IN THE SUMMER OF 2006 I interviewed Harald U. (b. 1946). Harald's biological father was an American occupation soldier whom his mother met in postwar West Germany while believing that her husband had been killed in action. When Harald's mother learned that her husband was still alive, awaiting his release in a POW camp in the Soviet Union, she was already pregnant with Harald, and had been left alone by her American boyfriend, who had returned to the United States. Harald was three years old when the man who would be his “acting father” returned from Soviet war captivity in 1950. At first, Harald experienced him as a stranger, and also his father was apparently not very confident about how to deal with the situation.

Until Harald became a teenager, he did not know about the existence of his biological father. Nevertheless, he realized that there were things his parents would not talk about. Furthermore, his father displayed a highly ambivalent attitude toward his son: on the one hand, he always called him his “prince,” was very concerned that his son should have a good education, supported his son when he had problems with friends, and held little Harald's hand when he had a complicated eye surgery. On the other hand, his father was a very strict person, who made derogatory remarks about his sensitive son and displayed a bossy attitude toward everybody, but particularly toward Harald. His mother's guilty conscience was a further strain on family life. Harald describes his own position within his family in the following ways: “Ich war dieser engen, durch die Kriegshypotheken schuldhaft belasteten Dreierfamilie ausgeliefert. Das war sehr eng” (I was exposed to this tight family of three, this family that was burdened by guilt because of the war. This was all very constraining). Until the 1980s Harald did not talk about his life story outside his family and his closest friends, because this story for him was “zum Teil schambelastet” (partly weighed down with shame).

For Harald U. himself, it is obvious that his choice to become a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst has a lot to do with this particular experience of family life.