The man whose name is more or less synonymous with evil remains mysterious. Though we have now passed the 60 year anniversary of his suicide on April 30 1945, shrinks and laypeople alike continue to ponder the mind of the bum turned mega-murderer: What mental pathology can possibly explain his dark endeavors? This entry looks briefly at three professional studies conducted during Adolf Hitler’s tenure, followed by some reflections of an admittedly utter amateur.
Dr. Johan Scharffenberg
Between July and October 1933 the Norwegian psychiatrist Johan Scharffenberg published a series of 16 (!) articles on Hitler’s personality in Arbeiderbladet, an outlet of the Norwegian Labor Party. The 30,000 word tour de force, based on the analysis of public statements and written when Hitler was still widely fawned over in Europe and the US, was eerily prescient. Stressing his messianic delusions of grandeur as well as his fanatical anti-semitism and racialist metaphysics, it concluded ominously:
Though Germany’s Oslo legation repeatedly tried to make Norwegian authorities silence him, Dr. Scharffenberg continued updating his diagnosis right up to World War II. In April 1939 he published an article tracing Hitler’s messianic fervor back to a revelation by the Virgin Mary, who on November 10 1918 informed the depressed, gas-poisoned infanterist that he was to be Germany’s savior. Not long after, the ‘patient’ finally shut the doctor up. In the summer of 1940, after the April 9 invasion, the latter complained in Arbeiderbladet of censorship “by people hardly my betters in terms of character and intelligence.” Printing anything by Scharffenberg was expressly forbidden after that.
A decade after the 1933 article series, the US intelligence agency OSS (Office of Strategic Services) commissioned two profiles of Hitler in the interest of predicting his behavior. One of the profilers was Dr. Henry A. Murray, a distinguished personality specialist at Harvard.
Dr. Henry A. Murray
Murray’s study remained unknown to the public until it appeared online on the Cornell University Law Library website in April, causing excitement among Hitler scholars worldwide. Although heavy on now defunct psychoanalytic theory and reliant on speculative claims about Hitler’s childhood and sexuality, it is rich in apt observations. Murray’s Hitler is a frightened, effeminate child who compensates for his frailty by trying to conquer the world. The analyst asserts:
Murray adds that these traits, in themselves, are fairly common and in Western culture even admired, but in Adolf Hitler’s case are ‘compulsively extreme’ and based upon a neurotic personality structure. They amount to a pathological urge for dominance and superiority; abnorm aggression and vindictiveness; repression of social characteristics like conscience, compliance, and love; and not least, ‘projection of criticizable elements of the self.’ The latter phenomenon “occurs so constantly in Hitler that it is possible to get a very good idea of the repudiated portions of his own personality by noticing what he condemns in others – treachery, lying, warmongering, etc.” (14)
Regarding how Hitler might respond to defeat, Murray considered it likely that he would fight to the last before committing suicide when all was lost. But if caught alive, he should be denied any ‘heroic’ exit by trial and execution. Instead he should be committed to an insane asylum, his incessant ‘fits and tirades and condemnations’ secretly filmed and broadcast to the public, carrying a message: “This is what happens to crack-brained fanatics who try to dominate the world.” (34)
Dr. Walther C. Langer et als.
The better known study from 1943 was by the OSS’ own Dr. Walther C. Langer, assisted by Murray and two other colleagues, Hurr and Lawin. Like Murray’s it was done without the benefit of Scharffenberg’s ground-breaking work, which it parallels on many points. Made the basis of a book in 1972 and available online, it is absorbing reading not least for its wealth of biographical data about Der Führer. Read and shudder when finding commonalities with yourself!
Below is part of the conclusion:
With this diagnosis established, we are in a position to make a number of surmises concerning the conscious mental processes which ordinarily take place in Hitler’s mind. These form the nucleus of the “Hitler”; he consciously knows and must live with. It is in all probability not a happy “Hitler” but one harrassed [sic] by fears, anxieties, doubts, misgivings, uncertainties, condemnations, feelings of loneliness and of guilt. From our experience with other hysterics we are probably on firm ground when we suppose that Hitler’s mind is like a “battle-royal” most of the time with many conflicting and contradictory forces and impulses pulling him this way and that.
[snip]
As one surveys Hitler’s behavior patterns, as his close associates observe them, one gets the distinct impression that this is not one person but two which inhabit the same body and alternate back and forth. The one is a very soft, sentimental and indecisive individual who has little drive and wants nothing quite so much as to be amused, liked and looked after. The other is just the opposite – hard, cruel and decisive with an abundant reservoir of energy at his command – who knows what he wants and is ready to go after it and get it regardless of costs. It is the first Hitler who weeps profusely at the death of his canary, and the second Hitler who cries in open court: “Heads will roll”. It is the first Hitler who cannot bring himself to discharge an assistant and it is the second Hitler who can order the murder of hundreds including his best friends and can say with great conviction: “There will be no peace in the land until a body hangs from every lamp-post”. It is the first Hitler who spends his evenings watching movies or going cabarets [sic] and it is the second Hitler who works for days on end with little or no sleep, making plans which will affect the destiny of nations. (128-30)
Taking stock: a pathological narcissist?
As noted by the neo-Freudian psychiatrist Erich Fromm (1900-1980), Langer et als.’ profile is highly suggestive of the Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) – a diagnosis not introduced until 1977. The same can be said of the other two studies we have looked at.
Like Narcissus in Ovid’s tale, a person suffering from NPD is in love, not with himself, but with a certain reflection of himself. That image is a grandiose one, compensating for deeply felt shortcomings of his ‘true’ or nuclear self, which is experienced as vulnerable to a menacing outer world. It also requires constant validation from outside (‘narcissistic supply’). To satisfy this vital psychological need, the pathological narcissist is prepared to lie and manipulate whenever necessary, having little or no empathy for his victims. Though reacting to criticism with rage, he prefers vilification, which he interprets in a self-serving way, to being ignored – an intolerable prospect, as it would bring him face to face with his inadequate inner self.
In Hitler’s case it is natural to suppose that he despised above all his own personal weakness, projecting it onto others and pitching it against a constructed persona of steely strength. And indeed, his habit of underestimating his enemies’ resolve (Britain, the USSR, the US) factored large in his ultimate defeat. At the same time, he saw the world as filled with insidious ploys and plots (‘the Versailles betrayal,’ ‘the Jewish world conspiracy’) to be avenged or quashed by his heroic public self. That is the paranoid tinge of which Scharffenberg warned in 1933, when it was already well on its way to gripping a nation.
If applying psychiatric notions to political entities makes any sense – which is admittedly open to doubt – we may perhaps generalize this characterization to the form of government for which Hitler stood. In his essay ‘Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt,’ Umberto Eco suggests that as perceived by fascist regimes, “the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak. Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy.”
Since we have hardly seen the last of fascism, let us hope he is right.
Slightly ashamed to admit that I haven’t yet seen the film. But one of these days…
in the future could possibly be renamed: “Bush on the Bench”
Puts a whole new meaning to B&B’s…. ; )
Not a huge fan of Hitler/Bush analogies, but sure, the possibility is there.
That most excellent BBC series, The Power of Nightmares, explores the paranoia aspect. Of course, it has more to with the neo-cons than with Bush.
On an unrelated note, while working on this entry I learned that Adolf had a sense of humor. According to his friend Friedelinde Wagner (Richard’s grandchild), Goering and Goebbels were both present when he said:
That even beats the involuntary wit of my current sig.
I’m not all that fond of Hitler/Bush comparisons either (as one friend says “He’s too stupid to be Hitler”), but I think the analogies between the beginnings of various fascist/right wing regimes and some of what is going on in the US now are valid.
Another great diary, Sirocco, and of course one I have to go back and read again in order to fully absorb (after more coffee, maybe). And then I’ll have questions… like how does Hitler’s possible personality disorder compare to the state of mind of other murderous dictators? And, do you think Hitler sort of the poster boy for all of them mainly because he didn’t stay within the confines of Germany (or the surrounding areas), or because of his systematic murder of the Jews, intellectuals, gays, Gypsies and so on?
Also, I don’t know if you saw my post on the open thread, but if not, would you mind emailing me if and when you get a chance? I won’t spam you 😉
Didn’t see it, but I’ve e-mailed you now! 🙂
While I’m certainly no expert on this material, Allan Bullock’s acclaimed Hitler and Stalin – Parallel Lives identifies the latter as well as the former as a pathological narcissist. Saddam Hussein, a great admirer of Stalin, also has NPD according to the former CIA profiler Jerome Post. And FWIW, I personally think our old friend King Léopold II looks like a poster child. So do Idi Amin and Mobutu Sese-Seko.
Needless to say, all this should be taken with a huge pinch of salt, since even qualified shrinks are supposed to interview the people in question, using standardized techniques, before reaching a verdict. Of course, this also applies to all the above about Hitler.
Well, by and large I agree with Sam Vaknin in an thoughtful essay on Hitler as an ‘inverted saint’:
(This Dr. Vaknin is an intriguing character by the way. A leading expert on NPD, he freely admits to being a serious case himself. Interaction not recommended, but checking out his site is very much so. Lots of good stuff there.)
Thanks for the pointer to Vaknin’s essay. I’ve come across a few of his articles before, and I think he’s even sent me a couple, but I’ve hesitated because he did seem like a Very Strange Person. I’ll read the essay though, it looks interesting.
Psychoanalyzing people from a distance of decades is fun, but doesn’t make much difference (and needs a huge pinch of salt, as you say ;).
Anyway, though, when it comes to the present… if they are insane but don’t have power, it doesnt matter much. If they do have power, once you realize they are insane there doesn’t seem to be much one can do about it anyway, at that point. Bummer.
Well, as a philosophical type I’ve always had a penchant for useless knowledge… If it’s interesting, that’s enough for me, most of the time. Plus, you never know when something comes in handy.
In the case of personality-disordered politicians, there is always that crucial phase of transition before they get really powerful.
injured my hand again, so I will not write too much.
The most recent discussions with regard to Hitler’s psychic state have been centered around the his Parksinsonism. The Parkinsonism itself is easily diagnose from the late photos of hus uncontrolloable festination (speeding forward and backward movements) and trembling limbs.
But the important point is that Hitler’s Parkinsonism was possibly of a very unusual type. Around the time of the end of the war, there was an oubreak of encephalitis lethargica which left many people with permaenet neurological damage in the area of the mesenchephelon (the part of the brain involved in Parkinsons diseaes).
Many of these post-encphalitic Parksinonsin patients are decsribed in Oliver Sack’s book “Awakenings”. Forget the stupid movie, read the book, BTW. The movie has nothing to do with the book.
Some of the patients were frozen in catatonic states which would suddnently tranform into extraordinary sudden expolsion of violent and irrepresisble behavior.
Others experince just the opposite. In short, the range of symptons witnessed in such patients was so broad as to make it almost impossible to predict how a partcular patient would behave.
It’s plausible that Hitler suffered from such a neurological syndrome but it is not possible to prove definitively.
Your diary provides a nice compact history of this subject though. Interesting topic. But then I love history.
the whole thing brings up enormusly complex questions of
free will vs. determism, genes vs. environemnt, moral responsibility and mental illness which certainly get stir up my neurochemical juices. But that almost always happens with me in any case.
Thanks for that info, which was news to me and is worth exploring further. If he got this rare condition near the end of the war, it doesn’t make so much of a difference to this entry though, since that deals with long-term features of his psyche present at least from the late 1920s on and in all likelihood earlier.
Many of the victims didn’t begin to manifest significiant psychis and/or Parkinsomian symptoms for about ten to fivteen years after the initial bout of encephelatis.
But the more important point is that the one possibility does not exclude the other. Many of those same patients who Sacks described later developed a complex of problems,some of them attributable to the mediacation that was prescribed to control their symptoms. Hitler may well have developed a complex of disoders, something not uncommon in such situations. We know that he was being given injections and tranquilizers of various sorts.
None of this undermines the more tradional views you describes. It just adds to the discussion, I think.
Ah, the war you refer to is World War I! That makes a lot more sense – I thought you were talking about the end of WWII as when Hitler contracted the encephelatis, as that is when his Parkinson became manifest.
If he was affected as early as about 1918, the hypothesis naturally has more explanatory bite, and might even help account for his possible personality disorder as you say.
Sorry, I didn’t make that clear in my original post.
The encephalitis lethargica epidemic occured alost contemporanously with the Spanish flu epidemic at the end of WWI. Some researchers hypothesize that there may have been some relationship between the two.
Don’t know if you saw this but today’s Guardian (UK) had an exclusive interview with Hitler’s nurse, who hasn’t spoken to the press ever before.
Definitely worth a gander…
Pax
Thanks for the tip, that was an interesting interview. The Guardian is worth at least five NYTs in my opinion.
Can’t say Flegel makes a very sympathetic impression. Apparently she feels it would have been okay if Martha Goebbels had only murdered some of her six children. And her perspective on the Third Reich is this:
Interview here.
The Guardian is superior and one I enjoy reading far more the Times. It seems if I want to find balanced views on American policies and politics I have to go overseas to read various papers.
Aye, the NYT is shallow and incredibly hyped. Even here in tiny Norway there are two newspapers that I (albeit controversially, I admit) consider superior. As to political slant, Frankfurter Allgemeine, the conservative German daily, is probably more liberal than the NYT – besides being infinitely better.
The NYT’s recent hatchet job on Norwegian social democracy, by one Bruce Bawer, was the dumbest and most dishonest piece of trash I’ve read in more than a year.
That interview was a bit creepy and rather surreal to me. Her answers to questions were so …flat effect type answers. Was she purposely so emotionless or is that the way she really is I wonder? Except for her little bit of emotion about those children which itself was odd also…save only two?
Fascinating but creepy. Thanks for finding that article.
Thanks Sirocco for a fascinating entry and finding these reports. Amazing how accurate these studies and insights into Hitler’s psyche were.
I wasn’t much into the bush/Hitler comparisons either however I think that the Narcissistic Personality Disorder seems to have been written specifically with bush in mind and have thought so for quite a long time.
I remember reading some time ago-and this was supposed to show bush’s empathy ha ha- where someone close to him was quoted as saying that bush told him he just didn’t understand how poor people think and to commission a study on it and get back to him..stupid fucker ..maybe he could’ve just gone out and actually talked to some poor people himself, right?
Heh… Yeah, Bush seems a candidate for an NPD diagnosis, though with people of privilege like that it’s often hard to tell psychopathology from what is ‘normal’ behavior in their social circles. Your anecdote is a case in point…
George sr. is rumored to be a real stuffy son of a bitch as well, but he rarely gets proper credit for this.
What was Hitler without Reinhard Heydrich, or Himmler or Göring or Göbbels? I always wonder at the people who promote these nuts. What of Karl Rove or Dick Cheney – people with no charisma who could not appeal to anybody besides the ultra rich. (Mind you I don’t think Hitler had much charisma either – having listened to him in German the only thing he was good at was getting peoples emotions high, which at that time was enough – though he was a terrible speaker.)
So you’ve really listened to the man? Wow! Did you catch the live show?
I’m not that old – but I was always curious to hear his speeches after seeing clips of him talking in documentaries. Unfortunately a lot of the clarity is gone because of the quality and age of the transcripts. It’s amazing how many people would attend those rallies – he was a very angry man, but I guess one needs to consider the unemployment and general frustration of the German people to understand how he could get so much support.