Hitler [Transcription note: Bracketed [Page] links provide access
to the individual images from which these transcriptions were
made]
His early conflicts expressed in symbolic form.
Unconsciously, all the emotions he had once felt for his mother became
transferred to Germany. This transfer of affect was relatively easy
inasmuch as Germany, like his mother,
[Page 165] was young
and vigorous and held promise of a great future under suitable
circumstances. Furthermore, he felt shut off from Germany as he now
felt shut off from his mother, even though he secretly wished to be with
her. Germany became a symbol of his ideal mother and his sentiments are
clearly expressed in his writings and speeches. A few excerpts will serve
to illustrate the transfer of emotion:
"The longing grew stronger to go there (Germany) where since my early
youth I had been drawn by secret wishes and secret love."
"What I first had looked upon as an impassable chasm now spurred me
on to greater love for my country than ever before."
"An unnatural separation from the great common Motherland."
"I appeal to those who, severed from the Motherland, ...and who now in
painful emotion long for the hour that will allow them to return to the
arms of the beloved mother."
It is significant that although Germans, as a whole, invariably refer
to Germany as the "Fatherland", Hitler almost always refers to it as
the "Motherland.
Just as Germany was ideally suited to symbolize his mother, so was
Austria ideally suited to symbolize his father. Like his father, Austria
was old, exhausted and decaying from within. He therefore transferred
all his unconscious hatred from his father to the Austrian state. He
could now give vent to all his pent-up emotions without exposing
himself to the
[Page 166] dangers he believed he would
have encountered had he expressed these same feelings towards the
persons really involved. In MEIN KAMPF he frequently refers to the
Austrian state, for example, in terms such as these:
"... an intense love for my native German-Austrian country and a
bitter hatred against the Austrian state."
"With proud admiration I compared the rise of the Reich with the
decline of the Austrian state."
The alliance between Austria and Germany served to symbolize the
marriage of his mother and father. Over and over again we find
references to this alliance and we can see clearly how deeply he
resented the marriage of his parents because he felt that his
father was a detriment to his mother and only through the death of
the former could the latter obtain her freedom and find her
salvation. A few quotations will illustrate his sentiments:
"And who could keep faith with an imperial dynasty which betrayed
the cause of the German people for its own ignominious ends, a
betrayal that occurred again and again."
"What grieved us most was the fact that the whole system, was
morally protected by the alliance with Germany, and thus Germaey
herself...walked by the side of the corpse."
"...It suffices to state here that from my earliest youth I came to a
conviction which never deserted me, but on the contrary grew stronger
and stronger: that the protection of the German race presumed the
destruction of Austria...that, above all else, the Royal House of
Hapsburg was destined to bring misfortune upon the German nation."
[Page 167]
"Since my heart had never beaten for an Austrian monarchy but only
for a German Reich, I could only look upon the hour of the ruin of
this state as the beginning of the salvation of the German nation."
When we have grasped the significance of this transference of affect
we have made a long step in the direction of understanding Hitler's
actions. Unconsciously he is not dealing with nations composed of
millions of individuals but is trying to solve his personal conflicts
and rectify the injustices of his childhood. Unable to enter into a
"give-and-take" relationship with other human beings which might
afford him an opportunity of resolving his conflicts in a realistic
manner, he projects his personal problems on great nations and then
tries to solve them on this unrealistic level. His microcosm has been
inflated into a macrocosm.
We can now understand why Hitler fell on his knees and thanked God
when the last war broke out. To him it did not mean simply a war,
as such, but an opportunity of fighting for his symbolic mother - of
proving his manhood and of being accepted by her. It was inevitable
that he would seek enlistment in the German Army rather than in the
Austrian Army and it was also inevitable, under these circumstances,
that he would be a good and obedient soldier. Unconsciously it was as
though he were a little boy who was playing the part of a man while
his mother stood by and watched him. Her future welfare was his great
concern and in order to prove his love he was willing, if need be,
to sacrifice his own life for her.
[Page 168]
The effects of Germany's defeat.
Everything went smoothly as long as he felt sure that all would
turn out well in the end. He never complained about the hardships
that were imposed on him and he never grumbled with the other men.
He was happy in what he was doing and met the trials and tribulations
of army life with his chin up until he discovered that things were
going badly and that his symbolic mother was about to be degraded as
he had imagined his real mother had been degraded in his childhood.
To him it was as if his mother was again the victim of a sexual
assault. This time it was the November Criminals and the Jews who
were guilty of the foul deed and he promptly transferred his repressed
hate to these new perpetrators.
When he became fully aware of Germany's defeat he reacted in a
typically hysterical manner. He refused to accept or adjust to the
situation on a reality level. Instead, he reacted to this event as he
probably reacted to the discovery of his parents in intercourse. He writes:
"I stumbIed and tottered rearwards with burning eyes...Already a few
hours later the eyes had turned into burning coals; it had become dark
around me."
In another place he writes:
"While everything began to go black again before my eyes, stumbling,
I groped my way back to the dormitory, threw myself on my cot and
buried my burning head in the covers and pillows."
At the time this happened he had been exposed to a slight attack of
mustard gas. He immediately believed that he was blinded and
speechless. Although he spent several weeks in hospital, neither his
symptoms nor the development of the illness corresponded to those found
in genuine gas cases. It has been definitely established that both the
blindness and the mutism were of an hysterical nature. The physician
who treated him at that time found his case so typical of hysterical
symptoms in general that for years after the war he used it as an
illustration in his courses given at a prominent German medical school.
We know from a great many other cases that during the onset of such
attacks the patient behaves in exactly the same manner as he did earlier
in his life when confronted by a situation with the same emotional
content. It is as though the individual were actually reliving the
earlier experience over again. In Hitler's case this earlier
experience was almost certainly the discovery of his parents in
intercourse and that he interpreted this as a brutal assault in which
he was powerless. He refused to believe what his eyes told him and
the experience left him speechless.
That this interpretation is correct is evidenced by his imagery in
dealing with the event later on. Over and over again we find figures
of speech such as these:
"...by what wiles the soul of the German has been raped."
"...our German pacifists will pass over in silence the most bloody rape of
the nation."
which illustrate his sentiments very clearly.
[Page 170]
The origins of his belief in his mission and his longing for immortality.
It was while he was in the hospital suffering from hysterical
blindness and mutism that he had the vision that he would liberate the
Germans from their bondage and make Germany great. It was this vision
that set him on his present political career and which has had such a
determining influence on the course of world events. More than anything
else it was this vision that convinced him that he was chosen by
Providence and that he had a great mission to perform. This is probably
the most outstanding characteristic of Hitler's mature personality and
it is this which guides him with the "precision of a sleepwalker."
From an analysis of many other cases we know that such convictions
never result from an adult experience alone. In order to carry
conviction they must reawaken earlier beliefs which have their roots
far back in childhood. It is, of course, nothing unusual for a child
to believe that he is some special creation and destined to do great
things before he dies. One can almost say that every child passes
through such a period on his way to growing up. In many people
remnants of such early beliefs are observable inasmuch as they feel
or believe that Fate or Luck or Providence or some extra-natural
power has chosen them for special favors. In most of these cases,
however, the adult individual only half believes that this is really
so even when a whole series of favorable events may make
[Page 171] the hypothesis plausible. Only rarely do
we find a firm conviction of this kind in adulthoed and then only
when there were extenuating circumstances in childhood which made
such a belief necessary and convincing.
In Hitler's case the extenuating circumstances are relatively clear.
Mention has already been made of the fact that his mother had given
birth to at least two and possibly three children, all of whom had
died prior to his own birth. He, himself, was a frail and rather sickly
infant. Under these circumstances, his mother undoubtedly exerted
herself to the utmost to keep him alive. He was unquestionably spoiled
during this period and his survival was probably the great concern of
the family as well as of the neighbors. From his earliest days there
was, no doubt, considerable talk in the household about the death of
the other children and constant comparisons between their progress
and his own.
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Psychological Analysis & Reconstruction
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