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The Nazi Denaturalization of German Emigrants: The Case of Wilhelm Reich
- German Studies Review
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 37, Number 1, February 2014
- pp. 41-60
- 10.1353/gsr.2014.0045
- Article
- Additional Information
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In 1933 the Nazis began to denaturalize German citizens who had fled Germany. The controversial Austrian psychoanalyst, Wilhelm Reich, was among the 40,000 emigrants who lost their German citizenship as a result of a denaturalization investigation—Reich had become German following the Anschluss. Shortly after he arrived in the United States, the FBI began a case against Reich, culminating in his arrest as a “German enemy alien,” and his imprisonment for nearly a month. The common features of these two investigations are explored, with an emphasis on the shared anticommunism of both the FBI and the Nazi regime.