Abstract
The main object of this study is the typology of "Physique and Character" (1921) by the German psychiatrist Ernst Kretschmer: He presented three morphological types and corresponding "temperaments" as the integral types of inherited "constitution", the concrete individual manifestation of which was to be understood as a typological "alloy" resulting from recombination in reproduction.
The aim of this investigation is an historical understanding of the high esteem in which Kretschmer's typology was held for decades: an understanding of its former scientific plausibility and of the pragmatic purposes and ideological tendencies that accompanied or underpinned it.
First and foremost, Kretschmer's typology is looked at as a specific contribution to his discipline: as a characterological refoundation of a psychiatric nosology in turmoil, based on the assumption of a continuity between psychosis and premorbid personality. This assumption has its hereditarian and its genuinely psychological aspect, represented in pragmatic terms by an interest both in eugenic measures and in psychotherapy. Kretschmer showed an openness toward psychoanalysis unusual for a psychiatrist at the time.
Another strand of this investigation results from Kretschmer's extension of his typology to "normal" personality. The historical context is the German debate about "character" in a field of tension between the descriptive (naturalistic) and ethical meanings of that word. Special attention is given to typologies by other authors as well as to anti-typological approaches mostly of anglo-american origin. The academic context is largely given by the young discipline of psychology.
Beyond all disciplinary boundaries, Kretschmer claimed for his typology the power to explain the human universe by means of a typological analysis of the "men of genius" and their cultural and political achievements. "Physique and Character" is placed in the context of the genius debate renewed in the 19th century and is discussed as an instantiation of biologistic ideology.
A matter of special interest is the relationship beween Kretschmer?s typology and racial science which had been producing its own typologies of physique and character for decades, sharing with Kretschmer's the claim of great explanatory powers and the special interest in genius. Race is of central concern here because of a terminological ambivalence:
"Race" referred to a taxonomic category and was also used as a loose term without systematic significance to refer to a population as the object of eugenic intervention. The relationship of Kretschmer's typology and of other variants of constitutional medicine to the diverse programms of eugenics/racial hygiene is investigated here, with special regard to the period of "National Socialism".
This study is concerned with the problems posed by Kretschmer and others at their time and with the plausiblity of his typology and other theories as judged by their contemporaries; no attempt is made to assess their objective contribution to the growth of knowledge. | 
