Matthias Heinrich Göring, a German physician, psychiatrist, and Nazi, was born on April 5, 1879, in Düsseldorf, Germany and died in 1945 in captivity in Poznan, Poland.

He earned a doctorate in law at Freiburg/Breisgau in 1900 and a doctorate in medicine at Bonn in 1907. Specializing in psychiatry and neurology, in 1923 Göring set up practice as a Nervenarzt in Elberfeld and subsequently underwent a training analysis with Adlerian Leonhard Seif in Münich. In 1928 he established an educational counseling service in Elberfeld and in 1929 founded a study group of psychotherapy in Wuppertal.

Like fellow Adlerians Seif and Fritz Künkel, Göring placed an emphasis upon "community feeling," to which he added German patriotism and Christian pietism. He was therefore critical of psychoanalysis for its alleged materialism and pansexualism.

Göring's significance in the history of psychoanalysis stems from his...