My Own Private Germany: Daniel Paul Schreber's Secret History of Modernity

by Eric L. Santner

In November 1893, Daniel Paul Schreber, recently named presiding judge of the Saxon Supreme Court, was on the verge of a psychotic breakdown and entered a Leipzig psychiatric clinic. He would spend the rest of the nineteenth century in mental institutions. Once released, he published his Memoirs of My Nervous Illness (1903), a harrowing account of real and delusional persecution, political intrigue, and states of sexual ecstasy as God's private concubine. Freud's famous case study of Schreber elevated the Memoirs into the most important psychiatric textbook of paranoia. In light of Eric Santner's analysis, Schreber's text becomes legible as a sort of "nerve bible" of fin-de-siècle preoccupations and obsessions, an archive of the very phantasms that would, after the traumas of war, revolution, and the end of empire, coalesce into the core elements of National Socialist ideology.


The crucial theoretical notion that allows Santner to pass from the "private" domain of psychotic disturbances to the "public" domain of the ideological and political genesis of Nazism is the "crisis of investiture." Schreber's breakdown was precipitated by a malfunction in the rites and procedures through which an individual is endowed with a new social his condition became acute just as he was named to a position of ultimate symbolic authority. The Memoirs suggest that we cross the threshold of modernity into a pervasive atmosphere of crisis and uncertainty when acts of symbolic investiture no longer usefully transform the subject's self understanding. At such a juncture, the performative force of these rites of institution may assume the shape of a demonic persecutor, some "other" who threatens our borders and our treasures. Challenging other political readings of Schreber, Santner denies that Schreber's delusional system--his own private Germany--actually prefigured the totalitarian solution to this defining structural crisis of modernity. Instead, Santner shows how this tragic figure succeeded in avoiding the totalitarian temptation by way of his own series of perverse identifications, above all with women and Jews.

Genres: Psychoanalysis, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Psychology

216 pages, Hardcover

First published April 15, 1996

Reviews

[Theo · Rating 3 out of 5]

the phrase 'an astounding display of erudition' comes to mind when reading this book. it's a contribution to the discourse over judge daniel paul schreber, of freudian fame, and the literary moods leading up to the world wars (crucially, the second). the book sets out a really high bar for itself in the beginning, spanning literature, philosophy, history, psychoanalysis. ultimately this is a book of psychoanalysis, however. the main thesis of the book, that schreber attributed to modernity a 'crisis of investiture' in which the symbolic rites of society no longer really address the conditions in which we live, is really interesting and wonderful to follow. as a political thesis, it could be wonderfully explanatory of the conditions of proto-fascism. but santner doesn't really deliver on that front. the early mentions of deleuze and guattari, zizek, and those in the league of libidinal politics (in the general vein of analyzing fascism from a psychoanalytic perspective) set my expectations astronomically high. but santner isn't super interested in contributing to this discourse, over whether schreber diagnosed (or exhibited) proto-fascist tendencies. in general, santner declines comment on any sort of political theory going on. i wanted to hear more about the history, the politics, and social conditions, perhaps an attempt to extrapolate from schreber to germany. or vice versa, to go from germany to schreber. there are even some vague gestures to kantorowicz's 'the king's two bodies', with claims about the father's 'two bodies'. rather than make a claim, santner only gestures. we really only get a highly personal interrogation of schreber's life, his father's physiotherapy/child-abuse, and some interesting readings of wagner and kafka, as well as a brief glimpse into the travelling fugues of the late 1800s (hi reading group! hi ian hacking!). the biographical style plus the focus on readings of literature place this firmly as a work of 'Germanistik' in terms of genre. my primary disappointment with the book was that it 'wasn't longer', which as far as disappointments go, is not a bad one to have. it's 150 pages, super short, really densely argued, and pulls on an immense body of literature to keep you chewing for a while. i just wonder if anyone used this book for political theory, because if no one has, i will.

[Shulamith Farhi · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fantastic, difficult to encapsulate reading of the Schreber case that emphasises the cultural archive that structured the delusional symptoms. Santner's sympathetic reconstruction of the case respond to readings that would view Schreber as a proto-totalitarian by highlighting the liberating potentials in Schreber's abjection. Lots to process in this one; after the lure of abjection dissipates what remains is the situationally odd identification Schreber makes with the Wandering Jew, as the figure of subjectivity that maximally resists a world of normalized soul-murder.

[Cody Bivins-Starr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even better the second time, this time with more theory under my hat. Santner is unmatched, his approach to Schreber bypasses the mistakes of Freud and Lacan while deploying them productively.

[Chloe · Rating 4 out of 5]

The guy can write, but his thinking could do with some more precision. And if he could not constantly go straight to general application of his analysis that would be great. Maybe spend some more time on the specific text you’re supposedly reading.

[Przemysław Zańko-Gulczyński · Rating 5 out of 5]

Difficult for me to read but utterly fascinating.

[Holly Raymond · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent study of Schreber, cited by Zizek throughout the mid-90s and onwards if that's your kind of thing. Santner's reading of Schreber is really admirably flexible and supple, and he even takes a conciliatory stance towards Freud, but sometimes he struts his stuff a bit, gets a bit too absolute. Really lovely though, and very useful for a wide range of fields. Great little reading of Certeau near the end too, and his employment of Sedgwick was so elegant I started laughing in dumb fucking glee.

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Santner slowely develops a daring and inspiring theory of modernity by closely reading Schreber's Memoirs together with a number of Schreber's contemporaries. He intertwines Freud's reading of the Schreber case with institutional crisis of psychoanalysis, Benjamin's remarks on decay and violence, Foucault's insights in the 19th century progress of psychiatry, the rise of anti-Semitism in the 19th century, and Kafka's fictional world. It took me a couple of days to read the book, the argumentation is compelling and beautifully elaborated.

[Leonardo]

De este libro es la definición de "crisis de investidura" comentada en Visión de Paralaje Pág.444

[Bradley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Daniel Schreber was crazy. What this book points out is Schreber was less crazy than his parents and Germany society is even crazier still!

[Vicky Wu · Rating 4 out of 5]

An in-depth and comprehensive study of Schreber, Santner's book further develops the ideologic analysis of Schreber.

[Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

.