ABSTRACT
Psychological collective guilt is a tragic fate. The psychological use of the word 'guilt' should not be confused with guilt in the legal or moral sense. Psychologically, it connotes the irrational presence of a subjective feeling of guilt, or an objective imputation of, or imputed share in, guilt. The citizen's instinct of self-preservation should be safeguarded at all costs, for, once a man is cut off from the nourishing roots of instinct, he becomes the shuttlecock of every wind that blows. Elizabeth Welsh is then no better than a sick animal, demoralized and degenerate, and nothing short of a catastrophe can bring him back to health. The Germans were never wholly indifferent to the impression they made on the outside world. The pseudo-scientific race-theories with which it was dolled up did not make the extermination of the Jews any more acceptable, and neither do falsifications of history make a wrong policy appear any more trustworthy.
