time in German History and presents both in an effective way. Lerner’s work provides an interesting and important link between the events of World War I and the emergence of the extreme German right-wing politics that ultimately led to the establishment of the Third Reich. One clearly gets a sense from Lerner’s work of the almost antiseptic way the German State dealt with its traumatized soldiers and its focus and concern more on pension policy than on the well-being of these broken men. Although some of the individuals seeking war-related pensions after World War I may have been malingering, most likely were not. Coupled with the draconian measures of the Versailles Treaty, it is not surprising that many traumatized returning soldiers identified with extreme right-wing accusations of “being stabbed in the back” by those running the German State. As Lerner points out, relations between mental health practitioners and traumatized patients deteriorated during the postwar years so much so that many doctors feared for their lives. According to Lerner, “many patients who were examined for war-related nervous or mental disorders complained that doctors harassed them, suspected them of political subversion and cast aspirations on their patriotism” (219). Given the plight of the German State after defeat, the Versailles Treaty, and the depletion of its financial resources, it seems clear after reading Lerner’s book why Germany may have focused more on the financial instead of the emotional costs of the war and in doing so failed to realize some of the terrible consequences that would follow. By initially presenting the state of German psychiatry at the beginning of the text, Lerner gives the reader the opportunity to see and understand the series of events that culminated in its failure to adequately serve the unprecedented number of damaged souls returning from the war. The plight of these individuals and that of German Psychiatry and the German State seems more clearly entwined and thus more sympathetic since the reader is presented with the larger issues. The middle chapters of Hysterical Men focus on the treatment systems developed to treat the traumatized and indicate some of the insensitivity of those who were supposed to heal. The detail of many of the treatments used is interesting and revealing. The concluding chapters of Hysterical Men are particularly illuminating in that they clearly reveal some of the terrible human and political costs of World War I and the inability of the Weimar Republic to deal with the despair, devastation, and sense of betrayal many traumatized soldiers must have experienced by a seemingly uncaring medical and political establishment. [End Page 307] Readers who are familiar or interested in history of the first half of the twentieth century will find Lerner’s book a useful contribution to understanding how World War I and the way it was unsuccessful resolved likely contributed to the extreme right-wing German politics that led to World War II. The scholarship that went into this book is laudable. The entire history presented is superbly researched and documented. Lerner’s Hysterical Men is likely to be an important contribution in understanding a tragic time in human history. Donald Loffredo University of Houston-Victoria Copyright © 2004 symploke