Kurt Lewin's Influence: Analysis of His Life and Work and How They Were Influenced by Anti-Semitism

Kurt Lewin (1890-1947) was a famous, charismatic psychologist who is now viewed as the father of social psychology. Born in Germany, Lewin emigrated to the United States as a result of anti-Semitism and the Nazi rise to power in Germany. As a Jew and a German, Lewin was directly influenced by events taking place in the years between the two World Wars; he was specifically impacted by the growing anti-Semitism of Germany, which made life for scholars as well as ordinary men and women extremely difficult and potentially (as was to be revealed under the Nazis) life-threatening (Burnes, 2004). Lewin's work, as noted by Burnes (2004), dominated the theory and practice of management for over forty years, a period in which major political, social and economic changes were occurring throughout the world.

At issue in this report is an analysis of how Lewin's life and work were influenced by the anti-Semitism he encountered in Germany and, later, in the United States. It will be argued that Lewin was able to overcome the anti-Semitism of American academia and to complete a body of work that is of enormous significance in a number of fields. Further, while Lewin was not immune from the effects of anti-Semitism in the U.S., the problem was of les significance than it was in Germany during this time period.

Gordon Allport (1947) commented that Lewin's genius ensured that his work would span many different areas. For example, he not

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"the issue of German anti-Semitism is a long chapter" in which Jews had become a scapegoat for all that was wrong in post-World War I Germany. Lewin (1986) announced in this letter that he had decided that he would leave Germany in order to take a position in America because he feared for his safety and that of his family should they remain in Germany. This is precisely what Lewin did, fleeing Germany in 1933 with his wife and their two children, taking a position on the faculty at New York's Columbia University (Schultz & Schultz, 1994). In the United States, where Lewin became a citizen in 1940, he found a receptive university committee and was given many opportunities to publish, to teach, and to conduct research. In 1935, for example, he published A Dynamic Theory of Personality and in 1936 published Principles of Topological Psychology (Hothersall, 1995). In 1935, Lewin joined the University of Iowa as a professor and in 1942, became president of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. By 1944, he was at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he organized a Research Center for Group Dynamics. In 1944, he established the aforementioned CCI under the aegis of the AJC. While it is quit

Category: Psychology - K