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Introduction: The enigma that is Else Voigtländer

1The recent renaissance of interest in early phenomenology has been accompanied by a revival of interest in the work of early women phenomenologists and phenomenological psychologists. One of them is Else Voigtländer (1882–1946), whose early studies of the emotions have deservedly drawn the special attention of scholars. In order to understand Voigtländer’s early work, however, it is necessary to examine her entire life. A good starting point is the Lebens|lauf (curriculum vitae) that she appended to her dissertation of 1909, “Über die Typen des Selbstgefühls”:

I, Else Voigtländer, was born in Kreuznach an der Nahe on 14 April 1882 as a daughter of the publisher-bookseller R. Voigt|länder. After the relocation of my parents to Leipzig, I attended the private higher School for Girls of Mathilde Büttner in Leipzig-Gohlis from fall 1888 to fall 1895, and the private higher School for Girls of Marie Baur in Leipzig from fall 1895 to Easter 1898. From Easter 1899 to fall 1903, I attended the gymnasium courses for women in Leipzig, and passed the Abso|lutorium at the Neustädter Gymnasium in Dresden in fall 1903. After I had first occupied myself with several sciences in Leipzig, I turned to the study of psychology and philosophy. From Easter 1905 onwards, I studied in Munich, above all under the direction of Professor Lipps, and later also under that of Professor Pfänder. I passed the examen rigorosum in Munich on 19 No|vember 1909.1

2This brief account of the new doctor’s academic life is, of course, only a starting point. Where Voigtländer’s life and work go from here is, however, much more interesting. Thus it is necessary to move from her rough sketch to a more complete picture.

3Wilhelmine Else Voigtländer2 was born on 14 April 1882 in the Rhineland into a middle-class publishing and book-selling family that later moved to Leipzig. After her graduation at the Neustädter Gymnasium in Dresden, she attended the University of Leipzig, first occupying herself with several subjects and then turning to psychology and philosophy. After studying under the direction of the psychologist and philosopher, Theodor Lipps (1851–1914), who was known for his work on the aesthetic significance of Einfühlung or “empathy,” and later also under that of the phenomenologist, Alex|ander Pfänder (1870–1941), who was known for his work on the phenomenology of willing and Gesinnungen (sentiments), Voigt|länder earned her doctorate at the University of Munich in 1910 (the oral examination took place on 19 November 1909). Thus Voigtländer became the first female phenomenological psychologist to earn a Ph.D. at a university in the German Empire. Her dissertation of 1909, “Über die Typen des Selbstgefühls” (“On the Types of Self-Feeling”), was published in 1910 as a book, Vom Selbstgefühl: Ein Beitrag zur Förderung psychologischen Denkens (On Self-Feeling: A Contribution to the Promotion of Psychological Thought), by her presumably proud father, Robert, in the family publishing house, R. Voigtländer Leipzig.

4Else had a twin sister, Emmy, an art historian who earned her Ph.D. at the University of Leipzig in 1912 with a dissertation on the style of the German Classicist painter, Anselm Feuerbach.3 Yet the Voigtländer sisters’ paths to positions in the academy were hampered by the ambiguous language of the Prussian Erlass betreffend die Zulassung von Frauen zum Universitätsstudium (Decree concerning the Admission of Women to University Study),4 which was issued in 1908 and not clarified until 1920,5 so that Else did not work for long with the Munich Circle of phenomenologists, which also included Johannes Daubert (1877–1947), Moritz Geiger (1880–1937), and Adolf Reinach (1883–1917). After a brief involvement with psychoanalysis, Voigtländer’s alternative career path took her into welfare theory. Having collaborated and published with the well-known psychologist and psychiatrist, Dr. Adalbert Gregor (1878–1971) of Leipzig, Voigtländer established herself as an expert on the societal neglect of young people and women. Eventually she entered the corrections profession. During the Weimar Republic, she assumed, by 1926, the leadership of a major women’s prison, the Frauenstrafanstalt Waldheim in Saxony. Having proven herself professionally capable and politically reliable, Voigtländer continued in her leadership position throughout the Third Reich, becoming a member of several NSDAP-supervised organizations after 1933, as well as of the NSDAP in 1937, and being promoted to Regierungs|rätin (Government Councilor) in 1942. She served at her post until the arrival of the Russian Army in Waldheim on 7 May 1945. At that time, Voigtländer was removed from her post, imprisoned at Waldheim, and forced to return the last installment of her salary. She died in Waldheim in late 1946 of unknown causes and under unclear circumstances.

5While Voigtländer’s early life is rather clear, her mature life, especially the end of her life, remains relatively obscure. Certainly, Voigtländer’s early works on Selbstgefühle or “self-feelings” do not tell the entire story about her. The dearth of knowledge about Voigtländer’s life after—but also in—Waldheim Women’s Prison represents a real loss for any adequate understanding of her work, which is embedded in and embodied by her life. Apparently, most of the files that would have shed light on her activities at the prison have not been preserved. Presumably, they were deliberately and systematically destroyed in the face of the advancing Soviet Army in the spring of 1945. There remains the enigma of Else Voigtländer.

6By any measure, Voigtländer stands out as an interesting, even intriguing, figure in the early phenomenological movement. There is also a certain temptation to regard Voigtländer as a kind of “Edith Stein of the Munich School.” The parallels between their activities and achievements seem striking, at least on the surface: Both were talented women with academic ambitions at a time when German academies were not receptive to females in professorial positions. Both went from east to west to study with leading figures: Voigtländer from Leipzig to Munich to study psychology with Lipps and phenomenology with Pfänder, and Stein from Breslau to Göttingen and Freiburg to study phenomenological philosophy with Edmund Husserl. Both wrote on the emotions or feelings and how human beings respond to their own and to those of others: Voigtländer produced Vom Selbstgefühl, and Stein composed Zum Problem der Einfühlung (On the Problem of Empathy).6 Both were excluded from teaching positions in the academy by the gender-discriminatory laws of their time. Neither married. Finally, both died what may be regarded as tragic deaths, albeit under radically different circumstances. At first sight, then, there seem to be strong parallels between these two lives. On a closer look, however, it appears that the parallels end very soon, because these two lives took two very different courses. Yet, like the life of Edith Stein, the life of Else Voigtländer is a matter of multiple dimensions. One can distinguish basically four dimensions of her life, for she was a pioneering female phenomenological psychologist, a competent German nationalist welfare psychologist, a prominent women’s prison supervisor, and a loyal member of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party.

Dimension I: Else Voigtländer, pioneering phenomenological psychologist

7A careful reading of the work of Voigtländer is a welcome supplement to indispensable investigations of the thought of relatively neglected, that is, female thinkers of the early phenomenological movement. It is generally accepted that the founder of the phenomenological movement, Edmund Husserl, was hardly open to women in the academy. A case in point is his problematic personal and professional relationship with his talented student and industrious assistant, Edith Stein, between 1916 and 1918.7 It is evident especially from Stein’s letters to Roman Ingarden that, while she sought to be fully recognized as a genuinely philosophical Mitarbeit|erin an den Sachen selbst, Husserl was not able to see in her much more than a helpful and useful secretary.8

8Yet recently there has been a phenomenological movement in the right direction. For example, Íngrid Vendrell Ferran has explored the role of the emotions in the philosophy of mind of early phenomenology, including in the work of women, especially in that of Voigtländer.9 Vendrell Ferran also presented a fine paper on Voigt|länder’s theory of emotions and self-feeling (Selbstgefühl) at the 2017 conference on Women in the History of Phenomenology and Phenomenological Psychology at the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists at the University of Pader|born.10 At the conference, Vendrell Ferran also gave an interview, in which she suggested that scholars take a closer look at the work of Voigtländer but wisely cautioned them that very little is known about the life of this person.11 In addition, the Open Commons of Phenomenology, in particular, Rodney K. B. Parker, has been encouraging studies of women in early phenomenology, making accessible, for instance, many of the works of Voigtländer.12 Finally, Kristin Gjesdal gave a talk on hermeneutical themes in Gadamer, Voigtländer, and Stein at the 2019 Boston Phenomenology Circle Symposium on Phenomenology and Aesthetics.13

9What is known is that, ranging over the fields of phenomenology, psychology, and psychoanalysis, Voigtländer’s single-authored publications include the following:

1. “Über die Typen des Selbstgefühls” (1909 [Dissertation])14
2. Vom Selbstgefühl: Ein Beitrag zur Förderung psychologischen Denkens (1910)15
3. “Über die Bedeutung Freuds für die Psychologie” (1911)16
4. “Über einen bestimmten Sinn des Wortes ‘unbewußt’” (1916)17
5. “Zur Psychologie der Erzieherpersönlichkeit” (1917)18
6. “Veränderungen der Verwahrlosung während des Krieges” (1918)19
7. “Zur Psychologie der politischen Stellungnahme: Eine massen|psychologische Studie” (1920)20
8. “Die Entwicklung der Verwahrlosung in den Jahren 1914–1920” (1922)21
9. “Familienverhältnisse und Alter der Fürsorgezöglinge” (1923)22
10. “Über die ‘Art’ eines Menschen und das Erlebnis der ‘Maske’: Eine psychologische Skizze” (1923)23
11. “Zur Phänomenologie und Psychologie des ‘alpinen Erlebnisses’” (1923)24
12. “Zur Problematik der Geschlechtsunterschiede” (1923)25
13. “Verwahrlosung (sexuelle)” (1923/1926)26
14. “Fürsorgeerziehung und Psychoanalyse” (1928)27
15. “Über das Wesen der Liebe und ihre Beziehung zur Sexualität” (1928)28
16. “Bemerkungen zur Psychologie der Gesinnungen” (1933)29
17. “Über den Strafvollzug an Frauen” (1937)30

10Given these titles,31 the question arises: What do these works reveal about Voigtländer’s philosophical perspectives and intellectual horizons in phenomenological psychology?

11A foundational text in this regard is Vom Selbstgefühl: Ein Beitrag zur Förderung psychologischen Denkens. In her study, Voigtländer draws mainly and mostly on literary works, for example, those of Henriette Feuerbach,32 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,33 Christian Friedrich Hebbel,34 Henrik Ibsen,35 Jens Peter Jacobsen,36 Gottfried Keller,37 Gotthold Ephraim Lessing,38 Thomas Mann39, and Rahel Varnhagen40 (as well as of Wilhelm Busch,41 though not of the nineteenth-century German realist, Theodor Fontane), for the examples that she uses to illustrate the types of Selbstgefühl. “Sense of self” is only an approximate English translation of Selbstgefühl (literally: “self-feeling”),42 and Voigtländer distinguishes between “authentic sense of self” (eigentliches Selbstgefühl) and “mirrored” (or “reflected”) “sense of self” (Spiegel-Selbstgefühl) to explore the relationship between them.43 Both senses of “sense of self” are connected to a person’s sense of self-valuation (not in the moral but in the psychological sense) and to her capacity to affirm (bejahen) or to deny (ver|neinen) herself in relation to herself and to others, thus yielding stronger or weaker positive or negative Selbstgefühle.44

12As one might expect from the early work of a young scholar whose gutbürgerliche Familie was in the publishing business, many of the examples that Voigtländer employs in Vom Selbstgefühl are not from life but from literature.45 Her arguments are not based on or driven by experimental methods of empirical psychology. Although she occasionally refers to “phenomenology” and asserts the “phenomenological” nature of her analyses, she does not give any particularly determinate sense to her “phenomenological” appro|ach.46 Yet Voigtländer concludes with a statement that her investigation is provisional, insofar as it restricts itself to a description of the “facts” and points to “a universal phenomenological psychology and epistemology and characterology.”47 In his evaluation of the dissertation, Lipps, who recognized his student as “a psychologist to be taken thoroughly seriously,” was critical and skeptical, writing that “the work looks occasionally completely different from how dissertations usually do—almost feuilletonistic [fast feuilletonistisch],” that he could not “completely understand” how Selbstgefühl was supposed to be “something absolutely unique,” that the matter was “in no case resolved once and for all,” and that others would “seek in vain for satisfactory answers to their [many] questions”—but he concluded that the work represented “a serious first beginning” and stated that he had “no reservations about recognizing its peculiar value and admitting its author” to the doctoral examination.48

13Large parts of Vom Selbstgefühl deal with the relationship between literature and the affirmation of life. The work’s most frequently cited author is not Lipps49 or Pfänder50 or Husserl51 (or Otto Weininger52) but Friedrich Nietzsche.53 In her description of “authentic sense of self,” Voigtländer relies heavily on Nietzsche’s foundational distinction between nobility (Vornehmheit) and vulgarity (Gemeinheit) in Zur Genealogie der Moral,54 and she twice mentions his notion of “will to power” (Wille zur Macht).55 Examining the particular case of the tense relationship between Nietzsche and Wagner, Voigtländer explores the former’s sense of self, “authentic” and “reflected,” positive and negative, strong and weak.56 Throughout, Voigtländer orients herself philosophically on Nietzsche as a psychologist, even as she concedes that she takes no position on the “material and historical” accuracy of his views, for example, in the question concerning the “reversal of values” (Umkehrung der Werte).57 Nietzsche also plays a key role in several other, later essays of Voigtländer; their relationship was a lasting one.58

14A characteristic feature of Voigtländer’s analysis of “self-feelings” in Vom Selbstgefühl is that she concentrates on the self and not on others—on “self-feelings” and not on others’ feelings. Taking a few pages out of Schopenhauer’s popular Aphorismen zur Lebensweis|heit, she focuses on the other insofar as the other is relevant to how the self looks at the self.59 “Mirror (or mirrored) self-feelings” are not feelings that the self has for others but feelings that the self has for itself as reflected by feelings that others have for the self.60 Voigtländer mentions empathy (Einfühlung),61 but only in passing and only insofar as it is relevant to the formation of the feelings that one has for one’s self.62 Thus Voigtländer’s approach differs from Stein’s in Zum Problem der Einfühlung.63 Stein’s focus is not on how one feels or how others feel about one’s own self but on how one can feel what others feel. As “feeling into” (sich hineinfühlen) or “crawling into” (sich hineinkriechen) one’s self, and “putting” one’s self “into” (sich hineinversetzen) an other,64 Voigtländer’s Einfühl|ung also differs from Lipps’s—or Vischer’s—“in-feeling” or “feeling into” an aesthetic object in the sense of “aesthetic sympathy” or “empathy.”65

15The usual interpretation of the works of Voigtländer recognizes, of course, that in her early work she focuses on how one feels about one’s self and how one feels about how others feel about one’s self. The usual interpretation, however, leaves out one big thing, that is, the life of Voigtländer. To begin with, one must ask what happened to her after her early work on the phenomenology and psychology of the emotions. The major question is whether and to what extent Voigtländer’s early works on the psychology and phenomenology of feelings are representative of the works that she produced over her lifetime. This question marks the beginning of a long story, for in the case of Else Voigtländer it is impossible to separate the works and the life of the person.

Dimension II: Else Voigtländer, German nationalist and welfare psychologist

16The question concerning Voigtländer’s views and values is also important for an understanding of her life and works. Else’s father, the publisher Robert Voigtländer (1849–1935), was well known in professional circles for his German-national (deutschnational) positions. Between the wars, for example, R. Voigtländer Verlag Leipzig was being mentioned in connection with court cases in which it was a matter of organizing some German publishers to prevent others from using Czech names for ethnically German towns in the Sudetenland after the Treaty of Versailles (1919).66 Robert Voigt|länder, in particular, not only published but also authored works appealing to “ the newly revived pride in our German folkdom” (“ der neubelebte Stolz auf unser deutsches Volkstum”) and calling for “the reduction and ultimate elimination of the evil of foreign expressions” (“die Minderung und schließliche Ausrottung des Fremd|wortübels”) according to the principle: “ Kein Fremdwort für das, was deutsch gut ausgedrückt werden kann.”67 This is not to suggest that the Voigtländer Verlag, which was founded in Kreuznach in 1847 and moved to Leipzig in 1888, specialized in ideological literature, for it was distinguished by its publications on education, art, and popular science.68 Robert Voigtländer was also very active and widely respected in financial and judicial affairs, especially in the formulation of copyright law.69 The publisher even once contacted Edmund Husserl with a request for a statement on the fiftieth birthday of the eminent literary historian, (Wilhelm) Albert Soergel (1880–1958).70 Yet Else’s twin sister, Emmy, became well known not only for her competent works on art and art history but also for her spirited writings on political affairs, which were strongly national-conservative.71

17Apparently sharing the political views and values of her father and her sister, Else Voigtländer was, at least from 1919/1920 to 1923,72 a regular member of the Deutschnationale Volkspartei (German National People’s Party), a conservative, nationalist, populist, and rabidly anti-Semitic party in Germany that was founded in 1918 and that became instrumental in enabling the transition from the Weimar Republic to the Third Reich.73 Already in Voigt|länder’s Vom Selbstgefühl there are frequent associations of the idea of self-feeling with the notions of blood (Blut),74 race (Rasse),75 and biology (das Biologische),76 as well as occasional tendentiously nationalistic generalizations about self-feelings with respect to race and ethnicity that were typical of the times but sound embarrassingly lacking in nuance today, for example: “One can everywhere make the observation that every race, every people, basically considers itself to be the best.”77

18In a fate typical for even the most educated and talented women of her times, Voigtländer did not receive a university appointment after obtaining her doctoral degree but rather was forced to pursue a career outside the academy. As her early study, “Über die Bedeutung Freuds für die Psychologie” (1911), suggests, she oriented herself on psychology.78 Yet Voigtländer was critical of psychoanalysis, especially of what she regarded as Freud’s neglect of the role of character—in favor of accidental factors—in the formation of the human psyche.79 Voigtländer corresponded with Freud about the matter at least once.80 The contact established a connection, and from 1912 to 1914 Voigtländer was associated with the Ortsgruppe Berlin (Berlin Local Group) of the Internationale Psychoanalytische Vereinigung (International Psychoanalytic Association), which organization had been founded by Freud in 1910.81 At its meeting of 18 May 1912, the group decided “to accept as associate members [außerordentliche Mitglieder] academically trained persons (non-medical doctors) if they concern themselves scientifically with Freudian psychology and introduce themselves by means of a scientific contribution,” and voted to accept “Fräulein Dr. phil. Else Voigtländer, Machern bei Leipzig,” whose scientific contribution was entitled “Psychoanalyse und Psychologie.”82 Voigtländer’s name also appears on the official Mitgliederliste of the Berlin Group on 1 January 1914, but she seems to have formally left (“ausgetreten”) the group by early 1915 at the latest.83

19Thus this episode of Voigtländer’s life was temporary. The same holds for her brief collaboration with (Wilhelm Oskar) Fritz Giese (1890–1935), a promising young student of the renowned empirical-experimental psychologist Wilhelm Wundt. Giese was especially interested in Psychotechnik (psychotechnics), which involved the application of psychological tests to subjects performing practical tasks and eventually developed into vocational psychology, the branch of the discipline that investigates the suitability of individual human beings for specific occupational tasks. Giese and Voigtländer published a series of papers in 1915, “Vorversuche über den Einfluss des Versuchsleiters auf das Experimentalergebnis (I–III).”84 The main aim of their “preliminary experiments” was to determine whether men or women performed better as lead experimenters or as experimental subjects and whether their performances were due to personal traits or gender differences.85 Their findings should not surprise anyone, since Giese seems to have functioned as the “lead experimenter” of the “preliminary experiments.”86

20Soon Voigtländer moved from experimental psychology to welfare psychology. From 1 April 1915 to 14 April 1923, she worked as a wissenschaftliche Hilfsarbeiterin (Scientific Assistant) at the Heilerzieh|ungsheim (Curative Educational Home) Kleinmeusdorf in the vicinity of Leipzig.87 The institution specialized in Fürsorgeerziehungszöglinge (youth in need of welfare education),88 and she developed a specialization in the societal neglect (Verwahrlosung) of the young and the female. In doing so, Voigtländer entered into a close collaboration with Dr. Adalbert Gregor (1878–1971), a psychopathologist with a specialty in welfare education (Fürsorgeerziehung).89 In 1913, Gregor became Oberarzt (Senior Physician) at the Heil- und Pflegeanstalt (Cure and Care Institution) Dösen in the vicinity of Leipzig.90 Soon Gregor was also working at the Beobachtungshaus und Psychopathenheim (Obser|vation House and Home for Psychopaths) in Kleinmeusdorf, which was located next to the institution at which Voigtländer was working.91 She became his research assistant.

21Approaching questions concerning education, neglect, and welfare from a eugenicist perspective, Gregor argued that Verwahrlos|ung is “predominantly endogenous,” that “the inferior type of character is genetically transmitted,” that “morally indifferent offspring” should be “sterilized,” that those “incapable of education” should be removed from welfare education as well as institutionalized in order to prevent “harm to the body of the Volk,” and that “racially hygienic measures,” such as “the prevention of genetically defective offspring” and “the detention of those of less value,” should be utilized to solve the problem of neglect.92 Representative publications of Gregor include the following:93

1. “Rassenhygiene und Jugendfürsorge” (1921)94
2. “Ergebnisse der Untersuchung von Fürsorgezöglingen zwecks Sterilisierung” (1934)95
3. “Über die Sterilisierung minderwertiger Fürsorgezöglinge” (1934)96
4. “Verwahrlosung und Vererbung” (1939)97

22Consistent with a certain spirit of the times, Gregor adopted a biological-hygienic-racial approach to the phenomenon of neglect and advocated for sterilization as a solution to the problem in acute and chronic cases.98 In doing so, he tended to make unscientific, unsubstantiated statements with blatantly racial over- and under|tones.99

23The cooperation with Gregor should give readers of Voigtländer’s early works pause, because their collaboration yielded a substantial portion of her middle works. She and Gregor co-authored several publications over a period of six years, including the following:

1. Die Verwahrlosung: Ihre klinisch-psychologische Bewertung und ihre Bekämpfung, Für Pädagogen, Ärtze, Richter, 1. Teil: Die Verwahrlosung der Knaben, and 2. Teil: Die Verwahrlosung der Mädchen (1918)100
2. “Geschlecht und Verwahrlosung” (1921)101
3. Charakterstruktur verwahrloster Kinder und Jugendlicher (1922)102
4. Leitfaden der Fürsorgeerziehung (1924)103

24The history of their working relationship is not a matter of scattered quotations but of sustained cooperation.104 Their collaboration bridged the time between Voigtländer’s not getting a position at the university and her taking a position in the corrections profession.

25One should pay special attention to Gregor and Voigtländer’s principal co-authored work, Die Verwahrlosung. The work, which is out of print, is not of clinical but of historical value, and detailed tables of contents and sample first pages of individual chapters are available electronically.105 Die Verwahrlosung is a two-part work. Part I deals with The Neglect of Boys, and Part II treats of The Neglect of Girls. According to the Introduction, Gregor authored Part I, and he and Voigtländer co-authored Part II. But the same tendentious Zeitgeist permeates and dominates the whole work, as the first pages of Part I, Chapters VII–VIII, XIII, and XV, as well as those of Part II, Chapters VI–VII and XVI, indicate. There one finds numerous references to Psychopathie (psychopathology), Minderwertigkeit (inferiority), and Entartung (decadence). The argument is that Rassenhygiene (racial hygiene) is the solution to the problem of the Entartung (decadence) of which Verwahrlosung (neglect) is a symptom, though enforced institutionalization is more practicable than and thus preferable to forced sterilization.

26Similar tendencies of thought hold for Gregor and Voigtlän|der’s Leitfaden der Fürsorgeerziehung. According to the Preface,106 Gregor composed the work, but Voigtländer contributed especially chapter VI, on the psychology of the child and the young, and parts of the Special Part on similar matters.107 The book was authored by Gregor “Mit Beiträgen von Dr. Else Voigtländer” (“With Contri|butions by Dr. Else Voigtländer”). The tendentious material, “Zur Bekämpfung der Verwahrlosung” with “Rassenhygienische Maß|nahmen” (“On the Combatting of Neglect” with “Racial-Hygienic Measures”), seems to have been written by Gregor, but it appears to have been endorsed by Voigtländer.108 Their ideas ominously anticipated future developments.109

27Gregor, who was Voigtländer’s senior by age (b. 1878) and in rank (1913: Psychiater, Oberarzt), lost his position “for political reasons” (“aus politischen Gründen”) in 1933, so he was probably not a member of the NSDAP.110 After several years at the Kriminal|biologische Untersuchungsstelle Heilbronn (Criminal-Biological Investi|gation Center Heilbronn),111 Gregor came back to enjoy a distinguished career in the Federal Republic of Germany.112 Yet he never completely overcame his eugenicist-racist past.

28It is not difficult to understand what may have motivated Voigt|länder to collaborate with Gregor. Her path to an academic career was blocked. He was established, and he was her senior. They had common interests, especially given the increase in Verwahrl|osung among females and youths in Germany after the First World War, a topic on which she produced several publications between 1918 and 1928.113 Thus their cooperation, apparently as mentor and mentee, seems to have been perfectly natural. Under the circumstances, Voigtländer’s work with Gregor would have also sufficed to mark her (as well as him) as a completely “normal” scientist and scholar,114 albeit as one who was incapable of transcending her (as well as his) time and place in intellectual and cultural history.115 In retrospect, however, Voigtländer’s partially dubious work on Ver|wahrlosung appears to have been an anticipation of her future activities of a more intriguing nature.116

Dimension III: Else Voigtländer, women’s prison supervisor

29In time, Voigtländer moved from welfare into corrections. One can find her personnel file,117 and its documents illuminate the circumstances under which she entered the civil service.118 During her time at the Heilerziehungsheim in Kleinmeusdorf (1915–1923), Voigt|länder sought professional advancement by applying for a position in the state prison system. On 13 August 1924, the Ministry of Justice of the state of Saxony announced its decision to admit “Fräulein Dr. phil. Else Voigtländer” to her probationary period as an Anstaltsamtmann (Institutional Officer) in the “Gefangenen|anstalt I Leipzig (Frauenabteilung)” (Leipzig Prison I [Women’s Section]).119 On 21 August 1924, Voigtländer took an oath to the Weimar Constitution of the German Reich and entered the civil service (Staatsdienst).120

30Voigtländer completed a three-month training period at the Fuhlsbüttel Women’s Prison near Hamburg from August to November 1924 and continued her probationary period at the Leipzig Women’s Prison from December 1924 to January 1925.121 She also served a probationary period as a Gefangenenanstaltsamt|mann (Prison Institution Officer or Corrections Officer) at the Gefangenenanstalt II Waldheim (Waldheim Prison II) or Waldheim Women’s Prison (Gefangenenanstalt I Waldheim was for men), where she started work on 1 February and took the oath of office as an Anstaltsamtmann (Institutional Officer) on 2 February 1925.122 Waldheim was a prominent prison in Germany, and Voigtländer eventually moved from Machern to Waldheim to be near her place of work. Later, she would give her address as “Heinichenerstr. 4.”123 This seems to indicate that she was living in civil servant housing at the prison.124 For the next twenty years, Voigtländer served the German Reich, though not always the Weimar Republic, at Wald|heim Women’s Prison.

31Originally founded by Elector August II (“the Strong”) of Saxony in 1716 as the Allgemeine Zucht-, Armen- und Waisenhaus (General House for Corrections, the Poor, and Orphans), the Strafanstalt Waldheim (Waldheim Prison) developed into one of the leading penal institutions in the German Reich.125 In 1886, the Landesstrafanstalt für Frauen (State Prison for Women) was built directly across the street from the Landesstrafanstalt für Männer (State Prison for Men).126 By 1935, the town of Waldheim was the location of the second largest men’s prison (with 1,650 prisoners) and of the sixth largest women’s prison (with 250 prisoners) in National Socialist Germany.127 The transition from the Weimar Republic to the Third Reich, with its more rigorous approach to corrections, brought a transformation of Waldheim Prison (Gefängnis) into Waldheim Penitentiary (Zucht|haus).128 Toward the end of the Second World War, in March 1945, the Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim held 1,429 persons, though at this time it was operating at overcapacity due to hasty and chaotic transferals and transports of inmates from other penal institutions that were being evacuated before advancing Russian armies.129 In the German Democratic Republic (1949–1989), the Women’s Prison was used as a prison hospital, so that men and women were gathered together in the Men’s Prison.130 Most of the buildings of Waldheim Women’s Prison were demolished in 2000; only two, which once housed civil servants and now psychically ill patients, survive.131 The oldest prison in continuing existence in Germany, the Justizvollzugsanstalt Waldheim today houses c. 400 male first offenders and emphasizes their reintegration into society.132 In 2016, Waldheim Prison marked its 300th anniversary with a series of events on which the German news media reported.133

32The original plan of the Ministry of Justice of Saxony was for the new Amtmann Voigtländer to take over the supervision (Ober|leitung) of the women’s prison so that the overall supervisor (Ober|amtmann) of Waldheim Prison could devote himself exclusively (“ausschließlich”) to the men’s prison.134 The superintendent of the Vereinigte Gefangenenanstalten (United Prison Institutions) of Waldheim during the Weimar Republic (1919–1933) was Georg Albert Poller (1870–1933), a Christian humanitarian; his successor was Karl Schiefer (1898–1945), a strict National Socialist who led Waldheim Prison until 1939; and his successor was Rudolf Winkler (1883–1945), a radicalized German-nationalist who led it until 1945.135 Poller, Schiefer, and Winkler were Voigtländer’s successive superiors at Waldheim.136 Soon Voigtländer was receiving positive performance evaluations, first as an Institutional Officer (Anstalts|amtmann) in, and then as the Head of Department (Abteilungsleit|erin) of, the women’s division of the institution.137 She was never the “Direktor” of Waldheim Prison, but she demonstrated her professional competence during the Weimar Republic and maintained her leadership position at Waldheim Women’s Prison during the Third Reich.138 Voigtländer’s performance evaluations were “good”: “Well qualified; industrious and conscientious; good performance; impeccable behavior and character; politically reliable.”139

33Voigtländer appears to have left indelible impressions on individual inmates at Waldheim Women’s Prison. One female prisoner considered her “deutsch-national,” another “social-democratic.”140 There is evidence that Voigtländer considered “the political [prisoners] in their behavior beyond reproach […] and normal, healthy human beings”; sought to mitigate the militarization of female prisoners’ and staff members’ lives; was practical-pragmatic in her writing policies, especially for political prisoners, and in her recommendations for the treatment of pregnant prisoners; made liberal use of well-behaved political prisoners for various purposes; and insisted on the difference between female work and male labor.141 At first glance, then, Voigtländer seems to have judged and acted relatively humanely in her official capacity, at least in some cases.142

34Gabriele Hackl and Birgit Sack’s recent book on Waldheim Women’s Prison, Das Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim (1933–1945), provides a much needed closer look at Voigtländer and her Leitung, and it includes a brief biography of Voigtländer herself.143 Voigt|länder was not the first or the only female supervisor of a women’s prison in her time, for the phenomenon of a female in such a position of leadership, though rare, appears to have been considered progressive in the Weimar Republic.144 One can only speculate about Voigtländer’s vocational motivation, but—aside from the professional recognition—the relatively good compensation, the occupational security, and the prospect of a comfortable retirement may have played major roles in her thinking.145 An added incentive must have been the hyperinflation of 1923, which wiped out the life savings of many middle-class professionals and helped prepare the way for fascism.146 Yet Voigtländer’s biography is intertwined with the biographies of the women prisoners of Waldheim, and from her reports on them to Berlin—which contain information about her treatment of her prisoners and which the Geheimes Staatspolizeiamt (Gestapo) and the Volksgerichtshof (People’s Court) were able to read—one learns not only something about how she treated them but also something about how she viewed herself.147

35A case-by-case analysis shows that, depending on their legal and political convictions, Voigtländer treated different women at Wald|heim differently. Voigtländer refused to promote Gertrud Keller (1902–1982), who made “no secret of her Communist convictions” and whom she considered “to a certain extent mentally agile and teachable,” to the Oberstufe,148 but issued her a new pair of shoes upon her release from Waldheim into “protective custody” (Schutz|haft) in 1938.149 Voigtländer isolated Frieda Koschmieder (1897–1984), a devout Jehovah’s Witness who was willing to die rather than to do any work related to war efforts, with wickerwork in her cell.150 Voigtländer supported an upgrade to the Mittelstufe for the child murderer, Marka Michel (1898–1980), and first opposed but then supported a pardon for her, though nothing came of it, and Michel remained in Waldheim until the arrival of the Russian Army in 1945.151 Voigtländer displayed leniency in the case of Meta Mühlbach (1897–1971), who had been convicted of trafficking in scarce goods during the war and condemned to one year and six months incarceration in 1943, so that she was released in 1944.152 Voigtländer played a key role in the case of the chronic thief, Marianne Scharwächter (1910–1943), who, after several incarcerations in Waldheim involving intramural infractions and suicide attempts, was classified as “anti-social” (asozial) and sent to the destruction camp, Auschwitz, on 7 January 1943, where she perished later that year.153 Voigtländer punished the convinced Communist, Anni Sindermann (1912–1990), with eight days of arrest for “forbidden trading” (exchanging food with other needy inmates), kept her in the Unterstufe for six months longer than foreseen, and denied her request for pardon in 1939.154 Voigtländer recommended “preventive detention” (Sicherungsverwahrung) for the repeat thief, Klara Standfest (1905–1935), and reported that the imposition had “jolted” her out of her “thoughtlessness” (5 October 1934), but Standfest committed suicide on 19 August 1935, three weeks before her transfer.155 Given the large numbers of inmates at Waldheim Women’s Prison during Voigtländer’s tenure, these are only a few of the cases with which she dealt.

36Yet of special importance for an understanding of Voigtländer’s approach to and treatment of women prisoners, especially the political ones, are her interactions with Eva Lippold (born Rutkowski) (1909–1994), comrade of and companion to the KPD-member Karl Raddatz (1904–1970).156 Lippold was imprisoned several times between 1934 and 1945: at Jauer Frauengefängnis (1934–1937), at Waldheim Prison (1937–1943), and at Magdeburg Police Prison (1944–1945). Lippold began to write in prison, but solitary confinement and profound depression made it increasingly difficult and ultimately impossible for her to continue. Voigtländer interviewed Lippold at exceptional length upon the latter’s arrival at Waldheim on 4 January 1938. Voigtländer’s relatively benevolent assessment of Lippold’s political activities—she accepted her explanation that she was “not at all very much taken with politics” and would “in any case never engage in politics again,” and she attested that she had picked up her Communist convictions “out of youthful lack of experience and idealism” and from her “surroundings at the time”—probably helped to mitigate Lippold’s incarceration.157 Voigtländer was also instrumental in allowing contact between Lippold and Raddatz, though she prohibited some books as “not suitable” for a political prisoner.158 On 26 August 1940, Voigtländer considered a pardon for Lippold premature, given the seriousness of her alleged crime (“preparation of an enterprise involving high-treason under aggravated circumstances”) and the length of her imposed sentence (9 years starting in 1934).159 As Lippold’s state of health became worse and life-threatening, however, Voigtländer and her superior, Councilor Rudolf Winkler, approved, on 9 June 1941, Lippold’s early release on probation, though the People’s Court (Volksgerichts|hof) in Berlin denied the request on 3 July 1941. Lippold was allowed to leave Waldheim on 25 July 1943 on the condition that she register with the Magdeburg police.160 After the war, Lippold published two novels (Romane) based on her experiences at Waldheim, Haus der schweren Tore (1971) and Leben, wo gestorben wird (1974), which focused on “the feelings, the inner conflicts” of her characters and showed that “women react very differently to prison.”161 Lippold became a celebrated and decorated author in the German Democratic Republic.

37There is also the case of Voigtländer’s discriminatory treatment of Sitta Israilewna Thal (1902–?). Sitta Thal, a Jewish native of Latvia who was planning to study history and philosophy at the University of Leipzig, joined the German Communist Party, and probably renounced her Jewish faith, in 1925. In 1936, Sitta Thal was convicted of preparing high treason for having found accommodations for a Communist functionary. The court also found that Sitta Thal had “violated, in a gross manner, the guest right granted to her as a foreigner, as well as her special obligation to act, precisely as a Jew [gerade als Jüdin], within the framework of German laws.”162 Sitta Thal was sentenced to three years of imprisonment and sent to Waldheim on 29 December 1936. Having served a third of her sentence by November 1937, Sitta Thal was eligible to move up to the Mittelstufe. In December 1938, Voigtländer rejected her pending upgrade to the Oberstufe, however, asserting that the prisoner “as a Jew will not stand up for the National Socialist state” (“als Jüdin nicht für den nationalsozialistischen Staat eintreten [wer|de]”).163 As a prisoner of the Mittelstufe, Sitta Thal had access to books of language instruction in English, French, and Spanish. She also wrote notebooks of poems. When she was released and sent back to Latvia in 1939, Sitta Thal filed a complaint with the state’s attorney in Dresden about Voigtländer, who in her capacity as Leiterin of Waldheim Women’s Prison had withheld the notebooks filled with Sitta Thal’s “own poems.” The state’s attorney sided with the prison supervisor. Voigtländer allowed Eva Lippold to take her written materials with her upon her release.164

38Voigtländer’s direction of Waldheim Women’s Prison poses the question concerning the ambiguity of solidarity. On the one hand, she seems to have treated political prisoners relatively humanely, under the circumstances. On the other hand, she seems to have discriminated against Jewish prisoners. The general picture that emerges is that of a conscientious civil servant who did not make any special effort to harm her wards unnecessarily, who treated the submissive ones benevolently or bureaucratically but the resistant ones rigorously or severely, and who supported the National Socia|list regime, even when it entailed fatal consequences for them.165 In any case, Voigtländer hardly did anything to oppose the National Socialist treatment of women inmates in any way that would have caused her any serious problems with her superiors.166

39Yet occasionally Voigtländer seemed to take positions that her superiors interpreted as involving expressions of leniency or even generosity toward her prisoners, and official reactions to some of her judgments appear to clarify an otherwise odd sequence of events. In 1938, namely, Voigtländer applied for the position of Regierungsrat (Government Councilor) at the new Frauengefängnis Cottbus (this women’s prison had been opened in 1937). In a letter to the Generalstaatsanwalt (Attorney General) in Dresden, her superior at Waldheim, Oberregierungsrat (Superior Government Councilor) Schiefer, sharply undercut her attempt at the move and the promotion. After repeating her positive qualities as mentioned in her annual evaluations, Schiefer writes this:

It cannot be denied, however, that she [Voigtländer] tends to view the legal judgments more from the perspectives and on the accounts of the prisoners than on the basis of the legal findings. Therefore she tends easily to see misjudgments or to hold imposed punishments for too harsh. This tendency, namely, comes out in her positions on petitions for clemency, and it has already long ago led to a situation in which, at the direction of the Attorney General in Dresden (Department of Appeals), her authority to sign off on supportive appeals reports as deputy had to be revoked. She also tends toward liberality in the practice of the censorship of correspondence as well as in matters of discipline. These defects can be essentially corrected here [in Waldheim], since she is not fully independent here.167

40In summary: Voigtländer tends to be lenient and therefore she should remain at Waldheim, so that the stricter Schiefer can “correct” her “defects.” This sounds exculpating for Voigtländer, until one realizes that Schiefer was a rigorous Nazi. Voigtländer did not get the position at Cottbus and remained at Waldheim. When Regierungsrat Winkler, a radicalized German nationalist, assumed the direction of Waldheim Prison several years later, he countered Schiefer’s assessment of Voigtländer’s performance and assured the authorities at the Ministry of Justice that, despite the increasingly heavy burdens that the war had placed on her work, she now displayed “a certain hardening” (“eine gewisse Erhärtung”) in her treatment of the inmates—as opposed to her earlier “more or less emotional attitude” (“mehr oder weniger gefühlsbetonte Einstel|lung”).168 Winkler’s evaluation states categorically: “[Voigtländer’s] official and extra-official behavior is faultless; her political attitude [is] impeccable.”169 He explained that, while Voigtländer’s attempt to move from Waldheim to Cottbus was an understandable expression of her desire for promotion to the deserved rank of Regierungs|rat, “yet one must assume” (“so ist doch anzunehmen”) that she would prefer to remain where she had been for the past eighteen years.170 Winkler gave Voigtländer a positive evaluation for the performance of her duties.171 On 1 July 1942, Voigtländer obtained the newly created position of Regierungsrätin at Waldheim Prison.172 On 14 September 1942, Adolf Hitler promoted Else Voigtländer to the rank of Regierungsrätin.173

Dimension IV: Else Voigtländer, member of the NSDAP

41The question concerning Voigtländer’s political Gesinnung—her political attitude, disposition, and sentiments—is unavoidable. In the Third Reich, approximately half the prisoners, male and female, at Waldheim Prison were political.174 Frau Dr. Else Voigtländer was, of course, a member of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter|partei (NSDAP).175 This was perfectly natural, completely expected, and virtually required for someone in her position.176 Like her peers, she also had to swear the Civil Servant’s Oath to Adolf Hitler: “I swear: I will be loyal and obedient to the Führer of the German Reich and people, Adolf Hitler, respect the laws, and conscientiously fulfill my official duties, so help me God.”177 Three documents in particular shed light on Voigtländer’s political affiliations in the years 1933–1945:178

1. According to the NSDAP-Mitgliederkartei (NSDAP-Member|ship Registry),179 the “Ob. Amtm.” or “Oberamtmann” or Supervisor (literally: “Over-Office-Man”) Else Voigtländer was registered with the Party (Aufn. = Aufnahme = acceptance) on 1 May 1937 as party member No. 4317846. The date of her application for membership is listed as 16 August 1937, and her membership card was issued on 15 November 1937. Voigtländer oddly lists her date of birth not as 14 April 1882 but as 14 April 1887.180
2. According to the NSDAP-Gaukartei (Registry for the Adminis|trative Division, or Province, Sachsen or Saxony),181 Voigtländer was, again, an “Oberamtmann” or Supervisor. Again her Decla|ration of Acceptance by the Party is dated to 1 May 1937, but her Application for Registration is dated to 16 August 1937. And again Voigtländer oddly lists her date of birth not as 14 April 1882 but as 14 April 1887.
3. According to the Aufnahme-Erklärung (Declaration of Accep|tance) into the NS-Frauenschaft or National Socialist Women’s League (1939),182 Voigtländer lists her date of birth not as 14 April 1887 but as 14 April 1882 (as she normally did). She lists her profession as “Anstaltsoberamtm” or “Anstaltsoberamtmann” or Institutional Supervisor. She declares that she is “of German-Aryan ancestry and free of [any] Jewish or colored racial ele|ment,” that she is not a member of the Free Masons or of any secret group and that she will not join any such group during her membership in the NSF, and that she “promises to support the NS-Frauenschaft with all [her] strength,” including to pay an admittance fee, a monthly membership fee, and a one-time voluntary contribution to the organization.183 To the question whether she belongs to any organization(s) supervised (“betreut”) by the NSDAP, Voigtländer answers that she is a member of the NSV or Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt (National Socialist People’s Welfare), the RDB or Reichsbund der deutschen Beamten (Reich Federation of German Civil Servants), and the NSF or NS-Frauenwerk (National Socialist Association of Women). All three organizations were founded in 1933 and recognized by 1937 as “affiliated organizations” of the NSDAP (“angeschlossene Verbände der Partei”).184 Voigtländer also declares that she left the NS-Frauenwerk on 1 March 1939.

42These documents constitute evidence that Voigtländer was a member of several National Socialist organizations between 1933 and 1937, that is, several years before she became a member of the NSDAP in 1937. The difference between membership in the NSDAP and membership in an NSDAP-supervised organization is relevant because, starting on 19 April 1933, the NSDAP imposed a ban on the acceptance of new members in order to stem the flood of people who wanted to join the party following the Machtübergabe of 30 January 1933 and during the Machtergreifung of 1933–1934, or, more precisely, in order to prevent people from joining whose motive was to profit from the party’s success or to subvert the party from within. The ban was relaxed in 1937 and lifted on 10 May 1939. Between 1933 and 1937, people who wanted to join the NSDAP were thus not able to do so, though exceptions were made for members of the Hitler-Jugend or Hitler Youth (HJ), National|sozialistische Betriebszellenorganization or National Socialist Orga|nization of Business Cells (NSBO), Sturmabteilung or Storm Troop (SA), and Schutzstaffel or Protection Squad (SS). Starting on 20 April 1937, those who had been members of NSDAP-affiliated organizations were allowed to join the party.185 These modalities provide the answers to the questions concerning the role of membership in NSDAP-supervised organizations in the process of application for membership in the NSDAP itself. For her part, Voigtländer joined the RDB on 1 January 1934 and the NSV on 1 February 1934, as well as the NSK or Nationalsozialistische Kulturgemeinde (National Socialist Culture Community)186 on 1 September 1933 and the RLB or Reichsluftschutzbund (Reich Air Raid Protection League)187 on 31 March 1935.188 Memberships in such organizations were considered evidence of party loyalty on the part of those people who had not been able to join the party itself, and such people were accepted into the party more readily than those who had nothing to show by way of party support for the years 1933–1937. The number of party members grew from c. 850,000 in 1933 to c. 2,500,000 in January 1935 to c. 5,300,000 in 1939 to c. 8,500,000 in 1945.189 Voigtländer’s intermediate membership number places her among many other partygoers who, not having arrived early, joined the party as soon as they could.

43The discrepancy between the dates of 1 May 1937 and 16 August 1937 in Voigtländer’s documents is probably due to the fact that she was accepted into the NSDAP as a member of a group to which she belonged on 1 May 1937 (the NSDAP’s “Day of National Unity”), whereas she applied for membership on 16 August 1937. Like many other people, Voigtländer became a member of the NSDAP before she applied for membership in that organization. This was not unusual, especially for persons who had belonged to NSDAP-supervised organizations. Nor should such membership be regarded as “involuntary.” Voigtländer filled out the papers for party membership in her own hand. Also, at a meeting of the Strafrechtskommission (Criminal Justice Commission) of the Akademie für Deutsches Recht (Academy of German Law) on 18 June 1937, she talked of how there was “freshness and activity” (“Frische und Aktivität”) in National Socialism. Moreover, she served as the Gruppenleiterin (Group Leader) of the National Socialist Verein für das Deutschtum im Ausland (Club for Germandom Abroad) at Waldheim.190 Finally, Voigtländer’s performance evaluations during the Third Reich show that she was a “good” corrections officer who was “politically reliable” and had “an impeccable [political] attitude.”191 Even Oberregierungsrat Schiefer, who once criticized her for leniency, described Voigtländer as “politically reliable.”192 In a smooth transition, the good Oberamtmann of the Weimar Republic became a good Regierungsrätin of the Third Reich.193 Voigtländer was a good corrections officer and a good National Socialist.

A dimension beyond: Else Voigtländer, Waldheim Prison, and the fog of war

44These considerations assume enhanced significance in light of the role of Waldheim Prison in the eliminationist, euthanasist, and exterminationist policies of the Third Reich. In fact, located in Waldheim were not only the Strafanstalt Waldheim (Waldheim Prison) and the Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim (Waldheim Women’s Prison) but also the Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Waldheim (Cure and Care Institution Waldheim), an institution at which National Socialist euthanasia and experimentation programs were administered.194 The Heil- und Pflegeanstalt that operated is not to be conflated with the Frauenstrafanstalt that Voigtländer directed. Yet these institutions were both discrete though integral parts of the whole prison complex that was Waldheim. Whereas a simple street separated the Frauenstrafanstalt from the Männerstrafanstalt, a mere wall divided the Heil- und Pflegeanstalt from the Männerstraf|anstalt.195 Compartmentalization aside, other things were also going on in other sections of Waldheim Prison during Voigtländer’s tenure at Waldheim Women’s Prison.

45Indeed, the “Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Waldheim” was a euphemis|tically named administrative entity right next door to Waldheim Prison at which murder was institutionalized. At this location, Dr. Gerhard Wischer (1903–1950), in particular, was intimately linked to the involuntary euthanasia and experimentation programs of “Aktion T4,” to which c. 250,000 persons fell victim between 1939 and 1945, numerous ones—more than 800—at Waldheim Pri|son.196 The “T4” program was named after the address “Tiergarten|straße 4,” Berlin, where the Chancellery of the Führer, under the direction of its chief officer, Philipp Bouhler (1899–1945), organized the persons and methods involved in it. The “Heil- und Pfle|geanstalt Waldheim,” then, had little to nothing to do with “healing” and “caring for” those persons who were consigned there. Rather, it was the location of a program for the elimination of “life not worth living” (“lebensunwertes Leben”) and of “those of inferior value” (“Minderwertige”). After the war, Wischer was tried, convicted as a “principal criminal” (Hauptverbrecher) of “participation in killings in the Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Waldheim,” and executed on 4 November 1950. Historians of the Holocaust generally recognize a direct connection between the euthanasia and experimentation programs involving asylum patients in 1939–1941 and the mass murder of Jews in 1942–1945, for the same office of the Reich—“T4”—planned and provided the personal and technical means of murder in all these cases.197

46After the war, trials and “show trials,” the so-called “Waldheimer Prozesse,” took place in Waldheim Prison (as well as in the Rathaus [city hall] of Waldheim) from 21 April to 29 June 1950.198 In the course of these trials, which were not governed by the normal or normative rules of Rechtsstaatlichkeit,199 3,442 persons were accused, 3,324 were convicted, and 33—including Wischer—were condemned to death.200 Voigtländer might have been charged at the Waldheim Trials, but she died in 1946 and was not held accountable for anything that she did or may have done during her NS-time at Waldheim.

47Here one must be especially careful, of course, because inquiry into Voigtländer’s relationship to National Socialism should not be about guilt by association. It is hard to imagine, however, that—given her position of leadership, even if her range of responsibility was limited to the women’s prison—Voigtländer did not know what was going on in the Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Waldheim, which was located right next door to the Männerstrafanstalt Waldheim and directly across the street from her own Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim. This too makes her story more complicated. On the one hand, a reasonable person could believe that in her position of leadership at the Frauenstrafanstalt Waldheim Voigtländer knew what was going on at the Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Waldheim. On the other hand, a reasonable person could also believe that her knowing about it and her taking a different approach in her own house right next door were compatible thoughts in the mind of a deutschnational gesinnte Person who was, from 1937 onwards, a member of the NSDAP and whose profession, livelihood, and academic and scientific identity, that is, her entire Selbstgefühl und Spiegel-Selbstgefühl, depended upon not opposing but rather supporting the regime.

48Yet Voigtländer must have known that female inmates at Waldheim were forcibly sterilized,201 as well as that female inmates from Waldheim were transported to concentration and destruction camps such as Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and Ravensbrück.202 Today, there are no fewer than nine of Gunter Demnig’s Stolpersteine (“Stumble Stones”) commemorating victims of National Socialist terror in Waldheim. All of them are found on land that was part of Waldheim Prison during Voigtländer’s tenure, and three of them—for the Kosterlitz family, Josef, Jenny, and Aron, who were deported and murdered in 1942–1944—are located at the corner of Hainich|enerstrasse and Mittelgäßchen, a few steps from where she lived and worked for years.203 There can be no doubt that Voigtländer was, if not an enthusiastic or a fanatical National Socialist, a strong Mit|läuferin and a solid Unterstützerin of the National Socialist regime.204

49A source that reflects her political-professional Gesinnung in the Third Reich is Voigtländer’s only substantive contribution to the theory and practice of women’s corrections, namely, her article, “Über den Strafvollzug an Frauen” (“On the Implementation of Punishment [or simply ‘Corrections’] for Women”), which was published in 1937, the year in which she joined the NSDAP, in Blätter für Gefängniskunde, the official journal of the Association of German Prison Officials.205 In the Weimar Republic, the military-style regulation of life was less common in penal institutions for women than in those for men. This changed in the Third Reich, in the course of which prisons generally were transformed or militarized into institutions in which inmates were forced to contribute to the war effort with hard labor, even at the cost of their lives, and in which numerous extra-judicial murders were committed.206 As the Abteilungsleiterin of Waldheim Women’s Prison, and as a scientist, however, Voigtländer argues in her 1937 paper that the more specific prison regulations become, the more it becomes necessary to take into consideration the gender (das Geschlecht) of the prison|ers,207 for she takes a strong stand against the stereotypical view that “the women criminals are very especially bad” and that “they are harder to handle than the men.”208 For example, she observes that “the exterior imitation of military forms” by female inmates is “inappropriate, even simply ridiculous,” that “a rigid and straight but not a stiff deportment should be required” from women, and that “a certain naturalness should be retained” for them, even though this may be “not easy.”209 Yet Voigtländer also discusses a number of differences between the proper treatment of men and of women in correctional facilities, including those with respect to disciplinary measures, regulation of sexuality (especially homosexuality), inmates’ emotional needs, their health care (especially for pregnant women and newborn infants), and their spiritual needs—not to mention their diet, clothing, accommodation, education, and recreation.210

50At first glance, of course, her remarks sound liberal and progressive: “Hopefully there will be no return to the reactionary and petty-hearted spirit of earlier times, which was content to see salvation in a rigid order and to restrict and to suppress every natural expression of life.”211 At the same time and in the same place, however, Voigt|länder praises the National Socialist approach to corrections for women too: “Regarded on the whole, the more rigorous corrections after the National Socialist seizure of power have worked favorably with women too.”212 She also expresses a preference for political prisoners over others because of their good behavior: “The political prisoners cultivate an impeccable correctness.”213 And she advocates educating female prisoners in the spirit of National Socialism: “An expansion of the horizon of the women in political, historical, and social questions is required and corresponds to the National Socialist spirit.”214 Female inmates, she notes, should not be reading merely “novels.”215 Voigtländer concludes her paper with a politically convenient but philosophically naïve claim: “The healthy sense of the creative will of National Socialism will know how to find what is right.”216 In his evaluation of her performance, Director Winkler later pointed to Voigtländer’s paper as evidence of her extensive expertise in “the criminal-psychological, criminal-biological, criminal-pedagogical, and criminal-political area.”217 Careerism and opportunism (as well as, perhaps, a tiny tinge of cautious critique) aside, there can be no doubt about Voigtländer’s solid support for the Third Reich and its penal policies.218 Her position depended on the regime, and her Selbstgefühle and Spiegel-Selbstgefühle were inextricably linked to her unwavering loyalty to it.

Conclusion: A new horizon for understanding the work of Else Voigtländer

51By early 1945, the situation in Saxony was grim for Germany. The Russian Army began its Vistula-Oder offensive on 12 January and its Oder-Berlin offensive on 16 April. What was left of the Wehrmacht was virtually powerless to stabilize what remained of the eastern front. The American Army took the town of Waldheim, which lies west of the Zschopau River, on 6 May, and the Russian Army took the prison of Waldheim, which lies east of it, on 7 May.219 People in power, especially high-ranking members of the NSDAP, knew what was coming and were preparing for it, for example, by destroying incriminating documents or by fleeing. Yet Frau Regierungsrätin Dr. Else Voigtländer stayed. Soon she was removed by the new authorities from her position with the loss of all further benefits, incarcerated at Waldheim Prison, and forced to return the last installment of her salary.220 On 3 December 1946, Voigtländer died in Waldheim under obscure circumstances221—of a pulmonary edema, according to one account.222

52In the end, the fate of Else Voigtländer and that of Edith Stein could hardly have been more different. Voigtländer, a German with German-national views and values, began with work on “self-feeling” and became a member of the NSDAP as well as the Leiterin of a women’s correctional facility that was a part of a prison system in which inmates were murdered in pseudo-scientific experiments and from which they were removed to be murdered at concentration and destruction camps. Stein, a German Jew with a cosmopolitan-humanistic worldview, began with work on empathy and became a Carmelite nun but was murdered for being Jewish in the mother of all destruction camps, Auschwitz—yet was canonized as a Roman Catholic saint. The philosophical difference between them, at least in their early works, lies in the fact that Voigtländer focused on Selbstgefühl, whereas Stein concentrated on Einfühlung. Voigtlän|der’s “self-feeling” is about how one feels about one’s self and how one feels about how others feel about one’s self. Stein’s “empathy” is about how one feels what others feel and how they feel about themselves. Bluntly put, Voigtländer’s focus is on how one feels about one’s self, whereas Stein’s focus is on how one feels for others. It is remarkable that Stein gave up the study of psychology after a few semesters at the University of Breslau (1911–1913) and moved to Göttingen and Freiburg to pursue phenomenology and philosophy with Husserl (1913–1916), while Voigtländer studied psychology and philosophy with Lipps and phenomenological philosophy with Pfänder (1905–1909) but moved into psychology (from 1911 onwards). There was no philosophical dialogue between Voigtländer and Stein; there is no reference to Stein in Voigtländer and none to Voigtländer in Stein.223 It was a tragedy for philosophy, pheno|menology, and phenomenological psychology that the Lipps and Pfänder student, Voigtländer, and the Husserl student, Stein, could not engage in a collegial dialogue about feelings for one’s self and feelings for others. These women would have been pivotal persons in the next generation of phenomenological philosophers, but they were deprived of their academic careers at the university because they were women.

53Looking forward, one needs to take a new look not only at the life of Voigtländer but also at her other works. One should pay attention not only to Über die Typen des Selbstgefühls or to Vom Selbstgefühl but also and in particular to “Zur Psychologie der Erzieherpersönlichkeit,” “Zur Psychologie der politischen Stellung|nahme: Eine massenpsychologische Studie,” “Über die ‘Art’ eines Menschen und das Erlebnis der ‘Maske’: Eine psychologische Skizze,” and “Bemerkungen zur Psychologie der Gesinnungen.” This is not to ignore but to bracket (at least for the time being) Voigtländer’s works in the field of welfare studies, some of which are tainted by her early collaboration with Gregor and his tendentious theories involving human inferiority, racial hygiene, and selective sterilization. Voigtländer’s emphasis in “On the Psychology of the Pedagogical Personality,” for example, is on the relationship of superordination (Überordnung) and subordination (Unterordnung) between the pedagogue (Erzieher) and the pupil (Zögling) and how to maintain it properly without lapsing into counterproductive and unprofessional rigidity.224 This paper is relevant to understanding her interactions with her wards at Waldheim Women’s Prison as well.

54Voigtländer’s numerous enthusiastically and almost fanatically pro-German-national (and openly and deeply anti-Christian) remarks in “On the Psychology of the Political Position: A Study in Mass Psychology,” written immediately after the First World War and the Treaty of Versailles, speak for themselves.225 Her naïve generalizations, which exploit popular stereotypes, for example, about “the German” (“der Deutsche”), “the Frenchman” (“der Franzose”), “the Englishman” (“der Engländer”), and “the American” (“der Amerikaner”), are primitive.226 Yet her indiscriminate remark about “Jewry” (“das Judentum”) reveals an anti-Semitic worldview that fits into the landscape of Heidegger’s Schwarze Hefte.227 In the context of her binary opposition between two parties in Germany after the war, namely, the “Old Germans,” “Annexionists,” and “Nationals” (“A.-Partei” or ‘War Party’), and the “Democrats,” “Pacifists,” and “Internationally-Inclined” (“B.-Partei” or ‘Peace Party’),228 which distinction she tries to explain in terms of the struggle between the Wille zur Macht of conflicting groups dominated by Junkers and Jews respectively,229 Voigtländer says namely this about “Jewry”:

That Jewry, according to its mental [or: spiritual] predisposition, became the most outstanding representative of the B-party [‘Peace Party’] in Germany, requires no special proof. Reaching out in its own national feeling over and beyond the nation of the host-people, not rooted in it, feeling itself as an alien, mentally [or: spiritually] mobile, unbound, commercial, it must, even without the pursuit of special interests, turn in the freer, more democratic direction.230

55Although one must inquire into the exact nature of Voigtländer’s anti-Semitism (she does not explain what is wrong with “turning in the freer, more democratic direction”),231 one can only wonder what Husserl, a German Jew who lost his son, Wolfgang, at the Battle of Verdun (1916),232 would have thought of such a crass generalization.233

56While Voigtländer’s emphasis in “Remarks on the Psychology of Dispositions” is not on “negative” but on “positive” dispositions, especially on those involving love in several forms, her position is that dispositions, including those involving hate, are fundamentally irrational and unjustifiable.234 Her argument may be completely understandable in its historical context, but her relatively static approach suggests that a more genetic investigation of the phenomena would be more appropriate.235

57Yet Voigtländer’s essay, “On the ‘Manner’ of a Human Being and the Experience of the ‘Mask’: A Psychological Sketch,” with its essential distinction between the “external impressions” and the “internal properties” of a human being, may be the real key to understanding her as a person. She ends the essay with this representative statement on “self-control” (Selbstbeherrschung): “In the concrete case it is often hard to distinguish outwardly whether, for instance, the seeming calmness and coldness of an inwardly passionate human being is the product of conscious education or of compulsory inhibition, of complicated structure of character or of reserved expression of feelings.”236 This is a strikingly astute observation, especially coming from someone who studied Selbstgefühl as intensively as Voigtländer did, and it suggests that perhaps there is no “concrete case” in which it is more difficult to distinguish between the “external impressions” and the “internal properties”—the “manner” and the “mask”—of a human being than in that of Voigtländer herself. With that, her work comes full circle, for her notion of the “mask” as a reaction to how the self sees itself as seen by others was a major topic in Vom Selbstgefühl.237

58In the end, Voigtländer’s life and work present a genuine challenge. Her early promise seemed to position her as a kind of predecessor to Edith Stein but from the Munich School. Then her academic career was blocked, similarly to but also differently from how Stein’s was. Given the times and under the circumstances, her collaborative efforts with Adalbert Gregor are understandable, albeit disappointing from the hindsight of today. Yet who would blame a person—especially a woman—of Voigtländer’s intellect and talent from striving for as high a position and as much recognition as possible in the Weimar Republic? The Third Reich, especially in regard to the function of a prison supervisor, is another matter. Bracketing the Steinian question concerning the efficacy of empathy, one must ask: What must Voigtländer have thought of herself (Selbstgefühl), and what must she have thought others thought of her (Spiegel-Selbstgefühl), at the end—at the Untergang of her whole world in May 1945?

59In the spirit of Husserl’s “principle of all principles,”238 one should practice genuine phenomenology in the investigation of the phenomenon that is Else Voigtländer and rigorously follow the evidence wherever it leads. Because relatively little is presently known about Voigtländer’s activities at Waldheim Women’s Prison, one needs to keep an open mind in this respect. One may not like where things look like they are going, but at this point, one still just does not know exactly where they are going to end. The picture of Voigtländer that has emerged thus far is that of a conscientious scholar-scientist and dutiful civil servant who shared the prejudices and supported the regime of the Third Reich on the basis of the common values and views of German populist nationalists and German National Socialists, but who also simultaneously behaved like a consummate “professional” vis-à-vis her female prisoners, especially the political ones.239 Voigtländer is no Heidegger. Judi|ciousness demands that one not discount the worth of her work because of her involvement with National Socialism, and that one not dismiss her involvement with National Socialism because of the worth of her work.

60Finally, caution is also warranted, because Voigtländer’s story, which is not nearly as well known as Stein’s, is still in the process of being uncovered. This is a complicated case, and it is rendered even more complicated by the fact that we may not ever know much more about the life of Voigtländer than we already do. In any case, it is clear that what we do not know about her far outweighs what we do know. Yet one must try. What one cannot seem to find is even a photograph of her. In lieu of a picture, all one has are the unflattering sketches of her done by the Czech resistance fighter, Milada Marešová, a former political ward of Voigtländer at Waldheim (1942–1945),240 which are reproduced by Hackl and Sack and Schreiter in their works on Waldheim Women’s Prison.241 Caricatures aside, these sketches do not appear to depict a happy person, but rather one who may have been able to write about “the essence of love and its relationship to sexuality” yet might not have been able to experience emotional intimacy with another human being.242 Hence the question: What was the “manner” (Art) and what was the “mask” (Maske) of the “human being” (Mensch), Else Voigtländer?243

Acknowledgements

61This study is the revised and expanded version of a paper that I presented at the North American Society for Early Phenomenology at Memorial University, St. John’s, Newfoundland, on 22 May 2019. I wish generally to thank all the members of NASEP, especially Charlene Elsby and Rodney K. B. Parker, and all the faculty of MUN who participated in the session and who contributed to the improvement of the paper. I alone am responsible for all positions taken, as well as for any errors committed. I owe particular debts to those scholars who helped me piece together a picture of the still perplexing puzzle that is the life and work of Else Voigtländer. I am grateful to Íngrid Vendrell Ferran for first drawing my attention to Voigtländer with her fine talks at the University of Paderborn in November 2017; to Kristin Gjesdal for reigniting my curiosity about Voigtländer with her talk at Boston University in April 2019; and to Rodney K. B. Parker for providing supplementary suggestions and additional documents after the NASEP conference, especially information regarding Voigtländer’s doctoral proceedings at the University of Munich. My huge debt to the pioneering historical research of Gabriele Hackl and Birgit Sack is self-evident. Also evident is my reliance on Heinz Fehlauer and Sabine Gresens of the Bundesarchiv Berlin, who provided documentation of Voigtländer’s membership in the NSDAP and granted permission to post it on The Open Commons of Phenomenology. Equally evident is my strong reliance on the indispensable assistance of Doreen Wustig and Hans-Jürgen Voigt of the Sächsisches Staatsarchiv Leipzig—Frau Wustig helped to locate Voigtländer’s Personalakte and Herr Voigt granted permission to publish it on The Open Commons of Phenomenology. I acknowledge, as well, the invaluable assistance of Uwe Puschner, who drew my attention to social-historical literature contextualizing the work of Voigtländer and who helped me decipher various handwritings in archival documents. And I thank Kevin Salemme, Director of the Media Center at Merrimack College, who transferred electronic data from archival CDs to Mac-readable PDFs. Finally, I am most grateful to the Executive Committee of the Open Commons of Phenomenology, especially Patrick Flack, Rodney K. B. Parker, and Christian Sternad, for hosting this essay in Phenomenological Investigations and for posting the relevant historical and personal documentary evidence for the study under the Voigtländer rubric, thus making it available to all students and scholars free of charge. The time is over in which historians studied the life of Else Voigtländer but did not understand her work in phenomenological psychology, and philosophers studied her work in phenomenological psychology but did not understand her life. As a result, the life and work of the person have become—or, more accurately, have begun to become—much more interesting, both historically and philosophically.

Notes

• 1 Following 119: “Ich, Else Voigtländer, bin geboren in Kreuznach an der Nahe am 14. April 1882 als Tochter des Verlagsbuchhändlers R. Voigtländer. Nach Übersiedlung meiner Eltern nach Leipzig besuchte ich von Herbst 1888 bis Herbst 1895 die private höhere Mädchenschule von Mathilde Büttner in Leipzig-Gohlis, von Herbst 1895 bis Ostern 1898 die private höhere Mädchenschule von Marie Baur in Leipzig. Von Ostern 1899 bis Herbst 1903 besuchte ich die Gymnasialkurse für Frauen in Leipzig und bestand im Herbst 1903 das Absolutorium am Neustädter Gymnasium in Dresden. Nachdem ich mich in Leipzig zunächst mit mehreren Wissenschaften beschäftigt hatte, wandte ich mich dem Studium der Psychologie und Philosophie zu. Von Ostern 1905 an studierte ich in München, vor allem unter der Leitung von Herrn Professor Lipps und später auch unter der von Herrn Professor Pfänder. Am 19. November 1909 bestand ich in München das Examen rigorosum.”
• 2 In four documents in her Personalakte (Personal File)—a Fragebogen (questionnaire) of (c.) 1935, a Fragebogen of early 1935, a Formular of September-November 1936 (?), and a Formular of 1942 (?)—Voigtländer gives her name as “Wilhelmine Else Voigtländer.” The Amtliches Verzeichnis des Personals der Lehrer, Beamten und Studierenden an der könig|lich bayerischen Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität zu München Winter-Semester 1905/06 (Munich: Dr. C. Wolf und Sohn, 1905) lists her as “Wilhelmine Voigtländer” (139).
• 3 See Emmy Voigtländer, Anselm Feuerbach: Versuch einer Stilanalyse. Emmy also studied with Lipps and Pfänder. See the Lebenslauf at the end of her dissertation (100).
• 4 Point 1 of the Decree (of 18 August 1908) states that women will be admitted to university study starting in winter semester 1908/1909, but Point 4 qualifies this decision: “Es versteht sich von selbst, daß durch die Immatrikulation die Frauen ebensowenig wie die Männer einen Anspruch auf Zulassung zu einer staatlichen oder kirchlichen Prüfung, zur Doktorpromotion oder Habilitation erwerben. Für diese Zulassung sind vielmehr die einschlägigen Prüfungs-, Promotions- und Habilitationsordnungen allein maßgebend.” It almost goes without saying that this qualification was used more often against women than against men.
• 5 The reiteration and reinforcement of the position that women were permitted to do Habilitation, the presupposition for a professorship, came on 21 February 1920. See, for example, Edith Stein, Selbstbildnis in Briefen, Erster Teil: 1916–1933, 50–52 (Letter to Konrad Haenisch [Prussian Minister of Science, Art, and Education] of 12 December 1919) and 56 (Letter from Konrad Haenisch of 21 February 1920). Yet this development too did little to prevent the widespread practice of gender discrimination in the German academy. For an account of early women who asserted their right to Habilitation, see Hart and Parker, Hedwig Conrad-Martius’ Ontological Phenomenology, 243–245.
• 6 See Stein, Zum Problem der Einfühlung, 1916 (dissertation) and 1917 (book).
• 7 See Husserl, Briefwechsel III, 548 (Husserl’s evaluation of Stein’s dissertation) and 549 (his letter of recommendation for her).
• 8 See Stein, Selbstbildnis in Briefen (III): Briefe an Roman Ingarden, especially 72–73 (19 February 1918), 122–124 (16 September 1919), and 124–126 (11 November 1919).
• 9 See Vendrell Ferran, Die Emotionen: Gefühle in der realistischen Phänomenologie, “Emotionen und Sozialität in der frühen Phänomenologie,” and “The Emotions in Early Phenomenology.”
• 10 See Vendrell Ferran, “Else Voigtländer’s Theory of Emotions and Self-Feeling (Selbstgefühl).” Rodney K. B. Parker organized the conference (23–24 November 2017). I participated and attended Vendrell Ferran’s session, which provided me with my first concrete contact with the work of Voigtländer.
• 11 See Vendrell Ferran, “Conversations with Diotima: On Else Voigtländer (1882–1946).”
• 12 See ophen.org, without which the composition of this essay would not have been possible.
• 13 Vicente Muñoz-Reja Alonso (Boston College) and Zachary Joachim (Boston University) organized the conference (6–7 April 2019). I commented on Gjesdal’s presentation (6 April), and the lively discussion that ensued provided the immediate impetus for the present investigation.
• 14 “On the Types of Self-Feeling.”
• 15 On Self-Feeling: A Contribution to the Promotion of Psychological Thought.
• 16 “On the Significance of Freud for Psychology.”
• 17 “On a Certain Sense of the Word ‘unconscious’.”
• 18 “On the Psychology of the Pedagogical Personality.”
• 19 “Changes in Neglect during the War.”
• 20 “On the Psychology of the Political Position: A Study in Mass Psychology.”
• 21 “The Development of Neglect in the Years 1914–1920.”
• 22 “Family Relationships and Age of Welfare Youth.”
• 23 “On the ‘Manner’ of a Human Being and the Experience of the ‘Mask’: A Psychological Sketch.”
• 24 “On the Phenomenology and Psychology of the ‘Alpine Experience’.”
• 25 “On the Problematic of Sexual Differences.”
• 26 “Neglect (Sexual).”
• 27 “Welfare Education and Psychoanalysis.”
• 28 “On the Essence of Love and Its Relationship to Sexuality.”
• 29 “Remarks on the Psychology of Dispositions.”
• 30 “On the Implementation of Punishment [or simply ‘Corrections’] for Women.”
• 31 The contents of (1) the dissertation on and of (2) the book about “self-feeling” are identical.
• 32 SeeVom Selbstgefühl, 41, 43, 54, 66.
• 33 See Vom Selbstgefühl, 34, 39, 53, 66–67, 74, 77–79, 84–85, 89, and 100.
• 34 SeeVom Selbstgefühl, 64, 101.
• 35 SeeVom Selbstgefühl, 31, 75, 113.
• 36 See Vom Selbstgefühl, 86.
• 37 See Vom Selbstgefühl, 7, 114.
• 38 See Vom Selbstgefühl, 58.
• 39 See Vom Selbstgefühl, 62, 89.
• 40 See Vom Selbstgefühl, 36, 41.
• 41 See Vom Selbstgefühl, 72.
• 42 Voigtländer’s Selbstgefühl is related but not identical to Selbstachtung—which is also related but not identical to the English self-esteem. Following a suggestion of Sebastian Aeschbach, Vendrell Ferran renders Selbstgefühl with “feeling of self-worth.” See her entry, “Else Voigtländer,” in The Routledge Handbook of Phenomenology of the Emotions, 102, n. 1. “Sense of self” seems to work as well.
• 43 SeeVom Selbstgefühl, 22, 24–75, and 76–119.
• 44 See Vom Selbstgefühl, 27.
• 45 See Vom Selbstgefühl, e.g., 7 ff.
• 46 See Vom Selbstgefühl, 34, 38, 45–46, 48, 68, 81, 115–116, and 119.
• 47 See Vom Selbstgefühl, 119.
• 48 See Voigtländer, LMU O-I-90p. Voigtländer received the grade of “III” (cum laude) for her dissertation. Her grades for the oral examination (examen rigorosum) on 19 November 1909 were “III” in her major discipline, Philosophy (from Lipps), and “II” in each of her two minor disciplines, Art History (from Berthold Riehl) and Economic History (from Lujo Brentano). The final grade was “III.”
• 49 See Vom Selbstgefühl, 21, 36, 56, 60, 68–69, 73–74, 93, and 98.
• 50 See Vom Selbstgefühl, 92.
• 51 Husserl is not mentioned in Vom Selbstgefühl, but there may be an allusion to his motto for doing phenomenology (6): “[…] zur Sache [Selbstgefühl] selbst […].” Cf. Husserliana XIX/1, 10.
• 52 See Vom Selbstgefühl, 32, 61, 68, 70, and 75.
• 53 See Vom Selbstgefühl, 13, 26–29, 34, 44–45, 48–51, 53, 64, 66, 71, 74, 101, 105–106, and 108–110. Nietzsche was a significant figure in the bourgeoisie cultural and literary world of the times. Key figures of the Munich School, for example, Pfänder, also wrote on Nietzsche. See Pfänder, “Nietzsche” (1911).
• 54 See Vom Selbstgefühl, 24–75, passim, especially 26–37.
• 55 SeeVom Selbstgefühl, 29 and 57.
• 56 See Vom Selbstgefühl, 29, 65, 92, and 109–112.
• 57 See Vom Selbstgefühl, 50–51.
• 58 See “On the Significance of Freud for Psychology,” 310, “On the Psychology of the Political Position,” 197–198 and 204, and “On the ‘Manner’ of a Human Being and the Experience of the ‘Mask’,” 331–336.
• 59 See Vom Selbstgefühl, 76 and 101–102, and Aphorismen zur Lebensweisheit, Chapter 3.
• 60 In this respect, Voigtländer may be anticipating ideas of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.
• 61 In Lectures on the Experimental Psychology of the Thought-Processes (1909), the English psychologist Edward Titchener (1867–1927), referencing the work of Lipps (5, 199), coined the English empathy as a translation of the German Einfühlung (21–22, 181, 185, 205).
• 62 See Vom Selbstgefühl, 81–83, 86–87, 93–94, and 116.
• 63 The book (1917) was published without important and no longer extant parts of the dissertation (1916). See Stein, Zum Problem der Einfühlung, xx–xxi. Cf. Vendrell Ferran, “Empathy, Emotional Sharing and Feelings in Stein’s Early Work.”
• 64 See Vom Selbstgefühl, 84–86 and 93–95.
• 65 Robert Vischer (1847–1933), whose more famous father, Friedrich Theodor Vischer (1807–1887), Voigtländer mentions inVom Selbstgefühl (88), introduced the term Einfühlung in his doctoral dissertation of 1873. Stein too was aware of the works of Lipps and Vischer on the subject. Cf. Zum Problem der Einfühlung, 93–97 and 141–149.
• 66 See, e.g., Wiede, Rasse im Buch, 208–209 and 265.
• 67 English translation: “No foreign word for that which can be expressed well in German.” See Beer, “Sprachvereinlers Leid und Freud,” 275.
• 68 See Knopf, Buchstadt Leipzig: Der historische Reiseführer, 28; Voigtländer Robert (accessed 13 June 2019); and Leipzig R Voigtländer Verlag(accessed 13 June 2019). One of the Voigtländer bestsellers was a series of 150 volumes, “Biographische Volksbücher” (“Popular Biographies”), containing portraits of the lives of prominent personalities of the nineteenth century.
• 69 For an overview of German publishers and publishing during the Weimar Republic, see Fischer and Füssel, eds., Geschichte des deutschen Buchhandels im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, vol. 2: Die Weimarer Republik, which mentions R. Voigtländer Verlag on pp. 243 and 270 of pt. 1 and on p. 528 of pt. 2.
• 70 See Husserl, Briefwechsel X, 49, n. 78. The request, from Otto Voigtländer (who headed the house from 1929 until his suicide in 1931), is dated to 30 May 1930. No response is recorded. Voigtländer Verlag published works by Soergel, who became a National Socialist in 1933.
• 71 Emmy Voigtländer regularly published not only works on art history, for example, Zur Gesetzlichkeit der abendländischen Kunst (1921), but also articles on political affairs, for example, those which appeared in Das Gewissen (The Conscience), the central organ of the anti-liberal and anti-communist Jungkonservativen during the Weimar Republic. The leader of the “young conservatives’ revolutionary movement” was the cultural historian, Arthur Moeller van den Bruck (1876–1925). In his book, Das dritte Reich (1923), he rejected Russian communism and American capitalism and embraced German nationalism and socialism. Although he did not accept Hitler’s National Socialism, his book strongly influenced the thinking of the National Socialist Party. Between 1921 and 1925, Voigtländer published 13 articles in Das Gewissen on questions concerning the “war guilt clause” (Kriegsschuldfrage) of the Versailles Treaty, “the stab in the back” (Dolchstoß), post-war pacifism, and other related topics. See Pfahl-Traughber, Konservative Revolution und Neue Rechte: Rechtsextremistische Intellektuelle gegen den demokratischen Verfassungsstaat, 80–84; Scheck, Mothers of the Nation: Right-Wing Women in Weimar Germany, 118 and 120; Streubel, Radikale Nationalistinnen: Agitation und Programmatik rechter Frauen in der Weimarer Republik, 187 and 396; and Kemper, “ Das Gewissen” 1919–1925: Kommunikation und Vernetzung der Jungkonservativen, 46 and 360. Kemper gives a detailed description of the political profile of Das Gewissen, which expressed views associated with the German National People’s Party (222–440).
• 72 See Voigtländer, Personalakte, Fragebogen of (c.) 1935; Fragebogen of early 1935; Formular of 29 September 1936; and Formular of September-November 1936 (?).
• 73 Citizens who shared die deutschnationale Gesinnung and its accompanying resentments gathered in the DNVP, which was especially strong in Voigtländer’s native Saxony and in agrarian eastern Germany. The party included reactionaries with nationalist, monarchist, revanchist, and völkisch sentiments, but excluded Jews from the start. Strongly opposed to the Weimar Republic and the Versailles Treaty but losing members and voters to the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei), the DNVP, under the leadership of Alfred Hugenberg (1865–1951), joined forces with the NSDAP in the short-lived Harzburg Front of 1931, supported President Paul von Hindenburg’s appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor on 30 January 1933 as well as the Reichsermächtigungsgesetz (Reich Enabling Act) of 23 March 1933 (effectively making Hitler dictator by allowing his cabinet to pass laws without parliamentary approval), and dissolved itself in June 1933. Its former members then generally cooperated with the National Socialists, who let them retain their positions (Hugenberg served in Hitler’s first cabinet of 1933 and remained in the Reichstag until the Untergang in 1945). Yet several leading former members of the DNVP, Carl Goerdeler, for example, were involved in the plot against Hitler of 20 July 1944.
• 74 See Vom Selbstgefühl, 24, 34–35.
• 75 See Vom Selbstgefühl, 26–28, 30–31.
• 76 See Vom Selbstgefühl, 31–32, 34, 36, 38, 40–41, 43–44, 52, 54, 63, 105, and 116.
• 77 See Vom Selbstgefühl, 30–31: “Man kann überall die Beobachtung machen, daß jede Rasse, jedes Volk sich im Grunde für das beste hält.”
• 78 See also Voigtländer, “Über einen bestimmten Sinn des Wortes ‘unbewußt’” (1916) and “Fürsorgeerziehung und Psychoanalyse” (1928). There is a reference to the “Freudsche Schule” in Vom Selbstgefühl (48).
• 79 See Voigtländer, “Über die Bedeutung Freuds für die Psychologie,” 311–315.
• 80 See Pacella, “An Unpublished Freud Letter Dealing with Character Formation.” The letter, which is dated to 1 October 1911, contains Freud’s response to Voigtländer’s critique. Pacella comments: “It is noteworthy that Freud is very careful not to hurt Dr. Voigtländer’s feelings [sic!], but at the same time maintains strongly his own ideas.”
• 81 The Berlin Group, which was also founded in 1910, is not to be conflated with the Berliner Psychoanalytisches Institut (Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute), which was founded in 1923 (having originated as the Psychoanalytische Poliklinik [Psychoanalytic Polyclinic] founded in 1920). See Deutsche Psychoanalytische Gesellschaft, ed., Zehn Jahre Berliner Psychoanalytisches Institut (Poliklinik und Lehranstalt), Mit einem Vorwort von Sigmund Freud (1930). Cf. Pacella, “Background Statement [to Freud Letter to Voigtländer]”: “It is quite possible that the force of Freud’s argument so convinced Dr. Voigtländer that in […] 1912 she became an associate member of the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute, and a full member in 1914.” Actually, the founding members of the Berlin Institute, Karl Abraham and Max Eitingon, had also been founding members of the Berlin Group. See Giefer, “Korrespondenzblatt der Internationalen Psychoanalytischen Vereinigung 1910–1941,” CB/I/1910/2, as well as IZP/1/1913/111–112, where Abraham and Eitingon are listed as members of the group along with Voigtländer (and Abraham is even listed as present and presenting at what was probably Voigtländer’s first visit to the group on 18 May 1912)—but where there is no evidence that Voigtländer was a member of the institute.
• 82 “Psychoanalysis and Psychology.” See Giefer, “Korrespondenzblatt der Internationalen Psychoanalytischen Vereinigung 1910–1941,” C/III/1912/101, and IZP/I/1913/111–112. Machern, near Leipzig, was the location of the Voigtländer family villa, built by Else’s father c. 1905.
• 83 See Giefer, “Korrespondenzblatt der Internationalen Psychoanalytischen Vereinigung 1910–1941,” IZP/III/1915/184, and IZP/II/1914/409.
• 84 “Preliminary Experiments on the Influence of the Leader of the Experiment on the Result of the Experiment (I–III).”
• 85 See “Vorversuche über den Einfluss des Versuchsleiters auf das Experimentalergebnis (I),” 97–101.
• 86 See “Vorversuche über den Einfluss des Versuchsleiters auf das Experimentalergebnis (II),” 163, and “Vorversuche über den Einfluss des Versuchsleiters auf das Experimentalergebnis (III),” 46.
• 87 See Voigtländer, Personalakte, Fragebogen of (c.) 1935; Fragebogen of early 1935; and Personalbogen of 1937. Famous for its historical significance as a central location in the Battle of Leipzig (16–19 October 1813), Kleinmeusdorf was a popular recreational area near the big city. During the election campaign for the Reichspräsidentenwahl of 1932 (in two rounds, on 13 March and 10 April), Adolf Hitler spoke in Park Meusdorf on 4 March. Kleinmeusdorf is now Leipzig-Meusdorf; it was incorporated in 1910.
• 88 The main buildings of the home were constructed in 1913 as a Krankenhaus (hospital) for welfare patients but converted in 1934 into the Gefangenenanstalt (Penal Institution) Kleinmeusdorf, which was also a women’s prison. The institution has evolved into today’s Justizvollzugsanstalt (Correctional Facility) Leipzig mit Krankenhaus (Hospital). See Justizvollzugsanstalt Leipzig mit Krankenhaus (accessed 13 June 2019).
• 89 Fürsorgeerziehung and Jugendfürsorge are antiquated expressions for Kinder- und Jugendhilfe.
• 90 Dösen, located next to Meusdorf, is now Leipzig-Dösen.
• 91 In her Personalbogen of 1937, Voigtländer lists the Heilerziehungsheim as located in “Leipzig-Dösen.”
• 92 See, e.g., Willing, Das Bewahrungsgesetz (1918–1967), 73.
• 93 See the Citations for a more comprehensive (but not complete) list of Gregor’s works.
• 94 “Racial Hygiene and Youth Welfare.”
• 95 “Results of the Investigation of Welfare Children for the Purpose of Sterilization.”
• 96 “On the Sterilization of Inferior Welfare Children.”
• 97 “Neglect and Heredity.”
• 98 Cf. the standard work on the topic between 1921 and 1945 by Baur, Fischer, and Lenz, Grundriss der menschlichen Erblichkeitslehre und Rassenhygiene, vol. 1: Menschliche Erblichkeitslehre, and vol. 2: Menschliche Auslese und Rassenhygiene (Eugenik).
• 99 See, e.g.,Schäfer, “Fürsorgeerziehung im Nationalsozialismus,” passim.
• 100 Neglect: Its Clinical-Psychological Evaluation and its Combatting, for Educators, Doctors, Judges, Part 1: The Neglect of Boys, and Part 2: The Neglect of Girls.
• 101 “Gender and Neglect.”
• 102 Character-Structure of Neglected Children and Youth.
• 103 Guide for Welfare Education.
• 104 See, e.g., Kuhlmann, Erbkrank oder erziehbar? Jugendhilfe als Vorsorge und Aussonderung in der Fürsorgeerziehung in Westfalen von 1933–1945, 78–79 and 267.
• 105 The work is accessible at Karger (accessed 13 June 2019).
• 106 See Gregor and Voigtländer, Leitfaden der Fürsorgeerziehung, vi.
• 107 See Gregor and Voigtländer, Leitfaden der Fürsorgeerziehung, 101 ff.
• 108 See, e.g., Gregor and Voigtländer, Leitfaden der Fürsorgeerziehung, 73–76.
• 109 On the connection between social neglect and racial hygiene in the Third Reich, see Harten, Neirich, and Schwerendt, Rassenhygiene als Erziehungsideologie des Dritten Reichs. On the practice of forced sterilization in the Third Reich, see Bock, Zwangssterilisation im Nationalsozialismus: Studien zur Rassenpolitik und Frauenpolitik.
• 110 See the reference in the dissertation by Apelt-Riel, 184, n. 2.
• 111 See Kailer, Vermessung des Verbrechers: Die Kriminalbiologische Untersuchung in Bayern, 1923–1945, for a study of Gregor’s kind of activity but with the focus on a different region of the Reich.
• 112 See the Wikipedia article on Adalbert Gregor (accessed 13 June 2019).
• 113 See Voigtländer, “Veränderungen der Verwahrlosung während des Krieges,” “Die Entwicklung der Verwahrlosung in den Jahren 1914–1920,”“Familienverhältnisse und Alter der Fürsorgezöglinge,” “Verwahrlosung (sexuelle),” and “Fürsorgeerziehung und Psychoanalyse.”
• 114 See Weingart, Kroll, and Bayertz, Rasse, Blut und Gene.
• 115 Their way of thinking was by no means limited to Germany, for it enjoyed international credibility and respectability. See, e.g., Kühl, Die Internationale der Rassisten.
• 116 In Psychologie der Weltanschauungen (1919), Jaspers showed in real time how difficult it can be to overcome one’s worldview and to see human beings differently or to see different human beings. The work, whose English title would be Psychology of Worldviews, has never been translated into English.
• 117 Contra Hackl, “Nationalsozialisticher Strafvollzug und die Frauenstrafanstalt Waldheim,” 11–12, and Hackl and Sack, Das Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim (1933–1945), 28 and 270.
• 118 Voigtländer’s Personalakte can be found among the documents of the Untersuchungshaftanstalten Leipzig (Untersuchungshaftanstalten Leipzig), Bestand 20035, Signatur Nr. 1129: “Voigtländer, Else, Dr. phil.; Gefangenenanstalts|oberamtfrau 1924–1945.” The (75) pages of Voigtländer’s Personal File are not systematically numbered, and many of the documents are not officially identified by titles. In the footnote references, I have therefore provided carefully chosen identifying designations to assist the reader in identifying the documents being referred to.
• 119 See Voigtländer, Personalakte, Beschluss des Justizministers of 13 August 1924.
• 120 See Voigtländer, Personalakte, Fragebogen of (c.) 1935, 3; Dienstblatt, 1–2; Dokument of the Gefangenenanstalt Leipzig of 21 August 1924; and Personalbogen of 1937, 3. Voigtländer took the oath of office on 21 August but she sometimes lists 24 August as the day of her entry into the civil service.
• 121 See Voigtländer, Personalakte, Beschluss des Justizministers of 13 August 1924; Anfrage from the Ministerium der Justiz to the Direktor of the Gefangenenanstalt Leipzig of 29 December 1924; and Fragebogen of early 1935.
• 122 See Voigtländer, Personalakte, Mitteilung des Ministeriums der Justiz of 26 January 1925; Dokument of the Gefangenenanstalt Waldheim of 2 February 1925; and Fragebogen of early 1935.
• 123 See, e.g., Voigtländer, Personalakte, Formular of 10 April 1928 and 1 April 1929. The correct spelling is “Hainichenerstr[asse].”
• 124 See Voigtländer, Personalakte, Mitteilungen from the Ministerium der Justiz to the Administration of the Gefangenenanstalt Waldheim of 28 January and 7 February 1925 (followed by hand-written documents on the subject—at her request [Letter to Regierungsrat Poller of 28 January 1925] she was permitted to store her furniture at the prison until a Dienstwohnung became available for her).
• 125 See Schreiter, Strafanstalt Waldheim: Geschichten, Personen und Prozesse aus drei Jahrhunderten (2014) for a history of the institution from 1716 to 2013. See also Justizvollzugsanstalt Waldheim(accessed 13 June 2019).
• 126 See Hackl and Sack, Das Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim (1933–1945), 99. The map (of c. 1935) shows the Landesstrafanstalt für Männer (Anstalt I) north and the Landesstrafanstalt für Frauen (Anstalt II) south of Anstaltsstrasse (now Dresdener Strasse). See also Schreiter, Strafanstalt Waldheim: Geschichten, Personen und Prozesse aus drei Jahrhunderten, 116 (map of 1938).
• 127 See Hackl and Sack, Das Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim (1933–1945), 26.
• 128 See Hackl and Sack, Das Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim (1933–1945), 114–115. There is a distinction between a prison (Gefängnis) and a penitentiary (Zuchthaus), but there is also a convention of referring to the institution that Voigtländer headed as “Waldheim Women’s Prison.”
• 129 See Hackl and Sack, Das Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim (1933–1945), 95–96; 120–122.
• 130 See Schreiter, Strafanstalt Waldheim: Geschichten, Personen und Prozesse aus drei Jahrhunderten, 174–183.
• 131 See Schreiter, Strafanstalt Waldheim: Geschichten, Personen und Prozesse aus drei Jahrhunderten, 110–117, especially 115 (a reference to “Die Arche,” the present home for the mentally ill), and 218.
• 132 See Schreiter, Strafanstalt Waldheim: Geschichten, Personen und Prozesse aus drei Jahrhunderten, 190–197.
• 133 For information onWaldheim Prison, see the Foundation for Saxon Memorial Sites: Stiftung Sächsische Gedenkstätten (accessed 13 June 2019); the site for the Waldheim Prison Museum (accessed 13 June 2019); the site for literature on Waldheim Prison (accessed 13 June 2019); and the site for archival documents of Waldheim Prison, including Waldheim Women’s Prison(accessed 25 June 2019).
• 134 See Voigtländer, Personalakte, Mitteilung des Ministeriums der Justiz of 26 January 1925. There are two versions of this document, and the second expresses the plan more clearly than the first.
• 135 Poller died shortly after Hitler took power in 1933. Schiefer committed suicide on 7 May 1945, the day on which the Russian Army reached Waldheim. Winkler died of a heart attack in 1945. See Hackl and Sack, Das Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim (1933–1945), 102 and 115, and Schreiter, Strafanstalt Waldheim: Geschichten, Personen und Prozesse aus drei Jahrhunderten, 109, 120, 130, and 219.
• 136 Voigtländer was sworn in by Poller and evaluated by Schiefer and Winkler. See Voigtländer, Personalakte, Dokument of the Gefangenenanstalt Waldheim of 2 February 1925; Schreiben from Schiefer in Waldheim to the Generalstaatsanwalt in Dresden of 21 November 1938; and Gutachten by Winkler of April-August 1942. Even after a branch office of the prison administration was opened in the Frauenzuchthaus on 12 October 1942, Winkler remained Voigtländer’s superior and retained ultimate authority over women prisoners. See Hackl and Sack, Das Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim (1933–1945), 115.
• 137 See Voigtländer, Personalakte, Formular of 10 April 1928 and 1 April 1929, and Dienst- und Beurteilungsliste for 1925 and 1926. See also Hackl and Sack, Das Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim (1933–1945), 102–103 and 270.
• 138 See Hackl and Sack, Das Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim (1933–1945), 103.
• 139 See Voigtländer, Personalakte, Beurteilung of 1 March 1935 (?), and Beurteilung by Schiefer of 14 November 1938: “Gut befähigt, fleissig und gewissenhaft, gute Leistungen, Führung und Charakter einwandfrei, politisch zuverlässig.”
• 140 See Hackl, “Nationalsozialisticher Strafvollzug und die Frauenstrafanstalt Waldheim,” 116, and Hackl and Sack, Das Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim (1933–1945), 119.
• 141 See Hackl, “Nationalsozialisticher Strafvollzug und die Frauenstrafanstalt Waldheim,” 66, 85–86, 136, 147, 156–157, and 157–163.
• 142 See Hackl, “Nationalsozialisticher Strafvollzug und die Frauenstrafanstalt Waldheim,” 168, 173.
• 143 See Hackl and Sack, Das Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim (1933–1945), 269–271. Schreiter devotes only a single mention to Voigtländer. See Strafanstalt Waldheim: Geschichten, Personen und Prozesse aus drei Jahrhunderten, 113–114.
• 144 See Hackl and Sack, Das Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim (1933–1945), 27 and 102–103.
• 145 See Hackl and Sack, Das Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim (1933–1945), 270. Also, in “Ganz normale Frauen: Täter, Opfer, Mitläufer und Zuschauer im Nationalsozialismus,” Bock shows that there is not only one history of women and that not all women have the same history in the Third Reich.
• 146 See Winkler, Weimar 1918–1933: Die Geschichte der ersten deutschen Demokratie, 244–284, and Wehler, Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte, Vierter Band: Vom Beginn des Ersten Weltkriegs bis zur Gründung der beiden deutschen Staaten 1914–1949, 241–252. At the peak of the hyperinflation in 1923, 1 U.S. dollar was worth 4.2 billion German marks. In 1924, the Reichsmark replaced the Papiermark.
• 147 See Hackl and Sack, Das Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim (1933–1945), 203–204, 208, 213, 217, 219–221, 228, 234, 238, 246, 250–251, 254–255, and 258–259.
• 148 A prisoner serving a three-year sentence started out at the Unterstufe, moved to the Mittelstufe, and finished at the Oberstufe—with good behavior earning enhanced privileges at each level.
• 149 See Hackl and Sack, Das Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim (1933–1945), 204.
• 150 See Hackl and Sack, Das Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim (1933–1945), 208.
• 151 See Hackl and Sack, Das Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim (1933–1945), 234–235.
• 152 See Hackl and Sack, Das Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim (1933–1945), 238.
• 153 See Hackl and Sack, Das Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim (1933–1945), 64–65, 245–247.
• 154 See Hackl and Sack, Das Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim (1933–1945), 250–251.
• 155 See Hackl and Sack, Das Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim (1933–1945), 254–255.
• 156 See Hackl and Sack, Das Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim (1933–1945), 217–225.
• 157 See Hackl and Sack, Das Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim (1933–1945), 219.
• 158 See Hackl and Sack, Das Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim (1933–1945), 220.
• 159 See Hackl and Sack, Das Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim (1933–1945), 218 and 221.
• 160 See Hackl and Sack, Das Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim (1933–1945), 221–222.
• 161 See Hackl, “The Women in Waldheim Prison.”
• 162 See Hackl and Sack, Das Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim (1933–1945), 257.
• 163 See Hackl and Sack, Das Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim (1933–1945), 258.
• 164 See Hackl and Sack, Das Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim (1933–1945), 259.
• 165 See Hackl and Sack, Das Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim (1933–1945), 271.
• 166 Voigtländer tried to protect most Waldheim women from munitions production in 1944, but her motive in doing this is not clear. See Hackl and Sack, Das Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim (1933–1945), 170.
• 167 See Voigtländer, Personalakte, Schreiben from Schiefer in Waldheim to the General|staatsanwalt in Dresden of 21 November 1938: “Es kann aber nicht verschwiegen werden, dass sie [Voigtländer] dazu neigt, die gerichtlichen Urteile mehr vom Gesichtspunkt und von den Darstellungen der Gefangenen aus als auf Grund der gerichtlichen Feststellungen zu betrachten. Sie ist daher leicht geneigt, Fehlurteile zu sehen oder ausgeworfene Strafen für zu hart zu halten. Diese Neigung wirkt sich namentlich bei der Stellungnahme zu Gnadengesuchen aus und hat dazu geführt, dass ihr schon vor längerer Zeit auf Anweisung des Herrn Generalstaatsanwaltes in Dresden (Gnadenabteilung) die Befugnis entzogen werden musste, befürwortende Gnadenberichte als Stellvertreterin zu unterzeichnen. Auch in der Handhabung der Briefzensur sowie in Fragen der Disziplin neigt sie zur Weitherzigkeit. Diese Mängel lassen sich hier im wesentlichen korrigieren, da sie hier nicht völlig selbständig ist.”
• 168 See Voigtländer, Personalakte, Gutachten by Winkler of April-August 1942. See also Personalakte, Aktenzeichen des Ministeriums (probably of the same time), where in point 16 Winkler writes that Voigtländer has overcome her earlier “occasionally female-emotional moods” (“gelegentliche weiblich-gefühlsbetonte Stimmungen”): “Die Erfahrungen der letzten Jahre haben aber unverkennbar günstig auf diese Schwäche eingewirkt, und ein gewisses ‘Landgraf werde hart’ […] gezeitigt.”
• 169 See Voigtländer, Personalakte, Gutachten by Winkler of April-August 1942: “Ihr dienstliches und ausserdienstliches Verhalten ist tadelos, ihre politische Einstellung einwandfrei.” See also Personalakte, Aktenzeichen des Ministeriums (probably) of April-August 1942, where in point 16 Winkler writes: “Ihr dienstliches, ausserdienstliches und politisches Verhalten ist tadelsohne […].”
• 170 See Voigtländer, Personalakte, Gutachten by Winkler of April-August 1942. It is hard to tell whether Schiefer or Winkler was more paternalistic toward Voigtländer. Probably neither wanted to see her leave Waldheim.
• 171 See Voigtländer, Personalakte, Aktenzeichen des Ministeriums (probably) of April-August 1942, page 2, final sentence: “Die Allgemeinbeurteilung verdient ein ‘gut’.”
• 172 See Voigtländer, Personalakte, Verfügung (Durchschlag or carbon copy) from Berlin to Dresden of 17 September 1942. In 1942, there was a dispute between the Ministry of Justice of Sachsen and the Ministry of Justice of the Reich regarding the generic status and compensation of certain civil servants. Temporarily, Voigtländer served not as an Ober|amtmännin (basically a “Supervisor”) but as a Verwaltungsamtmännin (basically an “Administrator”). Eventually, her former rank was restored, and her back pay was released. See Personalakte, e.g., Schreiben from the Generalstaatsanwalt in Dresden to the Vorstand in Waldheim of 11 April and 26 August 1942.
• 173 See Voigtländer, Personalakte, Ernennung and Ernennungsurkunde from the Reichsminister der Justiz in Berlin to Frau Dr. phil. Else Voigtländer and the Generalstaatsanwalt in Dresden of 17 and 14 September, respectively. Voigtländer also received a raise in salary as of 1 October 1942. The documents pertaining to her promotion and raise are numbered as pages 45–49, some of which are two-sided.
• 174 See Justizvollzugsanstalt Waldheim (accessed 13 June 2019). Already in the wake of the suppressed Dresden Revolt of May 1849, Waldheim Prison had seen a heavy influx of political prisoners. See Schreiter, Strafanstalt Waldheim: Geschichten, Personen und Prozesse aus drei Jahrhunderten, 50–75.
• 175 See Voigtländer, Personalakte, Bitte um Beantwortung des Fragebogens of 9 January 1937; Ersuch from the Generalstaatsanwalt in Dresden to the Vorstand in Zuchthaus Waldheim of 6 February 1939; and Anzeige from the Vorstand to the Generalstaatsanwalt of 22 February 1939.
• 176 It was natural and normal for even university professors of philosophy to be card-carrying members of the Nazi Party. See Leaman, Heidegger im Kontext: Gesamtüberblick zum NS-Engagement der Universitätsphilosophen.
• 177 See Voigtländer, Personalakte, Bestätigung of 25 August 1934: “Ich schwöre: Ich werde dem Führer des Deutschen Reiches und Volkes Adolf Hitler treu und gehorsam sein, die Gesetze beachten und meine Amtspflichten gewissenhaft erfüllen, so wahr mir Gott helfe.” Voigtländer regularly lists her religion as “Protestant-Reformed” (“evangelisch-reformiert”). See, e.g., Personalakte, Fragebogen of (c.) 1935, Personalbogen of 1937, etc.
• 178 See also Voigtländer, Personalakte, Anzeige from the Vorstand in Waldheim to the Generalstaatsanwalt in Dresden of 22 February 1939, and Formular of 1942 (?).
• 179 See Voigtländer, “NSDAP-Mitgliederkartei (NSDAP-Zentralkartei),” Bundesarchiv R 9361–VIII Kartei / 24301217.
• 180 In theLebenslauf of her dissertation, Else’s twin sister, Emmy, gives “14 April 1882” as her date of birth. See Anselm Feuerbach: Versuch einer Stilanalyse, 100. The Bundesarchiv Berlin has no record of a membership of Emmy in the NSDAP.
• 181 See Voigtländer, “NSDAP-Mitgliederkartei (NSDAP-Gaukartei),”Bundesarchiv R 9361–IX Kartei / 46171462.
• 182 See Voigtländer, “Aufnahme-Erklärung (NS-Frauenschaft),” Bundesarchiv (Sig. BDC).
• 183 The sums that Voigtländer enters seem small. Whether this is a significant fact or not, depends on what the average amounts were. At the moment, I have no information on this aspect of her application.
• 184 See Voigtländer, Personalakte, Bitte from the Geschäftsstelle der Straf- und Sicherungsanstalt Waldheim to Voigtländer of 9 January 1937.
• 185 For the factual and numerical information underlying the entire present paragraph, see Benz, Wie wurde man Parteigenosse? Die NSDAP und ihre Mitglieder.
• 186 TheKampfbund für deutsche Kultur or KDK (Militant League for German Culture) was a nationalistic anti-Semitic political society during the Weimar Republicand the Third Reich. It was founded in 1928 as the Nationalsozialistische Gesellschaft für deutsche Kultur or NGDK (National Socialist Society for German Culture) by the chief Nazi ideologue, Alfred Rosenberg(1893–1946). It remained under his leadership until it was reorganized and redesignated as the Nationalsozialistische Kulturgemeinde in 1934. From 1935 on, Voigtländer used the newer designation, although she joined under the older.
• 187 The organization was in charge of taking air raid precautions for the protection of residential and commercial areas. Founded by Hermann Göring in 1933, the organization became a semi-autonomous non-governmental organization in 1939 and an affiliated organization of the NSDAP in 1944.
• 188 See Voigtländer, Personalakte, Fragebogen of (c.) 1935; Erklärung of 25 September 1935; Formular of 29 September 1936; Formular of September-November 1936 (?); and Aktenzeichen des Ministeriums of April-August 1942. In 1926, Voigtländer also joined the Verein für das Deutschtum im Ausland (Club for Germandom Abroad) (founded in 1908 as the Verein für das Volkstum im Ausland [Club for Folkdom Abroad] and renamed in 1933) and became a Gruppenleiterin (Group Leader) in it on 30 January 1935. Finally, she was a member of the Reichsbund für Leibesübungen, a national exercise organization, and of the Deutscher- und österreichischer Alpenverein, a mountain climbing organization. Here one recalls Voigtländer’s paper, “Zur Phänomenologie und Psychologie des ‘alpinen Erlebnisses’” (1923). Cf. Vom Selbstgefühl, 60, n. 2.
• 189 Hitler could never reach a decision on the ideal proportion of party members to German citizens.
• 190 See Voigtländer, Personalakte, Aktenzeichen des Ministeriums (probably) of April-August 1942, where in point 16 Winkler writes: “[…] als Amtsträgerin im Bund für Auslandsdeutschtum vertritt sie mit Eifer und Fleiss volksdeutsche Interessen und Ziele.”
• 191 See Voigtländer, Personalakte, Beurteilung of 1 March 1935 (?); Beurteilung by Schiefer of 14 November 1938; Schreiben from Schiefer in Waldheim to the Generalstaatsanwalt in Dresden of 21 November 1938; Gutachten by Winkler of April-August 1942; and Aktenzeichen des Ministeriums (probably) of April-August 1942.
• 192 See Voigtländer, Personalakte, Beurteilung by Schiefer of 14 November 1938, and Schreiben from Schiefer in Waldheim to the Generalstaatsanwalt in Dresden of 21 November 1938. In both documents, Schiefer attests that Voigtländer is “politisch zuverlässig.”
• 193 For her progression through the cursus honorum from Amtmann through Oberamtmann to Regierungsrätin, see Voigtländer, Personalakte, Dienst- und Beurteilungsliste for 1925 and 1926; Formular of 1 April 1929; Fragebogen of early 1935; Erklärung of 25 September 1935; Fragebogen of (c.) 1935; Personalbogen of 1937; Aktenzeichen des Ministeriums (probably) of April-August 1942; and Empfangsschein of 2 October 1942. These are only the documents on which Voigtländer signed off.
• 194 See Schröter, Psychiatrie in Waldheim, Sachsen (1716–1946): Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der forensischen Psychiatrie in Deutschland, 71–192 and 193–221.
• 195 See Hackl and Sack, Das Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim (1933–1945), 99 (map); Schreiter, Strafanstalt Waldheim: Geschichten, Personen und Prozesse aus drei Jahrhunderten, 116 (map).
• 196 See Schreiter, Strafanstalt Waldheim: Geschichten, Personen und Prozesse aus drei Jahrhunderten, 152–155. See also Waldheim 1.
• 197 See, e.g., Friedlander, The Origins of Nazi Genocide, xii–xiii. Cf. Klee, Euthanasie im NS-Staat, and Lifton, The Nazi Doctors.
• 198 See Eisert, Die Waldheimer Prozesse; Otto, Die “Waldheimer Prozesse” 1950; Schrei|ter, Strafanstalt Waldheim: Geschichten, Personen und Prozesse aus drei Jahrhunderten, 158–173.
• 199 According to theBundesgerichtshof, the trials represented a “crass abuse of justice for power-political aims” (BGH, Az. 5 StR 236/98).
• 200 Other figures, for example, Carl Arthur Scheunert (1869–1957), the veterinarian and physiologist who performed vitamin- and nutrition-withholding experiments on inmates at Waldheim Prison, enjoyed distinguished post-war careers at national and international levels. See Thimme, “Carl Arthur Scheunert: Ein Naturwissenschaftler im nationalsozialistischen und im real-sozialistischen Herrschaftssystem.”
• 201 See Hackl and Sack, Das Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim (1933–1945), 154–155.
• 202 See Hackl and Sack, Das Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim (1933–1945), 121–122 and 197.
• 203 SeeListe der Stolpersteine in Waldheim and stolpersteine.
• 204 Cf. email from Gabriele Hackl to George Heffernan of 5 May 2019: “Ich denke, Ihre Conclusio trifft es recht genau. Voigtländer war keinesfalls eine fanatische Nationalsozialistin, aber ihre eigenen Ansichten dürften sich doch mit diesem Gedankengut überschnitten haben. Sie publizierte als Zuchthaus-Leiterin nicht viel, die von ihr erhaltenen Texte lassen sogar in manchen Punkten etwas Kritik am neuen Strafvollzug erkennen, gleichzeitig führte Voigtländer ihre Aufgaben gewissenhaft aus und trug das NS-Regime sowie den NS-Strafvollzug mit. Mitläuferin und Unterstützerin sind daher wahrscheinlich die treffendsten Begriffe, um ihre Denk- und Handlungsweise zu beschreiben.”
• 205 Whoever wished to publish in the Third Reich was required to be a member of the Reichsschriftumkammer (Reich Literature Chamber), though it is not clear whether this rule was applied in this case. On the institutionalization of literature in the Third Reich, see Barbian, Literaturpolitik im Dritten Reich and Literaturpolitik im NS-Staat.
• 206 See Wachsmann, Hitler’s Prisons, 67–111, where the often whimsical and arbitrary transformation of the correctional facility from prison-penitentiary to ‘war-effort-work-and-die-place’ is explained. See also Hackl and Sack, Das Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim (1933–1945), 59–96; Hottes, “Strafvollzug im Dritten Reich: Ein Beitrag zu seiner Darstellung und historischem Lernen aus der NS-Geschichte”; and Schreiter, Strafanstalt Waldheim: Geschichten, Personen und Prozesse aus drei Jahrhunderten, 118–157.
• 207 See also “Zur Problematik der Geschlechtsunterschiede” (1923), where Voigtländer first systematically investigates the gender differences between men and women.
• 208 See Voigtländer, “Über den Strafvollzug an Frauen,” 268–269, here 269: “Allerdings ist vielfach die Meinung verbreitet, daß die weiblichen Verbrecher ganz besonders schlimm seien, und daß sie schwerer zu behandeln seien als die Männer. Ich möchte dieser Meinung entgegentreten.”
• 209 See “Über den Strafvollzug an Frauen,” 269: “Die äußerliche Nachahmung militärischer Formen wirkt meiner Beobachtung nach bei Frauen unangebracht, ja geradezu lächerlich. Es soll von den Frauen zwar eine straffe und gerade, aber nicht steife Haltung gefordert werden. Diese Forderung durchzusetzen, ist nicht leicht. Schlaffheit und Nachlässigkeit in der Haltung muß bekämpft werden, aber ohne daß Steifheit erreicht wird. Eine gewisse Natürlichkeit möchte erhalten bleiben.”
• 210 See “Über den Strafvollzug an Frauen,” 273: “Ich gehe nun dazu über, die Strafvollzugsordnung im einzelnen in ihrer Wirkung auf Frauen und nach etwa nötigen oder wünschenswerten Sonderbestimmungen durchzuprüfen.” Cf. 274–278.
• 211 See “Über den Strafvollzug an Frauen,” 278: “Der reaktionäre und engherzige Geist früherer Zeit, der sich darin gefiel, in einer starren Ordnung das Heil zu sehen und jede natürliche Lebensäußerung einzuschnüren und zu unterdrücken, wird hoffentlich nicht wiederkehren.” This sentiment is consistent with Voigtländer’s statement at a Correctional Committee meeting of 18 June 1937, according to which she wanted: “[…] im Interesse der Frauen doch im Strafvollzug eine gewisse menschliche Rücksichtnahme erhalten wissen, keinen Rückfall in die reaktionäre und starre Engigkeit früherer Zeit.” See Hackl and Sack, Das Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim (1933–1945), 271.
• 212 See “Über den Strafvollzug an Frauen,” 273: “Im Ganzen betrachtet, hat der strengere Strafvollzug nach der nationalsozialistischen Machtergreifung auch bei den Frauen günstig gewirkt.”
• 213 See “Über den Strafvollzug an Frauen,” 273: “Die politischen Gefangenen befleißigen sich einer tadellosen Korrektheit.”
• 214 See “Über den Strafvollzug an Frauen,” 276–277: “Eine Erweiterung des Gesichtsk|reises der Frauen in politischen, geschichtlichen und sozialen Fragen ist erforderlich und entspricht nationalsozialistischem Geiste.”
• 215 See “Über den Strafvollzug an Frauen,” 277: “Daher möchte auch die Frauenbücherei nicht allzu einseitig ‘weiblich’, d.h. nach dem Roman hin gestaltet sein.”
• 216 See “Über den Strafvollzug an Frauen,” 278: “Der gesunde Sinn nationalsozialistischen Gestaltungswillens wird das Richtige zu finden wissen.”
• 217 See Voigtländer, Personalakte, Aktenzeichen des Ministeriums (probably) of April-August 1942, point 16.
• 218 Voigtländer’s “Über den Strafvollzug an Frauen” should be interpreted in the context of then on-going high-level discussions of National Socialist “reforms” of the penal policies of the Weimar Republic. See Wachsmann, Hitler’s Prisons, 57: “The Nazis strongly attacked Weimar penal policy.” Yet “the plans for a [new] prison law came to nothing” because “the new Criminal Code itself was never implemented” (83). See also Ambos, Nationalsozialistisches Strafrecht: Kontinuität und Radikalisierung, for an account of the transition from the Weimar Republic to the Third Reich with respect to criminal justice.
• 219 See Schreiter, Strafanstalt Waldheim: Geschichten, Personen und Prozesse aus drei Jahrhunderten, 218.
• 220 See Voigtländer, Personalakte, Dokument of 2 October 1945 (effective 16 May 1945), and Bittschrift des Anstaltsleiters an die Girokasse Waldheim of 5 June 1945. Waldheim Prison was administered by a Prisoners’ Council (Häftlingsrat) of (former) Political Prisoners from 8 May to mid-May 1945, by Soviet administrators for a short time after that, by Josef Neuner from June 1945 to 1 May 1946, by Gustav Janczyk for a short time in 1946, and by Rudolf Reinartz (who had joined the NSDAP in the same year as Voigtländer [1937]) and the Court Council (Amtsgerichtsrat) from 1946 to 1947. See Schreiter, Strafanstalt Waldheim: Geschichten, Personen und Prozesse aus drei Jahrhunderten, 219.
• 221 On 2 October 1929, Voigtländer underwent an operation for a tumor on her womb (Gebärmuttergeschwulst). The operation took place in Dresden, and she was back at her post by 25 November 1929. See Voigtländer, Personalakte, Anzeige from the Vorstand of Waldheim Prison to the Ministerium der Justiz of 21 and 24 September 1929 (and accompanying hand-written documents). There is no evidence that this illness had anything to do with her death. She was reported to be in “good health” at the time of her performance evaluation of 1938. See Personalakte, Beurteilung of 14 November 1938.
• 222 See Nölleke, Psychoanalytikerinnen: Biografisches Lexikon, col. 1. This report may be based on a conflation of information about Else with information about her twin sister, Emmy.
• 223 There is not one reference to Voigtländer in any of the 27 volumes of the Edith Stein Gesamtausgabe.
• 224 See “Zur Psychologie der Erzieherpersönlichkeit,” 388–389.
• 225 See “Zur Psychologie der politischen Stellungnahme,” passim, but especially 194, 206, ns. 8–9.
• 226 See “Zur Psychologie der politischen Stellungnahme,” 203.
• 227 See Heffernan, “Heidegger’s Critique of Husserl in His Black Notebooks.”
• 228 See “Zur Psychologie der politischen Stellungnahme,” 184 ff.
• 229 See “Zur Psychologie der politischen Stellungnahme,” 196–198.
• 230 See “Zur Psychologie der politischen Stellungnahme,” 203. The German text reads: “Dass das Judentum seiner geistigen Veranlagung nach in Deutschland der hervorragendste Vertreter der B.-Partei wurde, bedarf keines besonderen Beweises. In seinem eigenen Nationalgefühl über die Nation des Wirtsvolkes hinausgreifend, in ihm nicht verwurzelt, sich als Fremdling fühlend, geistig beweglich, ungebunden, händlerisch, muss es sich, auch ohne Verfolgung besonderer Interessen, der freieren, demokratischeren Richtung zuwenden.” Thus Voigtländer rounds up the usual tropes.
• 231 See Wein, Antisemitismus im Reichstag, 101–144 and 423–452.
• 232 See de Warren and Vongehr, Philosophers at the Front, 85–115.
• 233 See Husserl, Letter to Dietrich Mahnke, 17 October 1921, in Briefwechsel III, 431–435, where Husserl laments the post-war anti-Semitism that aimed to deprive him of his ‘German-ness’.
• 234 See “Zur Psychologie der Gesinnungen,” 143–144, 149–151, and 154–157.
• 235 Voigtländer’s paper was published in 1933 in a Festschrift for Pfänder, who in 1913 and 1916 had published two much more detailed articles with essentially the same title. See Pfänder, “Zur Psychologie der Gesinnungen: Erster Artikel” and “Zur Psychologie der Gesinnungen: Zweiter Artikel.”
• 236 See “Über die ‘Art’ eines Menschen und das Erlebnis der ‘Maske’,” 336: “Nach aussen hin ist im konkreten Fall oft schwer zu unterscheiden, ob etwa die scheinbare Ruhe und Kälte eines innerlich leidenschaftlichen Menschen das Produkt bewusster Erziehung oder zwangsläufiger Hemmung, komplizierter Charakterstruktur oder Gefühlsscheu ist.”
• 237 SeeVom Selbstgefühl, 92, 98–100, 106, 108, and 110. Cf. 118.
• 238 See Husserliana III/1, 51.
• 239 See Habicht, Zuchthaus Waldheim 1933–1945, 39: “[…] Regierungsrat Frau Dr. Voigtländer […] war ein treuer Erfüllungsgehilfe der faschistischen Justiz. Im Verhältnis zu den politischen Gefangenen wahrte sie eine gewisse Distanz und Zurückhaltung. Manchmal hatte es den Anschein, als bedaure sie die Politischen, die in ihren Augen einem ‘Irrtum’ erlegen waren.”
• 240 Marešová also gave literary expression to her experiences in Waldheim Prison in Waldheimer Idyll, which she illustrated with caricature drawings. Marešová was originally sentenced for treasonous artistry.
• 241 See Hackl and Sack, Das Frauenzuchthaus Waldheim (1933–1945), 269; Hackl, “Nationalsozialistischer Strafvollzug und die Frauenstrafanstalt Waldheim,” 126; and Schreiter, Strafanstalt Waldheim: Geschichten, Personen und Prozesse aus drei Jahrhunderten, 114. Cf. Lippold’s unflattering description of Voigtländer in Leben, wo gestorben wird, 13.
• 242 See Voigtländer, “Über das Wesen der Liebe und ihre Beziehung zur Sexualität.”
• 243 I am in the process of trying to contact prospective relatives of Else Voigtländer in my continuing efforts to discover more about her life and work.