Of course you could very easily say that Hitler’s starting the most destructive war in the history of mankind or his plot to totally destroy the Jewish race (along with other groups) is insane. What I mean is, did Hitler have a recognizable, diagnosable mental disorder or not. I believe the evidence is strong he suffered from Parkinson’s disease after about 1940 and this may account for much of his erratic behavior. However, he began his course as one of the most evil men in history at least in the early 1930’s and probably earlier. In my view, Parkinson’s disease alone is insufficient to account for his evil career. If Hitler was medically insane it would go a long way toward explaining his behavior. What is really frightening to me is, what if he was as sane as you or I? (You have to take my word that I am sane!) It scares the pants off me to think ‘normal’ people have the potential to be as evil as Hitler.
It depends on what books you read, and as a highly controversial and much hated individual there is a shortage of reliable and objective ones. According to the testimony of his enemies he chewed the carpets in fits of rage, enjoyed having women defecate and urinate in his face and wallowed in the suffering of his political opponents strangling on piano wire. All of which would class him as a complete nutjob in my book. According to his admirers such as Irving he is a misunderstood kindly gentleman always betrayed by the malice and treachery of lesser men. Sexually he has been described as a homosexual, as a man who died a virgin, as a man who hated jews because he caught syphillis of a jewish prostitute in WW1, and as a man who drained party funds in the early days with constant whoremongering. He has been described as a brave man who won the Iron Cross in the trenches, and also described as a coward.
During the war the OSS had a psychological profile drawn up for him, according to which he was an utter raver. IIRC the author was called Lange. Personally I think he has been too demonised for any objective assessment, everyone is pushing an agenda whether to damn or exonerate him. I dont think he was medically insane, he comes across to me as basically a small minded man with small prejudices that were unsually coupled with a pretty formidable intellect and ambition and a near total lack of scruples and compassion. You dont have to be mad to be bad.
In the last days he probably lost a handfull of marbles, but I don`t think he was insane from the beggining.
As depressing as the idea is, I agree that perfectly sane people can do such atrocities as Hitler.
There are a few bits and peices of truth to Hitler’s being a true madman. Dr. Theo Morell, Hitler’s personal physician, believed he was a sufferer of late stage neurosyphilis (The Secret Diaries of Hitler’s Doctor, by David Irving. New York: Macmillan, 1983) and a few folks thought that Morell was feeding Hitler arsenic and cyanide based meds to try to off the Furher. Whether it’s true or not, I don’t know.
Wasn’t Hitler, as well as other members of the 3rd Reich, invovled in regular amphetamine use?
If so, he quite likely went crazy. Prolonged use of these sorts of chemicals causes rapid deterioration of rational thought.
Funnily enough I saw a docu, just yesterday, about Churchill.
Seems he was near-manic-depressive and drank a lot to boot.
Apparently the highs of his moodswings would cause him to be over-active and come up with all sorts of weird plans.
The Dardanelles ‘adventure’ was one of his crazy plans, he also envisioned an attack on the Reich by crossing the Alps, al la Hannibal.
The chiefs of staff that had to deal with him on a day to day basis, during the war, had a real tough time containing him.
“Never ascribe to malice what can be acribed to incompetence”
to which we should add:
“Never ascribe to insanity what can be ascribed to apathy.”
Hitler was certainly a classic psychopath with a huge authoritarian streak. That made him devoid of empathy, conscience, or foresight. A great little explanation of Hitler’s
However. he wasn’t nuts in the sense of having hallucinations or anything. I’m not sure if psychopathy is a single disease, but he was definitely a psychopath.
It is hard to give any absolute answer on this because Hitler has passed from being a man who horribly abused power and destroyed so many innocent lives to a complete mythical monster. Any form of evil or perversion can be ascribed to him without fear of any great rebuttal. Personally I think it was humanities collective way of removing any guilt by association.
Lets face it if Hitler was seen as an ordinary guy who was capable of making ordinary people do horrific things or worse diliberatly turn a blind eye to those who did horrible things then that means we are all capable of being evil. If he is seen as an insane monster. Then we can explain it all away. If he had mysterious powers to hypnotise or sway people by some strange means then we can excuse others for falling under his spell. It was an abberation.
Unfortunately he was just a man, he had many faults, and according to his inner circle he also had many virtues.
The difference between Hitler and Joe blow Bigot who hates outsiders with a passion is that he had the means to do what ever he deemed necessary to deal with it.
The people followed his lead because he said what they wanted to hear and what they wanted to believe.
Was he insane? I don’t thinks so. He was spiteful and prejudiced. He also may have lost a little grip on reality because of the Yes men he was surrounded with, but anyone would be if they were never told they may be wrong.
I agree with kingpenvin.
If he can be accused of anything it might be a messiah complex.
That he was sort of the chosen one to put Germany back on the map and to prepare it for a prosperous future for some time to come. That’s how people did see him and treated him and it looked like he was succeeding at it as well. Small wonder he might have started believing it himself, after a while.
I’m not so sure. I have never heard of any evidence he was any more devoid of empathy than any other Nazi. Cold, prehaps, but not inhumanly so.
You have every right to be scared. The Bible tells us we are all the same. Not on the outside, which is what most people focus on, but on the inside. In our hearts. We are all sinners. It’s not an easy thing to face. Many people these days refuse to…
However, in the case of Hitler there is another potentially very important factor:
Hitler’s Racial Ideology: Content and Occult Sources
http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/resources/books/annual3/chap09.html
It is my opinion that Hitler was demon influenced, or demon possessed. That would partially explain his hatred for the Jews. It would also explain his nearly hypnotic control over many people.
Of course, YMMV.
So would invisible mind control ray implants from space aliens.
:dubious:
Riiiiiiight, as we were saying…
Ah, yes insanity
Ummm… there’s nothing “inhuman” about psychopathy. It’s a common condition. It’s not caused by demons.
And it is certainly not a surprise that Hitler attracted other people with psychopathy or other personality disorders. Certainly, the most common unifying trait was extreme authoritarianism, with all the personality quirks that carries.
For a great analysis of Hitler’s psychology, try Norman Dixon’s “On The Psychology of Military Incompetence.” It’s not all about Hitler - actually, most of it uses British generals as examples - but there’s a chapter on him.
I disagree that Hitler was coldly devoid of sympathy. Most of the Nazis were capable of the most maudlin displays of sentimentality. Part of Nazi ideology was that REAL men wallow in their emotions…they fight, they conquer, they weep, they love, they enjoy life, in an explicit rejection of cold rationalism. Yes, the Nazi inner circle was composed of emotionally crippled and stunted men that certainly wouldn’t have fit this ideal. But their sentimentality contributed to their monstrousness. Because they had so much pity and sorrow for the poor abused German people, they were capable of more hate and depravity towards Germany’s inner and outer enemies.
This is what I heard, as well. Can anyone verify this? It seems to me like methamphetamine could have been a very big contributer to his “erratic behaviour”, as another poster put it.
Don’t laugh, Hitler did work with space aliens: The International UFO Conspiracy
In seriousness, during the final days in the bunker a lot of Hitler’s military decisions were completely divorced from reality. He was giving orders for units that conduct movements and counterattacks as if the units actually existed, when in fact they weren’t much more substantial than flags on a map. He had done this to some extent during the entire course of the war, but it was quite pronounced in the final days. I don’t think this qualifies as full-fledged insanity, but his grip on reality did slip.
Yes exactly… had someone had teh guts before the final bunker days to say how bad things really were Hitler may have shot himself earlier. It was amazing the lengths his people went through to appease him. I can’t remember who it was but didn’t one officer or Party member actually fly to Berlin on Hitler’s orders even though the Allies controled the Skies and the Russians had breeched the outskirts of Berlin?
We know for sure that Hitler used sleeping pills (don’t forget, on D-Day nobody wanted to wake him up from having popped a downer the night before), so there is reason to believe that what is brought down must also be brought up. But I doubt he ever got to junkie stage.
As I recall, a number of people around him in the last few months of the war often said he had a certain divorce from reality at that time, but any time before that I find it hard to believe that he was anything but rational. He raged at times, and he made bad decisions (often), but he was almost certainly sane.