ABSTRACT
This chapter considers Franz Alexander’s personal and professional life, the role of family in his decisions, and how those decisions affected other family members. In order to fully understand Alexander, it is important to be exposed to a comprehensive description of the Alexander siblings, their challenges, and their accomplishments. The family created by Bernard Alexander and Regina Broessler was a close-knit family and private, though paradoxically, they were all extremely social. In the Alexander family, the ravages of nonacceptance, fear, and paranoia continue to plague some in the generations. In order to protect itself against such assaults, the Alexander family closed ranks long ago, parenthetically, and became non-Jewish. As in the childhood story about the emperor’s new clothes, it is clear that Alexander, too, had feet of clay and was capable of major missteps when forced to make important decisions regarding family.
