Walter Ehrenstein

This article describes the father. For the son see Walter H. Ehrenstein .

Walter Ludwig Ehrenstein (born October 10, 1899 in Altenkirchen , † October 16, 1961 in Bonn ) was a German psychologist and university professor . The Ehrenstein deception is named after him.

Life

The son of a furrier graduated from the Wöhler Realgymnasium in Frankfurt am Main in 1917 . After serving in the First World War, he studied natural sciences , philosophy and psychology at the University of Frankfurt am Main from 1919 and received his doctorate in 1921 under Friedrich Schumann . He then continued his education at the Technical University of Berlin and at Woodbrooke College in Birmingham , where he met the Quakers , to whom he dedicated an appreciative work in the civilization-critical magazine Der Türmer in 1929 . From 1922 to 1925 he was an extraordinary assistant, then lecturer at the psychological seminar at the University of Frankfurt am Main. From 1927 to 1929 he worked as an extraordinary assistant to August Messer at the Institute for Experimental Psychology and Education at the University of Giessen , where he also completed his habilitation in 1929.

In 1930, Ehrenstein received his habilitation at the Technical University of Danzig . In 1931 he joined the NSDAP . In November 1933 he signed the German professors' confession of Adolf Hitler . In 1934 Ehrenstein was appointed associate professor at the Technical University of Danzig and in 1937, after Hans Henning's leave of absence and forced retirement , he was appointed full professor. In his lectures he also dealt with ideological topics such as “Race and Nation in Philosophy”. Since the 1920s, he fought the psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud as unscientific, but also as part of a "racial conflict". Ehrenstein accused him of undermining the cultural and moral foundations of contemporary society. Opposed to this is a Germanic worldview that is aristocratic, pacifistic (!) And based on solidarity. In 1934 he intensified the attacks on Freud, whom he accused of wanting to destroy the “nomos of the nation” in favor of the “foreign races”.

In 1945 Ehrenstein fled Danzig. From 1948 to 1951 he worked as a substitute teacher at the Münster School College. In 1950 the University of Bonn appointed him associate professor for psychology.

The psychologist Walter H. Ehrenstein (1950–2009) was his son.

plant

Ehrenstein dealt with experimental perception research. He represented a psychology that was shaped by Frankfurt Gestalt psychology and Leipzig holistic psychology .

In the 1930s he came across figure-ground perception and the Ehrenstein deception named after him.

Fonts

• About Quakerism and its possible mission , in: Der Türmer. Monthly magazine for mind and spirit, vol. 31 / issue 7 (1929)
• The origin of a spiritual epidemic , in: Der Türmer (1932)
• Nomos der Nation , in: Der Türmer (1934)
• The roots of nationalism in emotional life , magazine for educational psychology and youth studies, 35 (1934), issue 1, pp. 16–24
• Introduction to Gestalt Psychology. Barth, Leipzig 1934.
• Foundation of a holistic psychological type theory. Junker & Dünnhaupt 1935;
  • 2nd, revised edition: Problems of holistic psychological perception theory. Barth, Leipzig 1947;
  • 3rd, increased edition 1954.
• The Reichsfeier for the 150th birthday of Arthur Schopenhauer in Danzig , Yearbook of the Schopenhauer Society 26 (1939).
• Contributions to holistic psychological perception theory. Barth, Leipzig 1942.
• About modifications of L. Hermann's brightness phenomenon. In: Journal of Psychology . Vol. 150 (1941), pp. 83-91.
• Demon crowd. Waldemar, Frankfurt am Main 1952.
• The depersonalization. Mass and individual in the light of recent experiences. Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 1952.
• Problems of the higher soul life. Reinhardt, Munich / Basel 1965.

literature

• Klaus-Peter Horn : Educational Science in Germany in the 20th Century. Klinkhardt, Bad Heilbrunn 2003, ISBN 3-7815-1271-1 .
• Christian Tilitzki : The German University Philosophy in the Weimar Republic and in the Third Reich , 2 vols., Oldenbourg Akademieverlag, Reprint 2014, (first Berlin 2002). ISBN 978-3-05-003647-2 (especially p. 236ff)
• Uwe Wolfradt et al. (Ed.): German-speaking psychologists 1933–1945. A dictionary of persons. Springer, Wiesbaden 2015, ISBN 978-3-658-01480-3 , p. 105 ( limited preview in the Google book search).

Web links

• Literature by and about Walter Ehrenstein in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Information from Tilitzki, Universitätsphilosophie, pp. 237–239
2. ^ Ehrenstein deception. In cod. Lexicon of Psychology . Retrieved May 31, 2016.