Philipp Lersch

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Philipp Lersch

Philipp Lersch (born April 4, 1898 in Munich ; † March 15, 1972 ibid) was a German psychologist . Lersch was one of the leading representatives of German expression psychology in the 1950s and 1960s .

Live and act

Philipp Lersch studied literary history , psychology and philosophy at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich . He completed his studies in 1923 with a dissertation in the history of literature. This work was entitled Traum in der Deutschen Romantik . From 1925 to 1933 Lersch worked under Max Simoneit at the psychological laboratory of the Reichswehr Ministry on the development of characterological aptitude tests for officer applicants. The result of his characterological selection work is his post-doctoral thesis Face and Soul, published in 1932 . From the 1930s on, Lersch also worked at the TH Dresden , where he worked out entrance exams for student teachers. In this regard, Lersch evaluated his experiences with the teacher applicants in the magazine Die Höhere Schule in 1934 , which he put in relation to the current political situation:

It is penetrating more and more into the cultural consciousness of the German present that the process of the internal transformation of our people means primarily a task of the education of the youth. A conception of the German human being can be recognized as a model for this educational reorientation, which - in addition to the content-related characteristics of a soldierly-political lifestyle - bears the general basic trait of organic holism (Lersch 1934, p. 298).

Lersch also wrote in 1934 that there were “born masters” with a “will to power”, a “natural claim to power”, the opposite of which was the “serving character type” who emphasized his “own inferiority” through subservience. Although Lersch never joined the NSDAP , after the National Socialists' election victory in Germany he supported their goals. In 1933 he signed the confession of professors at German universities and colleges about Adolf Hitler . In 1937 he took over the newly established chair for psychology in Breslau . Two years later he moved to the Leipzig chair of Felix Krueger , the founder of the second Leipzig school . In 1938 Lersch published his best-known work The Structure of the Character (from 1950 under the title Structure of the Person ), which appeared in eleven editions by 1970.

In December 1941, Lersch publicly supported the National Socialists' euthanasia program at an event at the University of Leipzig . The speech was directed against the Münster Cardinal von Galen , who preached against euthanasia . In his lecture he stated the relationship between upbringing and genetic selection:

If the actual power of heredity has shown that there are limits to the inhibiting effect of education, then where the limits are, a new right takes the place of education, the entry of inferior dispositions - physical illnesses, mental, spiritual, moral, social inferiorities - to prevent inheritance, i.e. to exclude the bearers of inferior genes from reproduction (Lersch 1942, p. 38).

Last but not least, this speech led in the post-war period in Germany in 1948 to a court case against Lersch. It ended with his classification as a fellow traveler . The slogan enabled him to continue the psychology professorship at the University of Munich, which he took up in 1942, unhindered until 1966. His successor at the Munich chair was Kurt Müller . From 1954 to 1955 Lersch was President of the German Society for Psychology . In 1941 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina . Since 1942 he was a corresponding member of the Saxon Academy of Sciences and since 1944 a full member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences .

The psychological work

Lersch's writings are shaped by the holistic psychology of the 1920s. His approach was based primarily on Wilhelm Dilthey's understanding psychology . Lersch saw the will as the most important authority over the feelings (endothymic experiences). With Lersch, the will is subordinated to a higher goal. Virtues such as determination, independence and inner willfulness would only develop fully if one's own needs were suppressed and physical strains were endured. Positive forms of inner will posture are self-control, self-discipline, self-discipline, severity towards oneself and self-education. (Structure of the Person, 1970). Everything should be subordinated to a whole, which was understood as subordination to the national community during the Nazi era . In The Structure of Character Lersch refers to Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf with regard to the ability to make decisions , as part of the overall mental process . Lersch stated:

The genetic question, i.e. the question of the extent to which a character trait can be inherently given and to what extent it can be acquired or trained, is precisely the ability to make decisions that is of particular importance with regard to the educational goals that A dolf H itler gave the German people: ' The development of the will and the ability to make decisions as well as the cultivation of the willingness to take responsibility are of the utmost importance. ' 'The German education before the war was afflicted with an extraordinary number of weaknesses. It was tailored in a very one-sided way to the chastisement of pure 'knowledge' and little focused on 'ability'. Even less emphasis was placed on the development of the character of the individual - as far as this was possible at all - very little on the promotion of a willingness to take responsibility and not at all on the education of will and determination. ' There is no question that the ability to make decisions can - at least to a certain extent - be acquired. In any case, an upbringing that relieves people of the responsibility, the effort of making decisions and the risk of personal commitment has less of a chance of making them capable of making decisions than an upbringing that puts them under pressure, without outside help, to make decisions and take responsibility to take over (Lersch 1942, p. 233).

Fonts

  • Face and soul. Basic lines of a facial expression diagnosis. Reinhardt, Munich 1932.4
  • Philosophy of life of the present. (= Philosophical Research Reports, Volume 14). Berlin, Junker and Dünnhaupt, 1932, 98 pages
  • The problem of a characterological selection for the higher teaching post, in: Die Höhere Schule 1934, pp. 298-305
  • Building the character. Johann Ambrosius Barth Verlag , Leipzig 1938 and 1941 (second, revised and expanded edition)
  • The problem of the inheritance of the soul. JA Barth, Leipzig 1942.
  • Language as freedom and fate. Munich 1947.
  • Man in the present. Ernst Reinhardt Verlag, Munich / Basel 1947, 2nd edition 1955
  • Structure of the person. 11th edition, JA Barth, Munich 1970.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Philipp Lersch: Outline of a Characterology of the Self , in: Journal for Applied Psychology , 46/1934, pp. 150 and 163
  2. ^ Philipp Lersch obituary by Alois Dempf at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences (PDF file).
personal data
SURNAME Lersch, Philipp
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German psychologist
DATE OF BIRTH April 4, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH March 15, 1972
Place of death Munich