Abstract

Reflecting on the intersections of historiography and psychoanalysis as set out in the previous chapters, I show that each discipline needs to be historicized but that when juxtaposed, they offer a vocabulary, an analytical approach, and a style of approaching past action that can provide powerful explanations for phenomena that appear to exceed the limits of rational assessment. Confronted with the massive trauma of Nazism and the Holocaust, some psychoanalysts argued that their discipline had nothing to offer; others suggested that analysis could in some cases be used but only with great care. Similarly, historians debated whether their inherently empirical and rational discipline had the tools to explain the Holocaust. Although there will never be a completely satisfactory explanation, I argue here that employing psychoanalytic terms helps in grappling with the monstrosity of the Nazi crimes and their effects on the Nazis’ victims.