“Everything Within Me Rebels”: A Letter from Kurt Lewin to Wolfgang Köhler, 1933

This letter was drafted in 1933 in Berlin, Germany, by Professor Kurt Lewin of the Psychological Institute, University of Berlin. It is addressed to Professor Wolfgang Köhler, the director of the institute. It was never mailed. Mailing it could have been very dangerous to both the sender and the receiver. It remained in Lewin's files for many years after his death, where it was recently rediscovered. The letter was translated by Dr. Gabriele Wickert (Department of German, Manhattanville College) and Dr. Miriam Lewin (Department of Psychology, Manhattanville College).