If a professional group is to become fully professional, it is advantageous if it is able to give a convincing account of the usefulness of its activities and to present a united front. This chapter will look first at how psychology presented itself and what claims it made for itself. Second, it will consider to whom these claims were addressed and the expectations they aroused. Finally, it will examine which steps were undertaken by the profession to achieve a uniform representation of group interests.

It is not usual to raise the question of legitimation strategies in the literature on the history of psychology. The term “legitimation” here refers to attempts to use specific arguments to prove the necessity or usefulness of psychology to those important for the recognition of the subject. In Chapter 2 legitimation strategies were considered as an aspect of attempts to institutionalize academic psychology. There the aim was to show the usefulness of psychology to related subjects and to the science administration in the restricted context of university appointments. Here strategies will be considered in the wider framework of professional politics. This will involve examining general and programmatic scientific texts to determine which legitimation strategies they express, irrespective of their methodological and theoretical tendencies.

Individual scientists are also engaged in self-legitimation vis-a-vis the scientific community or the state administration. Such attempts at legitimation increased as infighting flourished under the Nazis, and political careerists abounded. Scientists distanced themselves from others or claimed that their theories were the ones closest to Nazi ideology.

It is widely believed that the Nazis were opposed to science in general and to psychology in particular, with the result that they obstructed the development of psychology in every way or indeed threatened its very existence. In fact, the history of the professionalization of psychology during the National Socialist period was not one of setbacks and defeats, but one of gains and successes. This is certainly not easy for psychologists to admit, which is perhaps one of the reasons this aspect of the history of German psychology has often been passed over. After the Second World War German psychologists were more concerned with reestablishing their profession than with raising the question of the relationship between psychology and Nazism. Within the discipline there was some controversy, but public discussion was prevented by professional considerations and the politics of scholarly rivalries, not to mention the general difficulties of “reappraising the past” in Germany (see Adorno 1968).

In undertaking to produce a theoretical and historical critique of test diagnostics, I began by looking at the history of psychological tests and the reasons for their development and practical use. In the course of the work it became clear that the Nazi period was the least well researched, but at the same time the one that posed the most questions: What did psychologists do in the Third Reich? How was the field of psychology able to develop? How was it obstructed or encouraged, supported or abandoned? These questions led me into uncharted areas on which few reports existed and about which the German postwar generation knew little, except through hearsay.

A first look at the material, especially scientific publications from the Nazi period, confronted me with a multitude of facts that defied organization. There had been racist typology, but it did not seem possible to understand the history of German psychology in this period solely in terms of ideological Nazification. There had been practical, diagnostic psychology, particularly in the armed forces; there had been professional psychologists; and - in the middle of the war - examination regulations had been introduced for a certificate recognized by the state. But the history of German psychology could also not be described simply as an instrumentalization for the goals of expansion and oppression. There had been dismissals, and some scientists had been persecuted; but the common opinion that psychology had been politically subjugated did not seem to explain all the facts.

The first profession for psychologists was that of academic researcher and lecturer. Here we are interested in practical psychology as an occupation outside the university. What were the reasons for the employment of expert “psychologists” in various areas of German society? How were corresponding professional roles institutionalized, and what was the demand for psychologists? We will also consider the problem of competition from other professional groups, a point emphasized in the introductory model.

The development of psychology as an occupation cannot necessarily be deduced from the problems considered by psychology as a science. Problems taken up by psychology before Wundt did not simply become fields of applied psychology. Questions concerning the self-image of the citizen, for example, a psychological topic around 1800 (Jaeger and Staeuble 1978), did not find any place in institutionalized psychology. Problems of social integration (see Bruckner 1974, p. 15) were considered only much later; they were left to educational, judicial, and punitive institutions. In applied psychology attention was focused primarily on questions of training and deploying the work force. Pedagogical and industrial psychology were the two central elements. The fact that the originally broader term “applied psychology,” or “psychotechnics” as it was widely known, came to mean “industrial psychology” is a reflection of psychology's selection of problem areas in the twenties. A further selection occurred in the course of transition from a field of scientific reflection to a field of practical professional activity.

The increased attention given to practical questions provided the major impulse for the institutionalization of psychology at the universities. It is possible for a discipline to enjoy such success for some time solely on the basis of fine words and promises. The social sciences live to some extent from the continual promise to develop new remedies for changing social problems. However, if the professionalization of psychology was to be successful in the long term, it could not just make promises, but would have to provide knowledge that could actually be applied.

Not all of the theories and methods of psychology were of professional use, and therefore of importance for its professionalization. Among the mixed bag of psychological wares, practical demand existed mainly for diagnostic assessment and the selection of personnel in industry and the armed forces, the two areas in which the professional development of psychology in Germany started (see Chapter 4). The need was for models and instruments that described and determined the abilities and personality traits of blue-and white-collar workers, soldiers, and officers. In fact, it can be said that in the period under examination the knowledge relevant to the profession was that of the selection and motivation of capable and conscientious workers and army specialists, and of strong-willed, self-controlled officer cadet applicants with leadership qualities, from among seventeen- to nineteen-year-old high school graduates. Psychotechnics, the psychology of expression, and characterology were therefore essential for the professionalization of psychology.

A problem for students of psychology in the twenties or thirties was the fact that there was really no qualification for professional activity outside the university. The only possibility was a doctorate, for which psychology was often not recognized as an independent subject. By the end of the thirties the growing demand for professional psychologists created pressure for academic training that prepared for these professional activities. The contradiction between the two was overcome by introducing an examination to confirm the ability or entitlement to exercise a profession. A prerequisite, of course, was some consensus about the scientific training necessary.

The DPO for psychology in 1941 were the first of their sort and the result of a lengthy process. In this chapter we will look at the possibilities of obtaining qualification in psychology before 1941, at the suggestions made to adapt purely scientific education to meet professional needs, at the interests that led to the fruition of these plans at the time, and at the concept of preparatory qualification that found expression in the DPO.

In the early days psychology was always studied together with other subjects, forming at most a specialty area. The general regulations for doctorates required three subjects to be examined orally, with psychology often not even qualifying as a subject in its own right. In 1935 Rupp expressed the opinion that not many students chose psychology as the major subject for their doctorate because it did not offer any secure career prospects (Rep 76/37, f. 44).

In the history of the academic institutionalization of psychology in Germany the National Socialist period is part of the phase of its establishment as an independent discipline. In Germany this was largely a matter of setting up new professorships in the universities. These usually bring institutes, personnel, budgets, libraries, and so forth in their wake. This chapter therefore examines the extent to which psychology gained or lost chairs during the Third Reich. This quantitative question is accompanied by a qualitative one: What reasons were there for the loss or creation of chairs in psychology, and what teaching and research contents were to be institutionalized? This question of the content of institutionalization will also be pursued by studying the appointments to chairs; this will act as a gauge of the development of demands placed on the subject and the orientation of the subject itself. While the investigation concentrates on universities, the technical colleges (Technische Hochschulen) are also considered. The representation of psychology in pedagogical academies and other teacher training institutes will be considered in Chapter 4 on the development of occupational fields for the profession.

Before the introduction of the Diploma Examination Regulations, or DPO (Diplom-Priifungsordnung), in 1941, each newly created chair of psychology had to be justified for that particular university, which led on occasion to severe disputes. With the DPO, however, the need for new chairs resulted from a state regulation, since it was possible to train psychologists only at universities with a chair.