Kurt Lewin

Mogilno is situated roughly 400 km east of Berlin and 230 km south of Danzig on a rivulet. It is a small, former Prussian place today’s Poland. In 1890 about 3000 inhabitants lived in Mogilno. Two third were catholic, about one third protestant and a minority of 205 people was Jewish. Also Kurt Tsadek Lewin’s parents, Leopold and Recha Engel Lewin, were part of this minority which was discriminated already back then. Kurt Tsadek Lewin was born in Mogilno on a Tuesday, the 9th of September in 1890. In a letter, which has never been sent, Lewin wrote in 1933 to Wolfgang Köhler about the resentments and repressions against the Jewish minority during his childhood in his hometown. Lewin grew up in this environment together with his older sister Hertha and his two younger brothers, Egon and Fritz. In 1905 the Lewins moved to Berlin to offer the three brothers a classical humanistic education at the Kaiserin Augusta Gymnasium.  Kurt studied not only mathematics, history and natural sciences, but also the three languages Latin, Greek and French, but unfortunately not English, which would have been of advantage for his later life. He graduated from school with considerably good grades, except for the languages which were only marked satisfactory.When Levin started studying at the University of Freiburg in 1909, he wanted to become a country doctor and chose the corresponding courses, but also already the course physiological psychology, taught by the private lecturer Dr. Bumke. However, he did not seem very happy with that choice as in the following winter term 1909/1910 he changed to the University of Munich in order to study organic and inorganic chemistry, as well as physics in more depth. He also attended further courses in Psychology. In the following term the medicine student Levin did again change university, this time he went to the Friedrich - Wilhelms - University of Berlin. He studied medicine with Prof. Rudolf Virchow, psychology with Prof. Carl Stumpf and he was especially influenced by the philosopher Ernst Cassirer. After Levin had realised for himself that he did not like medical autopsy and work in a chemistry laboratory, he changed to the department of philosophy in 1911. From then on he could deepen his psychological, philosophical and mathematical studies. Although Levin was aware of the fact that it was nearly impossible to become a university professor as a Jew in Germany, he aimed at this career aspiration. Lewin hoped that Carl Stumpf would be willing to be his doctoral advisor. However, he was not allowed to present his own written promotion - project to Stumpf himself. An assistant handed it over to Stumpf while Lewin had to wait for feedback in a separate room. Stumpf accepted the project, but spoke about it with Lewin for the first time four years later – during his doctoral exam.Lewin served the German armed forces in France as well as in Russia during the first world war. Despite the difficult conditions, he even tried to work scientifically on the war front. In 1917 he published a piece of work titled “The war landscape” in which he anticipated terms such as “Feldkräfte” and “Lebensraum”.Shortly before the war ended, Lewin got seriously injured and had to stay in hospital for over eight months. His younger brother Fritz was less lucky. He did not return home after the war.In 1921 Lewin became first assistant and then in 1922 private lecturer at the Psychological Institute in Berlin. At this time he started the development of his field theory and a rash of films emerged which underpinned his theoretical thoughts. The Center for the History of Psychology possesses copies of four of these films and makes them accessible online here on this website.