The expansion of Wehrmacht Psychology, a consequence of the expansion of the Wehrmacht itself, had essentially made the DPO possible in 1941. The consequences of the territorial expansion of the Wehrmacht during the war, especially the heavy losses in air battles and on the ground, and a new policy of officer recruitment led to the dissolution of the psychology services in the Luftwaffe and the army. The DPO was only three-quarters of a year old and chairs were just being established in the universities to ensure training in psychology when the orders went out terminating psychological testing. On 15 April 1942 the head of training in the Luftwaffe ordered that aptitude testing for flying personnel cease. In the future superiors alone would decide about appointments (LVB1, 1942 I, pp. 615-16). Thus, the central duty of Luftwaffe Psychology disappeared. Officer recruits were no longer to be tested psychologically either. The army followed on 22 May 1942 with an order from the Supreme Command dissolving the Inspectorate for Personnel Testing and the personnel test stations as of 1 July 1942. This was also the end of aptitude testing for officers as well as “psychotechnical testing of other ranks” (HVB1, 1942 A, pp. 11-12). From July 1942 until the end of the financial year 31 March 1943, mopping-up operations were still going on at the former army testing stations and at the inspectorate. Navy Psychology remained intact until the end of the war, although psychological testing was no longer required for officer applicants there either, following a decree of 15 July 1942 (MVB1, 1942, pp. 732ff.).

Two ideas about the role and development of psychology in the Third Reich are in need of correction. It was not true that psychology as a whole prostituted itself, or was called into service by the Nazis, nor was it the case that, as a result of its theories, it found itself in conflict with this regime, was more or less oppressed as a subject, or was able to secure its survival only in certain protected areas.

Psychologists did try to place their discipline in the service of organs of Nazi domination, but psychology contributed little to stabilizing that domination. It was socially much too insignificant for that. It was not systematically involved in the development of official propaganda; it had too little to offer for that. At that time in Germany it knew neither methods of propaganda nor research on its influence. As far as is known, psychologists were not used by the Nazis or the SS in persecution, torture, or murder. Whether the selection of soldiers by psychologists actually helped to improve the army's fighting strength is hard to say. Even if the Wehrmacht may have benefited from the work of psychology, it was hardly dependent on it.

Some psychologists were persecuted by the Nazis, but psychology as a subject did not suffer particular oppression. The Nazis drove out Jewish scholars for racial reasons. Among the emigrants, whom Wolfgang Kohler joined for political reasons, were the innovators of that period.

The most important stages in the objective development of the professionalization of psychology in the Third Reich have now been examined, and the study could end here. However, several question remain to be considered: What did the professionalization demand subjectively from those involved, and what effects did it have? What can be said about motivation? The period under investigation lends these questions additional import.

A process of professionalization is initiated and actively supported by individuals; others then take part in it or are affected by it. In the course of the professionalization of psychology individuals began to see themselves as psychologists, members of a group, even though an unambiguous operational definition of membership was first provided in 1941 by the new academic qualification. Professionalization was a goal actively pursued by many, and yet at the same time also a subjectively formative process. It emerged as a movement to unite psychologists in the concerns of their subject. In the pursuit of their goals they were relatively blind to, when they did not actively affirm, the social and political context in which professionalization took place.

In this chapter I shall make some observations about this aspect of the professionalization process, based on the statements of participants. The aim is to try to find out something about the subjective motives for the increased attention paid to practical work, and how this was experienced and interpreted. This is a difficult undertaking. The only sources available are autobiographies and interviews with some psychologists.

Since the publication of the first German edition of this book, a number of studies on the history of science in the Third Reich have been published. It has become clearer and clearer that in the Nazi period science was neither the victim of systematic persecution nor abused against its own intentions and perceptions. Many scientists were persecuted for their origins or their convictions, while their discipline - carrying on business as usual - compromised itself and their colleagues willingly placed themselves in the service of the new regime.

The persecution of scientists was often mistaken for the persecution of science. For example, because, as Jews, many psychoanalysts suffered under Nazi terror, the opportunities that remained for psychotherapy were ignored by many. Recent publications have made it necessary to reconsider this, giving rise to much controversy. It seems that psychoanalysis, which was willing to accommodate itself to Nazi power, received official support.

The history of psychology in the Third Reich is confused not only with that of psychoanalysis, but also with that of psychiatry. In discussions, someone always asks whether psychologists were, like psychiatrists, involved in selecting victims for sterilization or euthanasia. In a comprehensive study of forced sterilization in the Third Reich, Gisela Bock (1986) showed how psychiatrists and other doctors made such decisions about unwilling victims at health offices and courts for hereditary health. Much material has also been collected that shows that medicine helped to rationalize the machinery of killing (Aly, Masuhr et al. 1985; Kudlien 1985), and that civil servants, judges, doctors, and medical staff all played a part (Aly, Ebbinghaus et al. 1985).

With the new diploma examination psychology became an independent teaching subject in the universities. For the first time psychologists appeared on the labor market as a professional group with state recognition. The DPO thus had consequences for the development of the discipline and the profession.

The effects of examination regulations on an academic discipline can be of two kinds. Above all they are apparent at the social level in the form of institutionalization at the universities. Psychology no longer had to justify its existence; it had legal backing for its complete autonomy. Much less direct and less tangible are the effects of curricula or new regulations at the cognitive level (Weingart 1976, p. 82). A system of knowledge may be a prerequisite for professionalization, but does this process then also regroup the existing knowledge systematically - in terms of the categories used in training? As far as the effects of the DPO on the development of the profession are concerned, our interest is in the revival of rivalry with other professional groups when psychologists were able to show formal qualifications (see Chapter 1). The resistance of physicians is instructive; they were able to force the exclusion of medical subjects from the intermediate examination.

A circular of the chairman of the DGfPs seldom displayed such high spirits as that of Christmas 1941. “With satisfaction” the society could look back on the war year of 1941, which brought with it the “obligatory basic course in psychology” and the “preconditions for the development of a united and recognized psychological profession.” In addition the DGfPs could report “increased numbers of new members” (UAT 148).