Evening star., 1941-06-27
Nazi Army Successes
Credited 10 System
OF Picking Leaders
Tests Eliminate Men
Without Original Ideas,
Scientists Told
BY THOMAS r. HENRY,
Star Staff Correspondent.

DURHAM, N, H, June 27.-The
German Army is not force of
robots.
A system of psychological tests
which has been characterized as
Germany's chief secret weapon"
has for its purpose the selection only
of men with original ideas and in
dividual initiative for officers and to
use men according to their natural
talents to increase JOY in service"
To this must be credited much of
the German military success up to
the present.
This was revealed before the
American Association for the Ad-
vancement of Science meeting here
by DR.. H. l.. Ansbacher. psychologist
of Brown University, who has made
an intensive study of the develop
ment of this German mind ma
chine" since 1926, insofar as it is
described in psychological publica-
tions.
1T is popular misconception that
a dictatorship changes individuals
to robots so far as the army is con-
cerned," DR.. Ansbacher said, "and
as grave a mistake as the idea in
the totalitarian countries that de-
mocracy reduces everybody to a dead
level. In Germany future officers
and specialists are selected primarily
on the basis of their personalities.
Individual personality rates high in
the United States but it has been
little studied"
Simonheit Quoted.
He quoted Max Simonheit, the
supposed evil genius of this German
mind machine. who was a former
industrial psychologist, as saying in
connection with the two-day exam
ination to which prospective officers
are subjected: Everything can be
omitted which this man has in COM
mon with all other men"
To determine the personality, he
said, the German military psycholo-
gists are making use of material
generally discarded as worthless by
American psychologists, such as
handwriting and facial expressions
observed by experts concealed from
the candidate. 1t is not so much the
handwriting and expression per Sc
that are valued, he said, as the
changes that take place in them
with varying circumstances.
The ultimate object of the two
day examination, Dr.. Ansbacher
pointed out, is to determine a So
called dominant of personality
a phrase unknown to American psy-
chology, which eventually may have
an equal standing with the we'll
known 1. @.
In direct contrast with the
Prussian Army ideal, the system
developed by Simonheit apparently
tries to eliminate completely the
cold, superior, hard-boiled type of
officer.
The nearest approach in America
to the German system, Dr. Ans
bacher said, appears to be the
psychological test of prospective
pilots, but this is conducted by one
man in an hour or two and much
depends on his individual judgment.
Man and such insects as the bees
and ants may be undergoing a
parallel "convergent evolution"
By entirely different paths they
have arrived at such institutions as
war, agriculture, slavery and in
dustry-one by biological mutations
which were Unbeatable from genera
ton to generation and the other by
the development of tradition and
education.
This was the report to the asso-
citation by DR.. Clarence N. Young
of Colgate University. Both, he said,
have solved a problem which has
been impossible for other living
things. BY the same token, he point
ed out, it is probably futile to seek
for inheritance of instructive be-
havior in man by finding very
roughly similar behavior among the
lower mammals.
The great hurdle in the way of
social organization in the animal
kingdom, DR.. Young said, has been
the instinct which impelled every
individual to act in about the same
way. This has prevented the spe-
clalization of services which is es-
sential to a society and grows finer
and finer as the social structure be-
comes more complex.
Only to very limited extent, he
insisted, has human nature been
inherited and anything in human
behavior which is not found in the
behavior of mans closest relatives,
the anthropoid apes, is evidence
against instinct.