by Josefa Bayes-King, February 2001

As my own opinion is entirely in accord with the above quotes, and as Jung has been ably defended by the people who knew him best, many of them Jews, one might reasonably enquire as to why I am devoting time and energy to rehashing this tired old argument yet again, especially as not only Jung himself but his entire inner circle are all dead and so the argument consists of mere speculation, thus rendering it one which must perforce lack a certain amount of academic rigour. I do so for one reason only, the source of the latest attacks. The allegations began in the Freudian camp and have been repeated from time to time in Freudian and Jewish circles ever since. Regrettably they have been taken up also by biographers and journalists who profess to be neutral but know that scandal sells books and newspapers, not to mention individuals (Noll being the most obvious to come to mind) who have their own reasons for bearing a grudge against the Jungian community. These people have such strong motives for believing or mouthing these allegations that they are unlikely even to read anything I might say on the subject, much less be convinced by it.

In recent years, however, these allegations have once again broken out, the difference being that the noisiest accusers are prominent post-Jungians. Naturally I am not so naive as to think that I have a hope of convincing these people to change their minds either, but I do feel obliged to set down my own views, not only to distance myself from this particular camp but to examine possible motives for their words and actions.

In her biography of Jung (1977, p.211), Barbara Hannah testifies that Jung was fully alert to the Nazi menace when they were in Berlin together in 1933, and quotes him as having said "These people are all in a panic, they are scared stiff and have no idea where all this is leading. I am afraid nothing can save them and that they are heading for inevitable disaster, but at least we will earn the merit of trying to help them as long as we can." This is the very year in which contemporary post-Jungians accuse Jung of praising Hitler! In an online article provocatively entitled "Jung and Antisemitism", Andrew Samuels quotes from an interview with Jung on Radio Berlin in 1933. This quote is to be found in McGuire & Hull (eds), p.77:

How anyone could imagine that Jung praised Hitler or viewed him as an individuated leader is utterly beyond my comprehension.

It is equally unclear to me how anyone could claim that Jung was outspoken in his criticism of Hitler and the Nazis only after WWII. Surely all students of Jung have read "Wotan" (CW X, PP 371-399)? This publication first appeared in March 1936, when our own government were still saying what jolly good chaps Hitler and Mussolini were! More serious Jungian scholars may also be aware of Jung's Nietzsche's Zarathustra Seminars, in which he laid the foundation for "Wotan" by criticising the Nazi regime as early as 22nd May 1935:

The main arguments for Jung as a collaborationist and/or anti-Semite rest upon his presidency of the General Medical Society for Psychotherapy from 1933-1939, and his editorship of the Society's scientific journal, the Zentralblatt. As Jaffe' (1971, p. 79) points out, Jung assumed these roles with the intention of helping Jews and Germans alike. As a neutral Swiss, he amended the constitution of the Society deliberately in order to make it unequivocally international. As regards the journal, in true scientific spirit, papers were published by contributors from all political viewpoints. As an academic journal it was not subject to any form of political censorship. In 1934, when German-Jewish doctors were banned from German societies, Jung stipulated that they could individually become members of the international society with equal rights. What, I ask, was the rest of the world doing to help such doctors at that time?

It is all very well for contemporary scholars to state with hindsight that Jung was foolish to remain as president of the Society for as long as he did (even Thomas Kirsch having been converted to this opinion in the face of the loud clamouring of the post-Jungians). Jaffe' (ibid, p.82) writes that Jung and Meier stood firm against all efforts of Goering to have the Zentralblatt 'conformed' and continued to publish Jewish and other foreign authors. When the outbreak of war finally forced Jung to resign, Goering instantly 'conformed' the Society. Maybe we should ask ourselves what might have happened to depth psychology had Jung not kept his position for so long? On the accounts of not only Jung himself, but of close associates of his such as von Franz, Hannah and Jaffe', I fail to find any evidence for Samuels' (1993, p. 326) assertion that Jung was motivated by power. I shall return to the question of power later on.

In recent years various authors (Hayman 1999, Noll 1994, Samuels 1993) have attempted to "prove" an affinity between Jung and the Nazis by talking about "voelkisch Romanticism". As pointed out by Hannah (1976) and Kirsch,T. in a recent online seminar, Jung was Swiss. As such, he was rooted in the soil and in his instincts. Hannah also states (ibid, p.12) that "democracy, in the best sense of the word, is born and bred in the Swiss, for the most part they then accept the country's decision, however little they may like it, for it is the will of the majority and it would be bad form to make any further fuss." Jung, then, was temperamentally more inclined to work from within a system rather than seeking revolutionary action. However, Hannah tells us that not only was Jung fervently anti-Nazism (and, indeed, all -isms) but his greatest regret when people feared that the Nazis might invade Switzerland was that he was too old for military service and therefore unable to take an active part in defending his beloved country, should the need arise. In passing, I should like to mention that this places in context Jung's "rootless Jew" comments, about which people make such a fuss and in which I personally have never seen any offence whatsoever. It is patently obvious to me that a people who regard themselves as a nation and yet have no homeland of their own are likely to have certain psychological problems not shared by people more fortunate in this respect.

It is true that Jung admitted to James Kirsch (personal communication from Thomas Kirsch and from Laurence G. Corey, a former pupil of James Kirsch) that he had been unwise in some of the things which he said about Jews. These remarks were made in the course of the various insults flying backwards and forwards between Jung and Freud and his Viennese followers. At times, extremely stupid things were said on both sides. Even the infamous post-war letter to Mary Mellon, which Samuels (1993) insisted upon publishing, was written in this context. Although this does not excuse Jung, let us not forget that the racism began with the Viennese referring to him openly as "the blond Siegfried" at the beginning of his friendship with Freud. I do not see contemporary Freudians running around shouting about this, however!

It is true that even his closest followers, not only the Jewish ones, felt that Jung was unwise to make remarks about racial difference at that particular time. Even von Franz (1975, p.63) states that "His greatest mistake ... lay in talking too much". Jung himself said (CW X, P 1024):

Despite the fact that Jung's Jewish followers remonstrated with him for his tactless comments, they all staunchly defended him after the war, and testified to the fact that he gave practical help to many Jewish refugees. Many of these were patients who he treated gratis. These included Aniela Jaffe', who he not only analysed free of charge but also gave her work. Again - what was the rest of the world doing to help refugees? In addition to the practical help he offered, Jung also helped his Jewish patients to come to terms with their spirituality, as both James and Hilda Kirsch testified (Thomas Kirsch, personal communication). Are these the actions of an anti-Semite? Quite frankly, I value the testimony of people who actually knew Jung over the speculations of his enemies and the judgemental post-Jungians, who try to "answer" this fact by stating that the people concerned all had transferences to Jung. This is, as far as I am concerned, a non-argument, based once again on speculation about people who are now dead. Even if I were prepared to accept this lame argument, what of the testimony of Rabbi Leo Baeck (cited in Jaffe' 1971, pp 97-98 in a letter from Gershom Scholem to Mrs. Jaffe', dated 1963; also Laurence G. Corey, a pupil of Baeck as well as James Kirsch, personal communication)? Are we then to suppose that the rabbi had a transference to Jung as well? Absurd.

Before exploring the motivation of the post-Jungians, I would like to address the most damning remark made by Jung, namely that "Jews are not so damned innocent after all", quoted by Samuels (1993, p.304). This question has been taken up by Freeman (1991) in a pamphlet where he discusses victim and victimiser as the shadow side of one another, and uses this to account for the Israelis excusing their own brutal behaviour in the disputed territories. I have discussed this more fully elsewhere (Bayes-King 2000, published privately on the Internet) in the light of the "tyrant-victim complex" (my own terminology).

If one examines the actions of those post-Jungians who insist on condemning Jung ; in terms of the power shadow, the prejudicial shadow and the tyrant-victim complex, we can draw some interesting conclusions. Stevens (1994, p. 122) suggests that "Those who continue to press accusations against Jung ... doubtless have reasons for their persistence. One possibility is that they have not worked sufficiently on their own repressed Fascist, anti-Semitic, or anti-Christian shadows, and enjoy the glow of self-righteousness that comes as they project them onto Jung." We in the Jungian community all know that everything has its shadow side. Why has no-one explored the shadow side of this self-righteous political correctness which abounds in our own midst, in the humanities in general, and which is even permeating science?

Take as an example the following quote (Samuels 1993, p. 326):

He then goes on to discuss certain minority groups of victims who we, as crusading psychologists, have a duty to save. Who is trying to dictate behaviour - Jung or Samuels? He accuses Jung of classifying people into groups, whilst doing the exact same thing himself. Does it not occur to him that homosexuals, blacks, etc. may not appreciate being lumped together as a homogenous group, to say nothing of being patronised as victims? Nor is Samuels by any means the worst offender in this respect. On a recent online seminar, one participant (admittedly even more extreme than the self-styled post-Jungians, having announced that despite having come as far as advanced candidacy in a Jungian training, she agrees with only about 3% of what Jung said!) was, under the usual banner of political correctness, downright patronising about Australian Aboriginies, saying that she found herself unable to use Jungian methods with these people owing to the fact that they are poor and usually drunks. She dressed this up in acceptable terms, but this was the crux of her argument. Frankly I find such statements at least a hundred times more racially insulting than anything Jung ever said, even at his most tactless. I will not even attempt to debunk the so-called logic of people who profess a wish to make analytical psychology more attractive to ethnic minorities by screaming publicly at every possible opportunity that its founding father was a racist, as such irrational behaviour speaks volumes without the need for any help from me!

Rather than spending time and energy raking up alleged dirt about a man who died nearly forty years ago, maybe Jung's critics would be better advised to examine their own power shadows and political inheritance. For example, was our own British government beyond reproach in its treatment of the Jews during and after WWII? Was turning boatloads of Holocaust survivors away from Palestine to drown at sea, or interning them in yet more camps in Cyprus, a humanitarian act? Have we learned from these mistakes? What did the British government do when Muslims were being tortured and killed in concentration camps in the former Yugoslavia? What of the inhumane way in which refugees who seek asylum in Britain are being treated by our so-called Labour government even as I write? And what of the vocal post-Jungians who complain that analytical psychology is tailored to the needs of the affluent white middle classes? Jung took on many needy patients free of charge. How many of these noisy post-Jungians here in Britain do any NHS work? How come the low-cost clinics run by the various training schools are manned solely by trainees, who get out the minute they qualify? Where are our vocal post-Jungians? They complain that analytical psychology is concentrated in London. Do they leave their lucrative London practices to take their services to these "downtrodden masses" about whom they profess to care so much? Without some action behind their words, all they are actually doing is indulging in a lot of rhetoric which seems to achieve precious little beyond publicising their own books.

What, then, is the motivation for the demonisation of Jung from within analytical psychology? We do not, after all, see Freud and Klein subjected to such attacks from within their own camps.

The answer to this has been puzzling me for a long time. Recently it occurred to me that these attacks remind me of nothing so much as the bitter insults which passed between Freud and Jung during and after their split. Jung, childish though some of his (and Freud's for that matter) remarks sometimes were, at least had the courage to make a clean break, resign from the Psychoanalytic Society, and call his own movement by a new name, though acknowledging his debt to Freud. Maybe it is time that the post-Jungians followed suit by admitting that they have actually founded a new school more suited to the current trends of political correctness and, although they recognise Freud and Jung as belonging to their history, come out of the closet as their own group? Possibly then there would be less need for the recent backlash of "fundamentalists" who are trying to claim that we should read only Jung and von Franz and no-one else. And, certainly, those of us who are not fundamentalists but who are still happy to call ourselves Jungians and who certainly do not wish to run around trying to dig up scandal about Jung, could get on with our work without feeling the need to justify ourselves all the time.

Bayes-King, J. (2000) "The "tyrant-victim complex" in society, the individual, and the therapeutic relationship" http://www.kingseyes.demon.co.uk/TyrantVictim.htm

Corey, Lawrence G. (personal communication)

Franz, Marie-Louise von (1975) C. G. Jung: His Myth in Our Time London: Hodder & Stoughton

Freeman, D (1991) "Victim Power: The Clinical and Philosophical Paradox of Nazi and Jew", Guild of Pastoral Psychology

Hannah, B. (1976) Jung: His Life and Work: A Biographical Memoir New York: Putnam & Sons

Hayman, R. (1999) A Life of Jung London: Bloomsbury

Jaffe', A. (1971) From the Life and Work of C. G. Jung London: Hodder & Stoughton

Jung, C. G. CW X Civilization in Transition

The Seminars Two, Part One, Nietzsche's Zarathustra London: Routledge

C. G. Jung Speaking (1978, ed. McGuire & Hull)

Kirsch, T. B. (2000) The Jungians Routledge

personal communication

Noll, R. (1994) The Jung Cult: The Origins of a Charismatic Movement Princeton University Press

Samuels, A. (1993) The Political Psyche Routledge

"Jung and Antisemitism" C. G. Jung Page on the Internet

Stevens, A. (1994) Jung Oxford University Press