Adolf Hitler's psychopathography

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Hitler in his typical speaking pose (1927)

The Psychopathography of Adolf Hitler united that psychiatric ( pathographische ) literature in which the thesis is treated that Adolf Hitler one (1889-1945) mental illness have had.

During his lifetime, but also well after his death, Hitler was repeatedly associated with clinically relevant disorders such as hysteria , psychopathy or megalomaniac and paranoid schizophrenia. Among the psychiatrists and psychoanalysts who diagnosed Hitler with a mental disorder are well-known personalities such as Walter C. Langer and Erich Fromm . On the contrary, other researchers, such as Fritz Redlich , gained the impression in their investigations that Hitler was not mentally disturbed.

Problems of psychopathography and Hitler psychopathography

In accordance with the public interest that the private person Hitler is shown to this day, Hitler's psychopathographies achieve media effectiveness. In psychiatry, however, pathography is not only of bad repute, it is also considered unethical. The problem of ex post diagnostics , in which the most important means of making findings - psychiatric exploration  - is not possible, has often been pointed out; Hans Bürger-Prinz even judged that any remote diagnosis of extraordinary personalities constituted a "fatal abuse of psychiatry". How error-prone the method is can already be guessed at in view of the considerable range of psychiatrically relevant disorders that have gradually been ascribed to Hitler. The problematic nature of many of the pathographies listed below is also characterized by a lack of or roughly abbreviated examination of the abundance of publications that other authors have already submitted on this topic.

In the case of Hitler, psychopathography poses particular problems. First, authors who write about Hitler's most personal affairs have to deal with the danger that a voyeuristic reading public will uncritically take away any speculation, however thinly documented - as happened in the case of Lothar Machtan's book Hitler's Secret (2001). Second, the warning put forward by some authors that pathologizing Hitler could lead to at least some of his responsibility being exempted from him is even more serious . Others feared that if Hitler were pathologized or demonized, all the guilt could easily be shifted to the insane dictator, while the misguided “masses” and the power elites who worked for him would be relieved. Hannah Arendt's words about the “ banality of evil ” have become famous ; With regard to Adolf Eichmann , she ruled in 1963 that psychological normality and the ability to commit mass murder in a National Socialist perpetrator were not at all a contradiction in terms . In a biography published in 2015, Peter Longerich recently worked out how Hitler implemented his political goals as a strong dictator, i.e. with assertiveness, a high willingness to take risks and unlimited violence. Some authors have fundamentally questioned the sense of attempts to explain Hitler - for example by psychological means . Claude Lanzmann went the furthest , describing such attempts as "obscene", perceiving them as being close to Holocaust denial and repeatedly attacking them sharply after the completion of his film Shoah (1985); he particularly criticized Rudolph Binion , in whose writing he saw an attempt not only to explain Hitler, but actually to exonerate him.

As Jan Ehrenwald (1978) has shown, psychiatry often neglects the question of how a possibly mentally disturbed Hitler could have won the large and enthusiastic following who supported his politics until 1945. Hans-Ulrich Wehler has repeatedly criticized that psychohistorical investigations that neglect historical aspects can generally have little value. Some authors have pointed out that even in the case of a disease as crippling as schizophrenia, there are examples of people who have gained a following and influenced it extraordinarily ( Charles Manson , Jim Jones ). The position was taken early on that Hitler had his psychopathology under control and even consciously used his symptoms in order to use the feelings of his audience effectively. Still other authors have suggested that Hitler's supporters themselves were mentally disturbed; Evidence for this thesis is missing so far. An approach to the question of how Hitler's individual psychopathology with the enthusiasm of his followers toothed might have been, was tried for the first time in 2000 with the interdisciplinary team of authors Matussek / Matussek / Marbach.

hysteria

Hitler in the Pasewalk reserve hospital (1918)

It has not yet been established whether Hitler was ever examined by a psychiatrist . Oswald Bumke , psychiatrist and contemporary of Hitler, assumes that this was never the case. The only psychiatrist that Hitler can be shown to have met personally was Munich professor Kurt Schneider - but he was not Hitler's doctor. While medical documents have been received that allow conclusions to be drawn about Hitler's physical state of health, there is a complete lack of psychiatric documents that would allow an assessment of his psychological state.

The focus of speculation about a possible psychiatric evaluation of Hitler during his lifetime is his stay in the Pasewalk rifle house at the end of 1918. Hitler ended up in this hospital after being poisoned with mustard gas , which he suffered in a defensive battle in Flanders . In Mein Kampf he mentions this hospital stay in connection with his painful temporary blindness and with the "misfortune" and "madness" of the November Revolution and war defeat, of which he learned during his recovery and what triggered renewed blindness. Hitler and his early biographers drew a great deal of attention to this relapse of blindness , as it marked the turning point in an effective way at which Hitler felt called to become a politician.

However, even among contemporary psychiatrists, some judged that such a relapse, which could not have been organically explained , must be described as a hysterical symptom. The diagnosis of hysteria had its greatest popularity with Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis, but was still in use in the 1930s and 1940s. Failures of the sensory organs, along with egocentric and theatrical behavior, were typical symptoms. The important psychiatrist Karl Wilmanns is said to have said in a lecture: "Hitler had a hysterical reaction to his burial in the field." Wilmanns then lost his position in 1933. Because of similar statements, Hans Walter Gruhle also suffered professional disadvantages. In modern psychiatry, the term "hysteria" is no longer in use; Corresponding disorders are mostly attributed to a dissociative disorder or a histrionic personality disorder today .

Little is known about Hitler's stay in the hospital. It is already disputed which complaints were found with him in Pasewalk. Hitler's medical record, which could confirm or refute a diagnosis, was considered lost as early as the late 1920s and never reappeared. Nevertheless, for example, the authors of the most recent edition of the anthology Genie, Irrsinn und Ruhm , published in 1992, took the liberty to state that in addition to physical illnesses ( Parkinson's , encephalitis or syphilis with blindness), a whole series of psychiatric findings were recorded in Hitler , including one paranoid Persönlichkeitsakzentuierung with paranoia and megalomania, narcissistic and "hysterical" psychopathy with hysterical blindness or hysterical paralysis , schizoid to paranoid schizophrenia with cadaveric poison hallucinations, Zönästhesien , Bazillophobie , tracking and Begnadungswahn. Evidence, however, is not listed.

A Psychiatric Study of Hitler (1943)

The secret service of the US Department of War ( OSS ) collected information about the personality of Hitler during the Second World War and in 1943 commissioned a research team led by Walter C. Langer to compile psychological reports. In one of these reports, entitled "A Psychiatric Study of Hitler", the thesis was developed that Hitler had been treated in Pasewalk by the psychiatrist Edmund Forster , who committed suicide in 1933 for fear of reprisals . The starting point of the report was information from the psychiatrist Karl Kroner , who also worked in the hospital in 1918. Kroner confirmed in particular that Forster had examined Hitler and diagnosed him with “hysteria”. The report, which had been kept under lock and key, was rediscovered in the early 1970s by the American Hitler biographer John Toland .

Me, the eyewitness (1963)

In 1939, the Austrian doctor and writer Ernst Weiß wrote the novel Ich, der Augenzeuge ( I, the Eyewitness) in French exile , which reports in the form of an imaginary medical autobiography of the "healing" of a "hysterical" war blind AH from Braunau in an army hospital at the end of 1918. Because the doctor's knowledge could be dangerous to the Nazis, he was brought to a concentration camp in 1933 and only released after he had handed over the medical records.

The author Weiß feared being deported because of his Jewish faith and committed suicide after the German troops marched into Paris; his novel was not published until 1963. Weiss owed his knowledge of Hitler's hospital stay to contemporary biographical literature. It is possible that he had met the Hitler biographer Konrad Heiden, who was also exiled in Paris . For the thesis formulated later that the portrayal of Hitler's mental disorder and healing in the novel was not a fantasy but was based on insider knowledge, no evidence could be provided to this day.

Thesis formation

Numerous researchers and authors - following the novel - developed the assumptions formulated in the secret service report to a supposedly secured hypnotherapy of Hitler by Forster. These attempts at reconstruction are not only questionable because they rule out alternative interpretations from the outset. They even briefly go into the historical context and even overlook the fact that Forster represented a concept of hysteria that would have made him prefer treatment methods other than hypnosis .

  • Rudolph Binion , a historian at Brandeis University , considers the alleged hysteria diagnosis to be a fallacy, but continued to develop the theses formulated in the secret service file in his 1976 book Hitler among the Germans . Binion suspects that Weiss met Forster personally and received a copy of the medical record from him, which he then used as the basis for his novel. Following the novel, Binion then assumes that Forster subjected the blind, fanatical Hitler to a suggestion treatment and later, after his suspension from the civil service and for fear of persecution by the Gestapo , killed himself. Binion's conjectures, however, are based on hardly any other “evidence” than Forster's records, although it has not even been proven with certainty in what form Forster had contact with Hitler.
  • David E. Post, forensic psychiatrist at Louisiana State University , published an essay in 1998 in which he considered the thesis that Forster had treated Hitler's supposed hysteria with hypnosis as proven, without his own research.
  • Inspired in part by Binion, the British neuropsychologist David Lewis published his book The Man Who Invented Hitler in 2003 , in which he presented Forster's hypnosis treatment not only as a historical fact, but also as the reason why Hitler turned from an obedient World War II soldier into a strong-willed, charismatic one Politicians. Lewis stylized Forster in his book as the "creator" of Hitler.
  • The 2003 book by the German political psychologist and professor emeritus at the University of Koblenz , Manfred Koch-Hillebrecht , Hitler was also inspired by Binion . A son of war . Koch-Hillebrecht tries to prove that Hitler had a post-traumatic stress disorder and describes how Forster turned his alleged patient back into an operational soldier through shock therapy.
  • Also in Germany in 2004, the lawyer and writer Bernhard Horstmann published his non-fiction book Hitler in Pasewalk , in which he describes how Forster not only cured Hitler of his hysterical blindness with "ingeniously" applied hypnosis, but also filled him with that feeling of omnipotence and sense of mission which Hitler later identified as a politician. In this book, too, no evidence other than the plot of Weiss' novel is presented.
  • Franziska Lamott , Professor of Forensic Psychotherapy at the University of Ulm , wrote in an essay published in 2006: “[...] the treatment of Private Adolf Hitler by the psychiatrist Prof. Edmund Forster, which is documented in the medical record, proves that he was hypnotized by his hysterics Had freed blindness ” .

criticism

Critical statements on these theses appeared early on, but, as the psychiatry historian Jan Armbruster ( University of Greifswald ) judges, they were not sufficiently well founded, as for example in the case of the journalist Ottmar Katz, who suspected in his biography of Hitler's personal doctor Theo Morell in 1982, that Karl Kroner could have had reason to report some untruths to the American secret service. A comprehensive plausibility check was carried out for the first time in 2008 by the Berlin psychiatrist and psychotherapist Peter Theiss-Abendroth. Armbruster further dismantled the theses of Hitler's hysteria diagnosis and hypnotherapy when, in 2009, he detailed how the history of the undetectable treatment of Hitler by Forster from 1943 to 2006 was constantly being reconstructed not by evaluating historical documents, but always by colportage was further embellished. Armbruster's work thus offers the most extensive criticism to date of the methodological weaknesses of many Hitler pathographies.

Walter C. Langer (1943)

One of the few authors who diagnosed Hitler with hysteria without using the Pasewalk episode and Hitler's alleged treatment by Forster as the main evidence was the American psychoanalyst Walter C. Langer . Langer carried out his study in 1943 on behalf of the OSS. He and his team conducted interviews with numerous people who were available to the American intelligence services and who knew Hitler personally, and came to the conclusion that Hitler was "a hysteric on the verge of schizophrenia." The work, which was kept under lock and key, was published in 1972 under the title The Mind of Adolf Hitler .

schizophrenia

Many moments in Hitler's personal convictions and in his behavior - for example his belief that he was chosen by fate to free the German people from their supposedly most dangerous threat, which in his eyes were the Jews - are already considered by psychiatrists during Hitler's lifetime Signs of psychosis or schizophrenia .

WHD Vernon (1942) and Henry Murray (1943)

One of the first to associate Hitler with the classic symptoms of schizophrenia was the Canadian psychiatrist WHD Vernon, who, in an essay published in 1942, attested the German Chancellor hallucinations , hearing voices, delusions of persecution and megalomania . Vernon wrote that Hitler's personality structure, although generally falling within the range of normal, may be described as belonging to the paranoid type.

Vernon's case study was included a year later in an even more sharply phrased analysis of Hitler's personality by Henry Murray , a psychologist at Harvard University who , like Walter C. Langer, worked on behalf of the US War Department's intelligence service. In it he came to the conclusion that Hitler had all the classic symptoms of schizophrenia in addition to hysterical signs: hypersensitivity, panic attacks, irrational jealousy, paranoia, omnipotence fantasies, megalomania, belief in a messianic calling and extreme paranoia. He placed him on the borderline between hysteria and schizophrenia, but emphasized that Hitler had considerable control over his pathological tendencies and that he was consciously using them to incite the nationalistic feelings of the Germans and their hatred of alleged persecutors. Like Walter C. Langer, Murray considered it likely that Hitler would commit suicide after losing faith in himself and in his “destiny”.

Wolfgang Treher (1966)

Pathographies in which the attempt is made to demonstrate that Hitler had a fully developed psychosis in the clinical sense are the exception in the psychiatric literature. One example is the book Hitler, Steiner, Schreber by Freiburg psychiatrist Wolfgang Treher , published in 1966 . Treher explains in this book that both Rudolf Steiner , whose anthroposophy he traces back to the schizophrenic illness, and Hitler suffered from schizophrenia. Since both managed to stay in touch with "reality" through their own organizations (Anthroposophical Society at Steiner - for Hitler, the NSDAP and its branches) and to influence it within the scope of their respective possibilities in the sense of their delusional ideas, that actually remained expected “schizophrenic withdrawal” from them. After Treher, Hitler's megalomania and the paranoia associated with it are unmistakable. In order to substantiate his diagnosis, Treher analyzes in particular Hitler's book “Mein Kampf”, as well as his many speeches and proclamations.

Edleff Schwaab (1992)

The clinical psychologist Edleff Schwaab published his psychobiography Hitler's Mind in 1992 , in which he describes Hitler's imagination - especially his obsession with the alleged threat from the Jews - as the result of paranoia. Schwaab suspects the cause of this disorder was a traumatic childhood that was overshadowed by a depressed mother and a tyrannical father.

Paul Matussek, Peter Matussek, Jan Marbach (2000)

The book Hitler - Karriere eines Wahns , published in 2000, is a joint work by the psychiatrist Paul Matussek , the media scientist Peter Matussek and the sociologist Jan Marbach, in which they try to break with the tradition of a one-dimensional psychiatric pathography and seek an interdisciplinary approach which also take socio-historical dimensions into account. The focus of her investigation is therefore not so much a reconstruction of Hitler's personal psychopathology, but rather a description of the interactions between the individual and collective parts of the dynamics of the Hitler madness, i.e. the resonance relationship between Hitler's role as a leader on the one hand - charged with psychotic symptoms - and fascination on the other hand, who played this role with his followers. The authors come to the conclusion that the National Socialist crimes were an expression of madness, but of a madness that was so widely accepted that the psychotic Hitler and his followers stabilized one another in their “mad” worldview.

Frederic L. Coolidge, Felicia L. Davis, Daniel L. Segal (2007)

In 2007, a team of researchers from the University of Colorado carried out the most methodically complex psychological assessment of Hitler . This study differs from all previous ones not only in its open, exploratory question, in which it was systematically examined which mental disorders Hitler's behavior might have pointed out and which not; it was also the first Hitler pathography that was consistently empirical . The psychologists and historians involved collected traditional reports from people who had known Hitler and evaluated them according to diagnostic tools they had developed themselves, with which a wide range of personality, clinical and neuropsychological disorders can be measured. According to this study, Hitler showed strong traits of paranoid schizophrenia, but also of antisocial, sadistic and narcissistic personality disorders and a pronounced post-traumatic stress disorder.

Possible organic triggers for psychotic symptoms

Scientists have repeatedly looked for possible organic causes for Hitler's psychotic symptoms described in the literature, for example the psychiatrist Günter Hesse, who is convinced that Hitler also suffered from the long-term consequences of the gas poisoning suffered in the First World War .

syphilis

Hitler's trembling limbs in the last years of his life, which the Cologne neurologist and psychiatrist Ellen Gibbels attributed to Parkinson's disease in the late 1980s, with continued recognition from the research community , has repeatedly been interpreted as a symptom of advanced syphilis , most recently by the American historian Deborah Hayden . Hayden relates the progressive syphilitic paralysis , from which Hitler had suffered since 1942, to his mental decline in these last years of his life, in particular to his "paranoid outbursts". The physician Fritz Redlich , however, reports that there was no evidence that Hitler had syphilis.

Amphetamine abuse

The psychiatrist Leonard L. Heston from the University of Minnesota and the nurse Renate Heston report in their 1980 book The Medical Case Book of Adolf Hitler , for which they sifted through a plethora of medical reports, that Hitler regularly used amphetamines (especially pervitin) in the last years of his life ) have taken and injected stimulant drugs, the possible side effects of which include psychotic symptoms such as paranoid delusions. An attempt to explain Hitler's behavior as a result of drugs was also made by Norman Ohler in his work Der totale Rausch , published in 2015 , which - as Helena Barop reviewed at the time - through a "mixture of sensation-hungry Hitler voyeurism and scientific non-fiction pose" is marked.

Parkinson's Disease

After Ernst Günther Schenck , Ellen Gibbels, among others, considered whether Hitler could have suffered from this disease as part of her work on Parkinson's disease . In 1994 she also published an article in which she investigated the question of whether Hitler's nervous disease had also affected Hitler psychologically.

Psychopathy / Antisocial Personality Disorder

In view of the inhumanity of his crimes, Hitler was also associated early on with “ psychopathy ”, a severe personality disorder, the most important symptoms of which are an extensive or complete lack of empathy , social responsibility and conscience . The biologically determined term still plays a role in psychiatric forensics today, but no longer occurs in modern medical classification systems ( DSM-IV and ICD-10 ); in the case of corresponding disorders, one speaks of an antisocial personality disorder . The symptoms are rare, however, and unlike in popular discourse, where the classification of Hitler as a "psychopath" is still one of the commonplaces today, psychiatrists have only occasionally diagnosed him with "psychopathy" or "antisocial personality disorder".

Gustav Bychowski (1948)

One of the earliest Hitler pathographies, in which not only psychological, but also historical and sociological aspects are taken into account, is contained in the anthology Dictators and Disciples by the Polish-American psychiatrist Gustav Bychowski, published in 1948 . Bychowski asks about the similarities between historical personalities who successfully carried out a coup. He compares Hitler with Julius Caesar , Oliver Cromwell , Robespierre and Josef Stalin and comes to the conclusion that these men have an abundance of traits that can be classified as "psychopathic", such as the tendency to act out impulses or their own hostile impulses to other people or groups project . The psychiatrist Wilhelm Lange-Eichbaum had made this social-psychological approach known from 1928 .

Desmond Henry, Dick Geary, Peter Tyrer (1993)

The interdisciplinary British team of authors Desmond Henry, Dick Geary and Peter Tyrer published an essay in 1993 in which they shared their common view that Hitler suffered from an anti-social personality disorder as defined by ICD-10 . The psychiatrist Tyrer was convinced that Hitler also had characteristics of paranoia and a histrionic personality disorder .

Depth psychological perspectives

Some authors who belong to a deep psychological doctrine, such as Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic school , were less interested than their psychiatrically oriented colleagues in diagnosing Hitler with a certain clinical disorder, but rather in explaining his outrageously destructive behavior , using as engines that drive human behavior and the development of a character, in the depth psychological concepts above all unconscious processes are assumed. Since these are rooted in early youth, the focus of these works is usually the attempt to reconstruct the scenario of Hitler's childhood and youth or the Hitler family . Some authors, such as Gerhard Vinnai, go far beyond a purely depth psychological analysis.

Klara Hitler, b. Pölzl, the mother

Erich Fromm (1973)

The German-American psychoanalyst Erich Fromm presented one of the most famous Hitler pathographies in his 1973 book Anatomy of Human Destructiveness . Fromm tries to determine the causes of human violence . He takes his knowledge of the person of Hitler from the experience report of Hitler's childhood friend August Kubizek (1953), the Hitler biography of Werner Maser (1971) and above all a work by Bradley F. Smith on Hitler's childhood and youth.

At the center of Hitler's pathography, which largely follows Sigmund Freud's concept of psychoanalysis, is the thesis that Hitler was an immature, self-centered dreamer who did not overcome his childlike narcissism and the humiliations he was exposed to as a result of his inadequate adaptation to reality Tried to cope with destructiveness (" necrophilia "). The evidence of this lust - including the so-called Nero order - are so monstrous that one has to assume that Hitler not only acted destructively , but was driven by a destructive character .

Helmet Stierlin (1975)

The German psychoanalyst and family therapist Helm Stierlin published his book Adolf Hitler in 1975 . Family perspectives , in which, like Fromm, he asks the question of the psychological and motivational foundations for Hitler's aggressiveness and passion for destruction. The focus of his investigation is Hitler's relationship with his mother Klara Hitler , who, in Stierlin's view, delegated her son to fulfill demands that corresponded to her own frustrated hopes, but were also impossible for the son to satisfy.

Alice Miller (1980)

Alois Hitler, the father

The Swiss childhood researcher Alice Miller devoted a section to Adolf Hitler in her book In the Beginning Was Education , published in 1980 , whereby her knowledge of Hitler's person was mainly biographical and pathographic works such as those of Rudolf Olden (1935) and Konrad Heiden (1936/37 ), Franz Jetzinger (1958), Joachim Fest (1973), Helm Stierlin (1975) and John Toland (1976). Miller is convinced that Hitler's home, dominated by an authoritarian and often brutal father, Alois Hitler , can be characterized as a “prototype of a totalitarian regime” and that it was the humiliating and degrading treatment and beatings that Hitler received from his father as a child who made him into the hateful and destructive personality that would later suffer millions of people. After three siblings born before Hitler died early, the mother was also hardly in a position to turn to her son lovingly. Hitler identified with the tyrannical father at an early age and transferred the trauma of his parents' home to Germany, whereby his contemporaries followed him willingly because their childhoods were similar.

It was only in 2016 that it became known that one of the three siblings who died young (Otto) was actually three years younger than Hitler and severely disabled. Miller's assumptions about the donations from the mother to her son Adolf are hardly affected.

Miller also pointed to a possible mental disorder of Johanna Pölzl, the wayward sister of Klara Hitler, who lived with the family throughout Hitler's childhood. According to contemporary witnesses, the "Hanni-Aunt", who died in 1911, was either schizophrenic or moronic.

Norbert Bromberg, Verna Volz Small (1983)

Another psychopathography was presented in 1983 by the New York psychoanalyst Norbert Bromberg ( Albert Einstein College of Medicine ) and the writer Verna Volz Small. In this book, which bears the title Hitler's Psychopathology , Bromberg and Small justify their conviction that many of Hitler's self-testimonies and actions are to be regarded as expressions of a serious personality disorder. When examining his family origins, his childhood and youth and his behavior as an adult, politician and ruler, they find numerous indications that Hitler corresponded to both the disorder of a narcissistic personality and that of a borderline personality (see also section below ). Bromberg and Smalls work has been accused of being based on unreliable sources and therefore treats the question of Hitler's presumed homosexuality too speculatively.

The view that Hitler had narcissistic personality disorder was not new; z. B. had already represented Alfred Sleigh in 1966.

George Victor (1999)

The psychotherapist George Victor, who is particularly interested in the anti-Semite Hitler, suspects in his book Hitler: The Pathology of Evil , published in 1999, that Hitler's serious personality disorder - his self-hatred and especially his hatred of the Jews - had its origin in the mistreatment that he called Child suffered through his father, which Hitler believed was descended from Jews.

Béla Grunberger, Pierre Dessuant (2000)

The French psychoanalysts Béla Grunberger and Pierre Dessuant dedicated a section to Hitler in their 2000 book Narcissism, Christianity, Antisemitism . Just like Fromm, Bromberg and Small, they are particularly interested in Hitler's narcissism, which they try to track down through a detailed interpretation of Hitler's sexual practices and constipation problems.

Post-traumatic stress disorder

Theodore Dorpat (2003)

Theodore Dorpat, a resident psychiatrist in Seattle , attributed a complex post-traumatic stress disorder to Hitler . In his book Wounded Monster , published in 2003, Dorpat writes that Hitler's disorder was already manifest at the age of 11, and names Hitler's chronic childhood trauma (the physical and mental abuse by the father and the educational failure of the depressed mother) as the causes a front-line trauma suffered for years in the First World War. Both explain that Hitler was subsequently neither prepared for social, intellectual or professional endeavors. Dorpat also works out the connection between the traumatization and the personality traits that were later so characteristic of Hitler, such as his volatility, his malevolence, the sadomasochistic character of his human relationships, his human indifference and his avoidance of shame.

Gerhard Vinnai (2004)

The work Hitler - Scheitern und Vernnungswut by the social psychologist Gerhard Vinnai , published in 2004, also has a psychoanalytic starting point . In it, Vinnai subjects Hitler's book Mein Kampf to a depth psychological interpretation and tries to reconstruct how Hitler processed his experiences in the First World War against the background of his childhood and youth. Similar to Theodore Dorpat, whose book had appeared a year earlier (see below ), Vinnai attributes the destructive potential in Hitler's psyche not so much to early childhood experiences, but above all to a traumatization that Hitler suffered as a soldier in World War I. (see also war trauma ). A considerable part of the German population was affected by this (not only Adolf Hitler); Vinnai leaves the psychoanalytic discourse and expresses himself on social-psychological questions , such as how Hitler's traumatisation entered his political worldview and why he was able to fascinate crowds with it.

Isolated positions

Theses like the one that Hitler's personality and behavior showed traits of a histrionic or antisocial personality disorder or of schizophrenia are not undisputed in the community of psychohistorians, but they also find a lot of agreement there. This does not apply to the authors named below, who are largely alone with their diagnoses.

Neuropsychological diagnosis: Colin Martindale, Nancy Hasenfus, Dwight Hines (1976)

Psychiatrists Colin Martindale, Nancy Hasenfus, and Dwight Hines ( University of Maine ) suggested in an essay published in 1976 that Hitler suffered from an underactive left brain hemisphere, citing the tremor in his left limbs, his tendency to turn left Eye movements and the alleged absence of the left testicle (see also: Adolf Hitler's possible monarchy ). As indications that Hitler's behavior was dominated by the right brain hemisphere, they rate his tendency towards the irrational, his acoustic hallucinations , his hypochondria and his uncontrolled outbursts of anger. The authors are also convinced that the two fundamental elements of his political worldview - the habitat ideology and anti-Semitism - can be described as the result of dominance of the right hemisphere.

Schizotypic personality disorder: Robert GL Waite (1977)

The American historian Robert GL Waite ( Williams College ), who had endeavored to conduct interdisciplinary research on National Socialism since 1949, using both historical and psychoanalytic methods, published his study The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler in 1977 , in which he spoke of it assumed that Hitler's career could not be understood without taking into account his pathological personality. Waite put forward the thesis that Hitler suffered from a so-called "borderline personality disorder" and refers, among other things, to Hitler's Oedipus complex, his infantile fantasizing, his erratic contradictions and his alleged coprophilia and urophilia . The term “borderline personality disorder” did not correspond to its current meaning until the end of the 1970s, but referred to a disorder in the border area between neurosis and schizophrenia; Gregory Zilboorg coined the expression "outpatient schizophrenia" for this. Waite's view corresponds in part to that of the Viennese psychiatrist and Buchenwald survivor Ernest A. Rappaport, who had already described Hitler in 1975 as an “outpatient schizophrenic”.

Dangerous Leader Disorder: John D. Mayer (1993)

The American personality psychologist John D. Mayer ( University of New Hampshire ) published an essay in 1993 in which he suggested a separate psychiatric category for destructive personalities such as Hitler: a Dangerous Leader Disorder (DLD; German for example: "Disturbance of dangerous leaders"). Mayer named three groups of symptomatic behavioral peculiarities: 1. Indifference (shows up, for example, as murder of opponents, family members, citizens or as genocide ); 2. Intolerance (shows up, for example, as the practice of press censorship , a secret police or as tolerance of torture ); 3. Self-exaggeration (shows up, for example, as a self-assessment as a “unifier” of a people, as an armament or overestimation of one's own military power, as an identification with religion or nationalism or as the proclamation of a “great plan”). Mayer compared Hitler with Stalin and Saddam Hussein , and the declared aim of his attempt at psychiatric categorization was to provide the international community with a diagnostic tool that would make it easier for them to recognize dangerous leaders as such by mutual consensus and to act against them.

Bipolar Disorder: Jablow Hershman, Julian Lieb (1994)

The writer Jablow Hershman and the psychiatrist Julian Lieb published their joint book A Brotherhood of Tyrants in 1994 , in which they developed the thesis on the basis of known biographical literature that Hitler - like Napoleon Bonaparte and Stalin - was not only manic-depressive , but that it was precisely this disturbance that first drove him into politics and then made him a dictator. While many manic depressives end up in psychiatry, the same disorder drives other people to seek political power. As soon as this succeeds, those affected show signs of psychotic tyranny, such as excessive self-confidence and megalomania.

Asperger Syndrome: Michael Fitzgerald (2004)

The Irish professor of child psychiatry, Michael Fitzgerald , who has published an abundance of pathographies of outstanding historical personalities as part of his autism studies since 1991, classifies Adolf Hitler as "autistic psychopaths" in his 2004 anthology Autism and creativity . In 1944 , the Austrian doctor Hans Asperger described the Asperger's syndrome , which was later named after him and related to early childhood autism , as "autistic psychopathy" ; this has nothing to do with “psychopathy” in the sense of an antisocial personality disorder . Fitzgerald considers many of Hitler's traditional traits to be downright autistic, particularly his manifold obsessions, staring, lifeless gaze, social awkwardness, little interest in women, lack of personal friendships, and propensity for monologue talking, those with an inability to be real Conversations had been connected.

Opposing positions

Some authors have described Hitler as a cynical manipulator or fanatic but denied that he was seriously mentally deranged; including the British historians Alan Bullock , Hugh Trevor-Roper and Alan JP Taylor , and more recently also the psychiatrist Manfred Lütz . The American psychologist Glenn D. Walters wrote in 2000: “Much of the debate about Hitler's long-term mental health is probably questionable because, even if he had suffered from significant psychiatric problems, he gained supreme power in Germany despite these difficulties rather than through them . "

Erik H. Erikson (1950)

The psychoanalyst and developmental psychologist Erik H. Erikson dedicated a chapter to Adolf Hitler in his book Childhood and Society . Although he discovers evidence of an unsatisfactory Oedipus conflict in Hitler's self-testimonies and describes Hitler as a “histrionic and hysterical adventurer”, he emphasizes that Hitler was such an actor that his self-portrayal could not be recorded with ordinary diagnostic means. Admittedly, Hitler may have exhibited a certain psychopathology, but he dealt with it in an extremely controlled manner and used it purposefully.

Terry L. Brink (1974)

The Adler student Terry L. Brink published an essay in 1975, The case of Hitler , in which he also came to the conclusion that after a conscientious evaluation of all contemporary testimonies there was insufficient evidence for Hitler's mental disorder. It is true that many of Hitler's behavior are to be understood as attempts to overcome a difficult childhood. Nevertheless, many of the documents and statements from which conclusions about a mental disturbance of Hitler were drawn are unreliable. Allied propaganda and inventions by people who tried to distance themselves from Hitler for personal reasons, for example, had been given too much attention.

Fritz Redlich (1998)

One of the most comprehensive Hitler pathographies comes from the neurologist and psychiatrist Fritz Redlich . Redlich, who emigrated from Austria to the USA in 1938, is considered to be one of the founders of American social psychiatry . In his late work Hitler: Diagnosis of a Destructive Prophet , published in 1998 and on which he worked for 13 years, Redlich comes to the conviction that although Hitler had shown enough paranoia and defense mechanisms to “fill a psychiatric textbook with it” that he probably did but was not mentally disturbed. His paranoid delusions "could be seen as symptoms of a mental disorder, but most of the personality was functioning normally" . Hitler “knew what he was doing and he did it with pride and enthusiasm” .

Hans-Joachim Neumann, Henrik Eberle (2009)

After two years of study a. a. of Theo Morell's diaries, the physician Hans-Joachim Neumann and the historian Henrik Eberle published their book Was Hitler ill? , in which they come to the conclusion: "There are no signs of a medically objectifiable mental illness on the part of Hitler".

literature

Overview literature

Pasewalk episode

  • Gerhard Köpf : Hitler's psychogenic blindness. History of a medical record. In: Neurology. Vol. 24, 2005, pp. 783-790.

Further individual psychological interpretations of Hitler

  • Anna Lisa Carlotti: Adolf Hitler. Analisi storica della psicobiografie del dittatore. Milan 1984.
  • Frederic L. Coolidge, Felicia L. Davis, Daniel L. Segal: Understanding Madmen: A SSM-IV Assessment of Adolf Hitler. (PDF file; 206 kB). In: Individual Differences Research. Vol. 5, 2007, pp. 30-43.
  • Friedrich W. Doucet: Under the spell of myth: The psychology of the Third Reich. Bechtle, Esslingen 1979, ISBN 3-7628-0389-7 .
  • Marcel Dobberstein: Hitler: The Anatomy of a Destructive Soul. Münster 2012.
  • Martin Klüners: Hitler becomes an anti-Semite. The Versailles Treaty and the irrationality of ideological radicalization. In: Yearbook for psychohistorical research. Vol. 20, 2019, pp. 313-334.
  • Anton Neumayr: Hitler: delusional ideas - diseases - perversions. Pichler, Vienna 2001, ISBN 3-85431-250-4 .
  • Johann Recktenwald : What did Adolf Hitler suffer from? A neuropsychiatric interpretation. Munich 1963.
  • Manfred Koch-Hillebrecht: Homo Hitler. Psychogram of the German dictator. Goldmann, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-442-75603-0 .

References and comments

  1. ↑ Benedict Carey: Is it fair to analyze Donald Trump from a distance? In: The time. September 1, 2016, accessed September 17, 2016 .
  2. ↑ for example Susanne Hilken: Ways and Problems of Psychiatric Pathography . Karin Fischer, Aachen 1993
  3. ↑ Hans Bürger-Prinz: A psychiatrist reports . Hoffmann & Campe, 1971, ISBN 3-455-00740-6
  4. ↑ Wolfgang Wippermann: Fascism and Psychoanalysis. Research status and research perspectives . In: Bedrich Loewenstein (Ed.): History and Psychology. Approach attempts , Pfaffenweiler, 1992, p. 266; Nikolas Dörr: Contemporary history, psychology and psychoanalysis
  5. ^ Lothar Machtan: Hitler's secret: The double life of a dictator , Berlin: Fest, 2001, ISBN 3-8286-0145-6 ; Lothar Machtan: Hitler's secret perlentaucher.de
  6. ↑ a b c d e f Armbruster (2009)
  7. ↑ As a people without a shadow! In: Die Zeit , No. 48/1986
  8. ^ Hannah Arendt: Eichmann in Jerusalem . A report on the banality of evil. 15th edition. Piper, Munich, Zurich 2006, ISBN 978-3-492-24822-8 . ; Harald Welzer arrives at a similar point of view in his book Täter . How normal people become mass murderers. Fischer, Frankfurt 2005, ISBN 3-10-089431-6 . The assessment that mass murderers cannot be normal can be found e.g. B. with Rolf Pohl and Joachim Perels .
  9. ^ Peter Longerich: Hitler. Biography . Siedler, Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3-8275-0060-1
  10. ↑ The Jewish theologian and Holocaust survivor Emil Fackenheim, among others, was of the opinion that such radical evil as Hitler's could not be explained by humans, but at most by God, and he was silent about it ( Emil Fackenheim and Yehuda Bauer: The Temptation to Blame God . In: Rosenbaum (1999))
  11. ↑ Ron Rosenbaum: explaning Hitler . Da Capo Press, 2014, ISBN 978-0-306-82318-3 , pp. 256 ( limited preview in Google Book Search). Marcel Atze : "Our Hitler". The Hitler myth as reflected in German-language literature after 1945 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2003, ISBN 3-89244-644-X , p.  95 ( limited preview in Google Book search). Claude Lanzmann and the War Against the Question Why . In: Rosenbaum (1999), pp. 251-266; Claude Lanzmann: There is no why here . In: Stuart Liebman (Ed.): Claude Lanzmann's Shoah: Key Essays , Oxford University Press, 2007, ISBN 0-19-518864-0 ; Claude Lanzmann, Cathy Caruth, David Rodowick: The Obscenity of Understanding. An Evening with Claude Lanzmann . In: American Imago , 48, 1991, pp. 473-495
  12. ↑ Jan Ehrenwald: The ESP Experience: A Psychiatric Validation , Basic Books, 1978, ISBN 0-465-02056-9 , section Hitler: Shaman, Schizophrenic, Medium?
  13. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Wehler: History as historical social science . Frankfurt am Main, 1973, p. 103; Hans-Ulrich Wehler: On the relationship between history and psychoanalysis , in: ders. (Ed.): History and Psychoanalysis , Frankfurt / M., Berlin, Vienna 1974, p. 21.
  14. ↑ a b Coolidge et al. a. (2007)
  15. ↑ z. B. Murray (1943)
  16. ↑ for example Langer (1943); William Eckhardt: The Values ​​of Fascism . In: Journal of Social Issues , 24, 1968, pp. 89-104; Hyman Muslin: Adolf Hitler. The Evil Self . In: Psychohistory Review , 20, 1992, pp. 251-270; Joseph Berke: The Wellsprings of Fascism: Individual Malice, Group Hatreds and the Emergence of National Narcissism , Free Associations, Vol. 6, Part 3 (Number 39), 1996; Zvi Lothane: Omnipotence, or the delusional aspect of ideology, in relation to love, power, and group dynamics . In: American Journal of Psychoanalysis , 1997, 57 (1), pp. 25-46
  17. ↑ Psychological investigations of Nazi leaders have not shown that they were disturbed (Eric A. Zillmer, Molly Harrower, Barry A. Ritzler, Robert P. Archer: The Quest for the Nazi Personality. A Psychological Investigation of Nazi War criminals Routledge, 1995, ISBN 0-8058-1898-7 )
  18. ↑ a b Paul Matussek, Peter Matussek, Jan Marbach: Hitler - career of a madness , Herbig, Munich, 2000, ISBN 3-7766-2184-2 ; The Hitler phenomenon ; critical review ; Marbach's lecture  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF file; 123 kB): On the relationship between individual guilt and collective responsibility at the 35th annual conference of the “German-speaking Society for Art and Psychopathology of Expression” 25–28. October 2003, Munich@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.dji.de  
  19. ↑ Oswald Bumke: Memories and considerations. The way of a German psychiatrist , 2nd ed. Richard Pflaum, Munich, 1953. Quoted from: Jan Armbruster: The treatment of Adolf Hitler in the Pasewalk military hospital 1918: Historical myth formation through one-sided or speculative pathography , in: Journal for Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatrie , Volume 10, Issue 4, 2009, pp. 18-23, here: p. 22
  20. ↑ Schneider made a fleeting acquaintance with Hitler when he visited an old and mentally confused party comrade from the early days of his political activity in the Schwabing hospital.
    Leo Alexander: Public Mental Health Practices in Germany Sterilization and Execution of Patients Suffering from Nervous or Mental Disease. Stuart Stein, January 9, 2007, archived from the original on August 12, 2012 ; accessed on March 13, 2016 . Ernst Günther Schenck:     Patient Hitler. A medical biography , Droste, Düsseldorf, 1989, ISBN 3-8289-0377-0 , p. 514
  21. ↑ Armbruster (2009); Fritz Redlich Hitler. Diagnosis of the destructive prophet , Werner Eichbauer, Vienna, 2002, ISBN 0-19-505782-1 ; Schenck: Patient Hitler
  22. ↑ Adolf Hitler: Mein Kampf , 13th edition, 1933, pp. 220–225
  23. ↑ Oswald Bumke: Memories and considerations. The way of a German psychiatrist , 2nd ed. Richard Pflaum, Munich, 1953 (quoted from: Jan Armbruster: The treatment of Adolf Hitler in the Pasewalk military hospital 1918: Historical myth formation through one-sided or speculative pathography , in: Journal for Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatrie , Volume 10, Issue 4, 2009, pp. 18-23, here: p. 22); see. also Murray (1943)
  24. ↑ Werner Pieper: Highdelberg: On the cultural history of luxury foods and psychoactive drugs , 2000, p. 228; R. Lidz, HR Wiedemann: Karl Wilmanns (1873-1945). ... some additions and corrections . In: Advances in Neurology , 1989, Volume 57, pp. 160-161
  25. ↑ P. Riedesser, A. Verderber: "Machine guns behind the front". On the history of German military psychiatry , Fischer, Frankfurt / Main, 1996, ISBN 3-935964-52-8
  26. ↑ a b Jan Armbruster: Edmund Robert Forster (1878-1933). The life and work of a German neuropsychiatrist , Matthiesen, Husum, 2006, ISBN 978-3-7868-4102-9
  27. ↑ W. Lange-Eichbaum, W. Kurth: Genie, Irrsinn und Ruhm , Volume 8, 7th edition, 1992, pp. 74-91
  28. ^ Louise E. Hoffman: American psychologists and wartime research on Germany, 1941–1945 . In: American Psychologist , 1992, Volume 47, pp. 264-273
  29. ↑ Armbruster (2009); Dr. Karl Kroner
  30. ^ John Toland: Adolf Hitler. The Definite Biography . Anchor Books, 2014, pp. 1440 ( limited preview in Google Book search). German: Adolf Hitler , Gustav Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach, 1977, ISBN 3-7857-0207-8
  31. ↑ Ernst Weiß: The eyewitness. Biography and biographical representation technique. (PDF) Archived from the original ; accessed on March 13, 2016 .
  32. ^ Margarita Pazi : Ernst White. Fate and Work of a Jewish Central European Author in the First Half of the 20th Century , Peter Lang, Frankfurt / Main, 1993, ISBN 3-631-45475-9 , p. 108
  33. ↑ Edmund Forster: Hysterical reaction and simulation . In: Monthly Journal for Psychiatry and Neurology , 1917, Volume 42, pp. 298-324, 370-381; Armbruster (2009)
  34. ↑ Rudolph Binion: "... that you found me". Hitler and the Germans: a Psychohistory , Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart, 1978, ISBN 3-12-910860-2 (American original edition: Hitler among the Germans , Elsevier, New York, 1976, ISBN 0-444-99033-X )
  35. ^ David E. Post: The Hypnosis of Adolf Hitler . In: Journal of Forensic Science , November 1998, Volume 43 (6), pp. 1127-1132; Armbruster (2009)
  36. ↑ David Lewis: The man who invented Hitler. The making of the leader. Headline , London, 2003, ISBN 0-7553-1149-3 ; Armbruster (2009)
  37. ^ Manfred Koch-Hillebrecht: Hitler. A son of war. Front experience and world view , Herbig, Munich, 2003, ISBN 3-7766-2357-8 ; Hitler's Therapy Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung; Armbruster (2009)
  38. ^ Bernhard Horstmann: Hitler in Pasewalk. Hypnosis and its consequences , Droste, Düsseldorf, 2004, ISBN 3-7700-1167-8 ; The blind leader. Bernd Horstmann's crime thriller about Hitler's medical records ; Review in the FAZ ; Armbruster (2009)
  39. ^ Franziska Lamott: Trauma without the unconscious? - Note on inflation of a term . In: MB Buchholz, G. Gödde (ed.): The unconscious in practice. Experiences from different professions, band. 3, Psychosozial-Verlag, Giessen, 2006, ISBN 3-89806-449-2 , pp. 587-609; quoted from: Armbruster (2009)
  40. ↑ Ottmar Katz: Prof. Dr. Med. Theo Morell . Hitler's personal physician. Bayreuth, Hestia-Verlag, 1982, ISBN 3-7770-0244-5 , quoted from: Jan Armbruster: Edmund Robert Forster (1878-1933). The life and work of a German neuropsychiatrist , Matthiesen, 2005, p. 88.
  41. ↑ Peter Theiss-Abendroth: What do we really know about the military psychiatric treatment of Private Adolf Hitler? A literary-historical investigation . In: Psychiatrische Praxis , 2008, Volume 35, pp. 1–5
  42. ^ Walter Langer is dead at 82; wrote secret study of Hitler New York Times;
    Walter C. Langer: A Psychological Profile of Adolph Hitler. His Life and Legend . The original version is available online here through the Nizkor Project .
  43. ^ Walter C. Langer: The Mind of Adolf Hitler. The Secret Wartime Report , Basis Books, 1972, ISBN 0-465-04620-7 ; German edition: The Adolf Hitler Psychogram , Molden, Munich, 1982, ISBN 3-217-00530-9
  44. ^ WHD Vernon: Hitler, the man - notes for a case history ( Memento from July 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF file; 2.8 MB) . In: The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology , July 1942, Volume 37, Issue 3, pp. 295-308; see. Medicus: A Psychiatrist Looks at Hitler . In: The New Republic , April 26, 1939, pp. 326-327.
  45. ^ Henry A. Murray: Analysis of the personality of Adolf Hitler. With predictions of his future behavior and suggestions for dealing with him now and after Germany's surrender , 1943. Available in full text: "Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler"
  46. ↑ Wolfgang Treher: Hitler, Steiner, Schreber - guests from another world. The mental structures of the schizophrenic prophet delusion , Emmendingen, Oknos, 1966; New edition Oknos 1990, ISBN 3-921031-00-1 ; Wolfgang Treher ( Memento of the original from February 12, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ; Is Wolfgang Treher a reliable author? defendingsteiner.com, March 11, 2008, archived from the original ; accessed on March 13, 2016 . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.oknos.de
  47. ↑ Treher mainly presents "normal psychologically" completely incomprehensible statements by Hitler, such as B. the following: “Our dead are all alive again. They march not only in spirit, but alive with us. ”(Wolfgang Treher: Hitler, Steiner, Schreber - Guests from Another World. The Psychological Structures of the Schizophrenic Prophet Mania , Emmendingen, Oknos, 1966; New edition Oknos 1990, ISBN 3- 921031-00-1 , p. 157 f)
  48. ↑ Edleff H. Schwaab: Hitler's Mind. A Plunge into Madness , Westport, CT, Praeger, 1992, ISBN 0-275-94132-9
  49. ↑ Coolidge Assessment Battery Manual ( Memento of the original from May 18, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (doc; 208 kB) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.uccs.edu
  50. ^ Günter Hesse: Hitler's neuropsychiatric disorders. Are the consequences of his poisoning?
  51. ↑ According to Spiegel, the Finn Felix Kersten (according to his own statements, Himmler's medical advisor since 1938) reported in 1947 that one day he was ordered to read Hitler's medical history. According to this, Hitler had syphilis in the First World War. According to Kersten, symptoms of syphilis reappeared for the first time in 1937; In 1942 progressive paralysis was diagnosed. Der Spiegel 19/1947
  52. ↑ Deborah Hayden: Pox. Genius, Madness, and the Mysteries of Syphilis. Basic Books, 2003, ISBN 0-465-02881-0 ; Hitler's syphilis theory revived ; Himmler's doctor, Felix Kersten, is said to have been given access to a secret medical report in which Hitler's syphilis was documented (Joseph Kessel: The Man With the Miraculous Hands: The Fantastic Story of Felix Kersten, Himmler's Private Doctor , Burford Books, Springfield , NJ 2004, ISBN 1-58080-122-6 ); see. Also Hitler the Paretic (Syphilitic)
  53. ↑ Jerrold M. Post: Diagnosis of a destructive prophet. In: The New England Journal of Medicine, Volume 340, 1999, pp. 1691-1692.
  54. ↑ Der Spiegel: Hitler An der Nadel , 7/1980, pp. 85–87.
  55. ^ Leonard L. Heston, Renate Heston: The Medical Case Book of Adolf Hitler , Cooper Square Press, 2000, ISBN 0-641-73350-X (original edition 1980)
  56. ↑ Norman Ohler: The total intoxication: Drugs in the Third Reich . Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2015, ISBN 978-3-462-04733-2 . ; High Hitler. Retrieved December 7, 2015 . FAZ, September 13, 2015; If the Führer only knew ... Accessed December 7, 2015 . Die Zeit, December 3, 2015
  57. ^ Ernst Günther Schenck: Patient Hitler. A medical biography. Droste publishing house, 1989
  58. ↑ Ellen Gibbels: Hitler's Parkinson's disease: on the question of an organic brain psychosyndrome , Berlin, New York: Springer-Verlag, 1990, ISBN 3-540-52399-5 ; In English-speaking countries, this thesis was only disseminated in 1999 by Tom Hutton ( Hitler's defeat after Allied invasion attributed to Parkinson's disease )
  59. ↑ Ellen Gibbels, Hitler's Nervous Disease: A Neurological-Psychiatric Study . (PDF; 6.9 MB) In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 1994, volume 42 (2), pp. 155–220
  60. ↑ Was Hitler sick?
  61. ^ Gustav Bychowski, MD - 1895–1972
  62. ^ Gustav Bychowski: Dictators and Disciples. From Caesar to Stalin: a psychoanalytic interpretation of History , International Universities Press, New York, 1948; German edition: Dictators. Caesar, Cromwell, Robespierre, Hitler, Stalin. Contributions to a psychoanalytic personality and history interpretation , Szczesny, Munich, 1965
  63. ↑ Genius - Insanity and Glory. Ernst Reinhardt, Munich 1928 (reprinted several times, most recently 1986–1996 in 11 volumes. Volume 8: Die Politiker und Feldherren)
  64. ↑ Desmond Henry, Dick Geary, Peter Tyrer: Adolf Hitler. A Reassessment of His Personality Status . In: Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine , Volume 10, 1993, pp. 148-151
  65. ^ Bradley F. Smith: Adolf Hitler. His Family, Childhood and Youth , Stanford, 1967, ISBN 0-8179-1622-9
  66. ^ Helm Stierlin: Adolf Hitler. Family perspectives , Suhrkamp, ​​1975
  67. ↑ Hitler's disabled brother was younger. In: Der Spiegel. May 31, 2016, accessed May 31, 2016 .
  68. ↑ Cf. Wolfgang Zdral: Die Hitlers: Die unbekannte Familie des Führers , 2005, p. 32
  69. ^ Norbert Bromberg, Verna Volz Small: Hitler's Psychopathology , New York, International Universities Press, Madison / CT, 1983, ISBN 0-8236-2345-9 ; see. Norbert Bromberg: Hitler's Character and Its Development . In: American Imago , 28, Winter 1971, pp. 297-298; Norbert Bromberg, 81, retired psychoanalyst New York Times; Verna Small, 92, leading village preservationist
  70. ↑ Book review by Michael H. Kater: Hitler's Psychopathology by Norbert Bromberg, Verna Volz Small . In: Journal of Interdisciplinary History , 1985, Volume 16 (1), pp. 141-142
  71. ^ Alfred Sleigh: Hitler: A Study in Megalomania . In: Canadian Psychiatric Association Journal , June 1966, Volume 11, Issue 3, pp. 218-219
  72. ↑ George Victor: Hitler: The Pathology of Evil , Potomac Books, 1999, ISBN 1-57488-228-7
  73. ^ Béla Grunberger, Pierre Dessuant: Narcissism, Christianity, Antisemitism: A psychoanalytical investigation , Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 2000, ISBN 978-3-608-91832-8 ( review ); see. Béla Grunberger: The Anti-Semite and the Oedipus Complex , in: Psyche, Volume 16, Issue 5, January 1962, pp. 255-272
  74. ↑ Theodore Dorpat: Wounded Monster. Hitler's Path from Trauma to Malevolence , University Press of America, 2003, ISBN 0-7618-2416-2
  75. ^ Gerhard Vinnai: Hitler - failure and extermination. On the genesis of the fascist perpetrator , Psychosozial-Verlag, Giessen 2004, ISBN 978-3-89806-341-8 ; Author's website
  76. ^ Colin Martindale, Nancy Hasenfus, Dwight Hines: Hitler: a neurohistorical formulation . In: Confinia psychiatrica , 1976, Volume 19, Issue 2, pp. 106-116
  77. ^ Robert GL Waite: The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler , Basic Books, 1977, ISBN 0-465-06743-3 ; German edition: Hitler. The psychopathic god , Belser Chr., 1982, ISBN 3-7630-1191-9 . See also: Robert GL Waite: Adolf Hitler's Anti-Semitism. A Study in History and Psychoanalysis . In: Benjamin B. Wolman (Ed.): The Psychoanalytic Interpretation of History , New York, London 1971, pp. 192-230.
  78. ^ Gregory Zilboorg: Ambulatory Schizophrenias . In: Psychiatry , Volume IV, 1941, pp. 149-155
  79. ^ Ernest A. Rappaport: Anti-Judaism. A psychohistory , Chicago: Perspective Press, 1975, ISBN 0-9603382-0-9
  80. ↑ John D. Mayer: The emotional madness of the dangerous leader . In: Journal of Psychohistory , 20, 1993, pp. 331-348.
  81. ↑ D. Jablow Hershman, Julian Lieb: A Brotherhood of Tyrants: Manic Depression and Absolute Power , Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1994, ISBN 0-87975-888-0
  82. ↑ Michael Fitzgerald: Autism and creativity: is there a link between autism in men and exceptional ability? , Routledge, 2004, ISBN 1-58391-213-4 , pp. 25-27.
  83. ^ Alan Bullock: Hitler: A Study in Tyranny , London, 1952; Hugh Trevor-Roper: Hitler's Last Days , Ullstein, 1965 (original edition 1947); AJP Taylor: The Origins of the Second World War , Simon & Schuster, 1996, ISBN 0-684-82947-9 (original edition 1961); Manfred Lütz: Crazy - we treat the wrong people: Our problem is the normal people. A cheerful soul lore , Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2009, ISBN 3-579-06879-2 ; Manfred Lütz: "I don't know any normal people"
  84. ↑ Glenn D. Walters, Lifestyle theory: past, present, and future , Nova Science Publishers, 2006, ISBN 1-60021-033-3 , p. 43.
  85. ^ Erik H. Erikson: Childhood and Society , New York, London: WW Norton, 1963, ISBN 0-393-31068-X . (First edition 1950)
  86. ↑ Terry L. Brink: The case of Hitler: An Adlerian perspective on psychohistory . In: Journal of Individual Psychology , 1975, Volume 21, pp. 23-31.
  87. ↑ Stuart Lavietes: Dr. Frederick C. Redlich, 93, Biographer of Hitler . In: The New York Times , January 17, 2004 (obituary).
  88. ↑ Fritz Redlich: Hitler: Diagnosis of a Destructive Prophet . Oxford University Press, 1998, ISBN 0-19-505782-1 ; German edition: Hitler. Diagnosis of the destructive prophet , Werner Eichbauer, 2002, ISBN 3-901699-23-6 .
  89. ↑ Hans-Joachim Neumann, Henrik Eberle: Was Hitler sick? A final finding. Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 2009, ISBN 3-7857-2386-5 , p. 290; Was Hitler sick? Focus online, October 7, 2009; Hitler was not insane - medically speaking, Welt Online, December 2, 2009.
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