Siegfried Bernfeld

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Siegfried Bernfeld (around 1920)

Siegfried Bernfeld (born May 7, 1892 in Lemberg , Galicia ; died April 2, 1953 in San Francisco ), born Selig Bernfeld, was a reform pedagogue , psychoanalyst and co-founder of modern youth research, influenced by the youth movement .

Life

Siegfried Bernfeld was born in Lemberg as the first of three children to the Jewish cloth wholesaler Isidor Bernfeld and his wife Hermine Schwarzwald-Bernfeld. He grew up in Vienna , where he finished high school in 1911 and studied biology , zoology , geology , pedagogy , psychology , philosophy and sociology at the University of Vienna until 1915 (except for one semester in 1914, in which he attended the University of Freiburg). Together with Walter Benjamin , Georg Gretor (pseudonym Georges Barbizon), Otto Gründler , Erich Krems , the brothers Hans and Peter Kollwitz and Gustav Wyneken , he worked on the legendary and politically persecuted youth magazine Der Anfang . This was banned in all schools in Bavaria. He was involved in the liberal Jewish youth movement in Vienna and was active in socialist organizations, heavily influenced by Wyneken's educational reform ideas. After completing his studies, he received his doctorate on the concept of youth after successfully defending his work .

From 1917 to 1921 he was a leading member of the Zionist Central Council for Western Austria . In 1919 he headed an educational project that took care of Jewish youth who had been uprooted by the First World War . In 1921, Bernfeld worked in Heidelberg for a few months for Martin Buber's magazine Der Jude . After his return to Vienna, he joined the psychoanalytic movement of Sigmund Freud . From 1922 he developed courses for the teaching institute of the Vienna Psychoanalytical Association in which educational issues were examined psychoanalytically.

Memorial plaque in Berlin, Pariser Strasse 18a, from the series Mit Freud in Berlin

From 1925 to 1932 he worked with Kurt Lewin in the Psychoanalytic Association in Berlin . He also taught at the German School of Politics on youth welfare and was involved in the Association of Resolute School Reformers . In the theoretical field he was one of the first Freudo Marxists . In 1929, an appointment to Bernfeld's technical college in Braunschweig , supported by left-wing forces, including Hans Löhr , failed because after October 1, 1930, a coalition government consisting of the DNVP and the NSDAP was formed in the state parliament of the Free State of Braunschweig .

In 1934, Bernfeld and his family emigrated to the USA via Vienna and France, where he settled in San Francisco . There he was involved in setting up the Psychoanalytic Association and worked together with the psychoanalyst Suzanne Cassirer , his third wife, on detailed biographical studies of Freud.

Siegfried Bernfeld was married to the Marxist Anne Salomon until 1926, then to the actress Elisabeth Neumann and until his death to Suzanne Cassirer. His daughter from his first marriage was the biochemist and nutritionist Rosemarie Ostwald (1915–1984).

Services

Bernfeld belonged to the first generation of psychoanalysts. He is a co-founder of modern youth research and psychoanalytic education. The basis of his theoretical and practical work is the connection between psychoanalysis and socialism in collective self-regulation. In doing so, he gives thought to the attention of the educator and the limits of pedagogy.

Bernfeld's Sisyphus from 1925 has been considered a deep turning point in the history of education in educational science since its publication until today. In it, Bernfeld criticizes the dominant humanities pedagogy (well into the 1960s) , namely as the leading representative of Eduard Spranger . Bernfeld formulated the long-recognized insight that the success of education and upbringing does not depend solely on the ability of the children to be brought up, but rather largely on the material requirements and the historical constitution of the educational system. In other words, this position could be described as an anti-capitalist criticism of reform pedagogy . While the pamphlet was reviewed in a number of magazines, it was simply ignored in, for example, the leading journal of the criticized, Education . Even after the Second World War, the plant was never explicitly mentioned in some important works in the Federal Republic of Germany. Bernfeld made it from outsider to classic through critical educationalists and the anti-authoritarian education after 1968. Not least important for this were the magazine Das Argument and books by Klaus Mollenhauer and Hans-Jochen Gamm .

Bernfeld also became important for kibbutz education when he decided in 1914 to make the organization of war orphan care his task. He felt it was his duty to enable the orphanage to be integrated into the process of Jewish renewal in a meaningful and meaningful way, but he was also interested in Jewish education in general. Bernfeld wanted to keep the Jewish education system from simply being adapted to the rest of Europe. So he decided to create a Jewish school settlement for the education of the orphans, located on a large farm, in order to enable commercial, agricultural and industrial training facilities. In addition, the area should provide living and boarding for several thousand children, young people and - since the teachers should live with the children - also for adults. The American Joint Committee, Vienna Branch supported him financially. Bernfeld would have expected substantial support from the Zionists and the Jewish Nationalists, but the leading Zionist figures remained inactive.

The Baumgarten children's home was finally founded in August 1919 as the first Jewish school community based on the teaching principles of Maria Montessori, Berthold Otto and Gustav Wyneken and was under the pedagogical direction of Bernfeld until 1920. It was the first attempt that was made with such a considerable number of almost 300 children (but still fewer than Bernfeld would have liked in his preliminary considerations) between the ages of 3 and 16 as part of boarding school and school operations. However, due to the size and location of the barracks, only a good Jewish children's home could be created, which was supposed to be the preparation for the actual school settlement. The children who then moved into the home came from various other homes or refugee camps - their neglect was also different. After six months, however, every trace of neglect was wiped away (except for a few). There had been too many conflicts between the educators and the administration that was responsible for maintaining the children's home. There were countless disruptions in educational development, which in 1920 ultimately led to the dismissal of all educators in solidarity.

Bernfeld worked as a training analyst at psychoanalytic training institutes for three decades . On the basis of his experiences, in his last lecture in 1952, he strongly criticized the formalized training as it had been established by the Berlin Psychoanalytical Institute in the 1920s.

Fonts

  • The new youth and women. Kamoenenverlag, Vienna / Leipzig 1914.
  • The Jewish people and their youth. Löwit, Berlin / Vienna / Leipzig 1919.
  • Baumgarten children's home. Report of a serious attempt at a new upbringing. Jewish publishing house, Berlin 1921.
  • (Ed.) On the community life of youth. Contributions to youth research. International Psychoanalytischer Verlag, Vienna 1922.
  • Infant Psychology. J. Springer, Vienna 1925.
  • Sisyphus or the Limits of Education. Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag, Vienna 1925; Reprint: Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt / M. 1967, 10th edition 2006, ISBN 3-518-27637-9 .
  • with Suzanne Cassirer Bernfeld: Building blocks of the Freud biography. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt / M. 1988, ISBN 3-518-28327-8 .

Work editions

  • Anti-authoritarian education and psychoanalysis. Selected Writings. March publishing house, Darmstadt 1969.
  • All works: in 16 volumes. Edited by Ulrich Herrmann - published: 1. Theory of adolescence. Writings 1914–1938. 1992; 2. Youth movement and youth research. Writings 1909–1930. 1994; and 11. Social Pedagogy: Writings 1921–1933. 1996, all: Beltz, Weinheim [u. a.].
  • Work edition. (12 volumes) 1. Theory of adolescence. Writings 1914–1938. 2010; 2 .: Youth movement and youth research. Writings 1909–1930. 2010; all: Psychosozial Verlag, Giessen.

Articles and presentations (selection)

  • Socialism and psychoanalysis. In: The Socialist Doctor . Quarterly magazine of the "Association of Socialist Doctors". Volume 2 (1926), Issue 2–3 (November), pp. 15–22 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
  • On the question: psychoanalysis and Marxism. In: The class struggle. Marxist sheets (Berlin). 2nd year 1928, issue 3, p. 93 f.
  • The entropy law and the death instinct (together with Sergei Feitelberg). In: Imago. 16th year 1930, No. 2, pp. 187-216.
  • »Statutory health insurance psychotherapy«. In: The Socialist Doctor. 6th year 1930, issue 2 (May), pp. 54–59 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
  • The Gestalt theory. In: Imago, 20th year (1934), pp. 32-77.
  • About psychoanalytic training (1952) (From the archive of psychoanalysis). In: Psyche, Volume 38, 1984, pp. 437-459.
  • Socialism and psychoanalysis. In: The fight. Social Democratic Monthly (Vienna). 19th year 1962, Issue 9, pp. 385-389.

literature

  • Siegfried Bernfeld or the limits of psychoanalysis. Edited by Karl Fallend u. Johannes Reichmayr, Stroemfeld 1992, ISBN 978-3-86109-102-8 .
  • Peter Dudek: Fetish youth. Walter Benjamin and Siegfried Bernfeld - youth protest on the eve of the First World War. Klinkhardt, Bad Heilbrunn 2002.
  • Ernst Federn : A life with psychoanalysis. From Vienna via Buchenwald and the USA back to Vienna. Psychosozial Verlag, Giessen.
  • Ilse Grubich-Simitis: Siegfried Bernfeld: Historian of psychoanalysis and Freud biographer. In: Siegfried Bernfeld, Suzanne Cassirer-Bernfeld: Building blocks for the Freud biography. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1981, pp. 7-48.
  • Gerhard Benetka: Psychoanalysis and Academic Psychology. Siegfried Bernfeld and the Vienna Psychological Institute. In: Werkblatt. No. 22/23, issue 1/2, 1990
  • Gerhard Benetka: Bernfeld researcher at Grundlsee. In: Werkblatt. No. 27, No. 2, 1991.
  • Janice Haaken: The Siegfried Bernfeld conference. Uncovering the psychoanalytic, political unconscious. In: The American journal of psychoanalysis. Volume 50, 1990, pp. 289-304.
  • Roland Kaufhold : Siegfried Bernfeld - psychoanalyst, Zionist, educator. Siegfried Bernfeld died 55 years ago. In: grandstand . No. 185, 1/2008, pp. 178-188.
  • Roland Kaufhold (ed.): Pioneers of psychoanalytic pedagogy: Bruno Bettelheim, Rudolf Ekstein, Ernst Federn and Siegfried Bernfeld. In: Psychosocial (magazine) . No. 53, January 1993.
  • Ruth Kloocke, Elke Mühlleitner: Teaching or Learning? Siegfried Bernfeld and the “Pedagogical Working Group” at the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute. In: Lucifer Amor. Book 34, Psychoanalysis for Educators. edition diskord, Tübingen 2004.
  • Ingrid Lohmann: Siegfried Bernfeld: Sisyphos or the limits of education. The secret doubt of pedagogy. In: Klaus-Peter Horn , Christian Ritzi (eds.): Classics and outsiders. Schneider, Hohengehren 2001, pp. 51-63 (PDF uni-hamburg.de ).
  • Heinz-Elmar Tenorth : Sigmund Freud on Sigfried Bernfeld. A “teaching assignment for psychoanalytic pedagogy” at the University of Berlin. In: Yearbook for historical educational research. 5, 1999, pp. 301-312.
  • Daniel Barth: Baumgarten children's home. Siegfried Bernfeld's "attempt with a new education" from a psychoanalytic and sociological point of view. Giessen 2010.
  • Roland Kaufhold: Moving young people. The Zionist, reform pedagogue and psychoanalyst Siegfried Bernfeld. In: Jüdische Allgemeine . August 31, 2012, ( juedische-allgemeine.de ).
  • Eleonore Lappin: Pedagogue, psychoanalyst, psychologist and Marxist: Siegfried Bernfeld 1892 - 1953. In: Sabine Hering , Sandra Schönauer: Jewish welfare in the mirror of biographies. Series of publications History of Jewish Welfare in Germany, 2nd ed. Hering, Gudrun Maierhof, Ulrich Stascheit. Fachhochschulverlag, Frankfurt 2007, ISBN 3-936065-80-2 , pp. 84-101 (with 1 photo).

Remarks

  1. ^ Peter Dudek : Siegfried Bernfeld . In: Barbara Stambolis (Hrsg.): Youth Moves: Essays on autobiographical texts by Werner Heisenberg, Robert Jungk and many others. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2013. ISBN 978-3-8470-0004-4 , p. 125 ff. (Quotation p. 127).
  2. ↑ Peter Kollwitz: Fell in 1914 at the age of only 18 . In: vrtNWS, October 22, 2014, on: vrt.be.
  3. ↑ Ulrich Grober : The short life of Peter Kollwitz. Report of a search for clues. In: The time . November 22, 1996 ( zeit.de ).
  4. ^ Siegfried Bernfeld: About the psychoanalytic training. In: Psyche. 38th year 1952, pp. 437-459.

Web links

Commons : Siegfried Bernfeld  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Bernfeld, Siegfried
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bernfeld, Selig (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian reform pedagogue, Marxist, psychoanalyst
DATE OF BIRTH May 7, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Lviv , Galicia
DATE OF DEATH April 2, 1953
Place of death San Francisco , USA