Hitler and the impact of his adverse acts

Extract

[...] His own words describe the dual creation of an ‘enemy' as much as they articulate the formation of an ideal self a German-ness that excluded, without reprieve, any and all difference as embodied by Jews. His leadership style, as we have seen from the triumph list films of Riefenstahl strove to articulate the union between the German cultural psyche and Hitler's own personality an intertwining of self and other central to the narcissist as he carries out the expulsion and destruction of his own perceived insufficiencies. [...]

[...] Betty Glad, Tyrants Go Too Far: Malignant Narcissism and Absolute Power,” Political Psychology Vol.23 No.1 (2002): 4 Hans W. Gatzke, “Hitler and Psychohistory,” The American Historical Review Vol.78 No.2 (1973):397. Nils Johan Lavik. (1989): 757. Nils Johan Lavik. (1989): 757. Jerrold Post, “Current Concepts of the Narcissistic Personality: Implications for Political Psychology” Political Psychology Vol.14 No.1 (1993): [...]

[...] Hitler describes having only met his first Jew upon his arrival in Vienna and argues that it wasn't until he acquired an understanding of Zionism and the “Jewish Enterprise” that he realized one cannot be both a German and a Jew[19] The Jew represents for Hitler the antithesis of his idealization of German. Instead of a ‘worker's people' whose nobility lies in history, cultural production and a divine purpose, the Jew (for Hitler) works against these ends an the aims of the nation-state by holding allegiance to a global consciousness. [...]

[...] In his analyses of political narcissism, Post argues that the narcissist has a tendency to overestimate their own powers of persuasion and ability to steer events, while devaluing their adversaries, creating a break from reality that informs their actions.[16] This perversion or mis-reading of the adversary causes problems for the Narcissist when faced with crisis situations not only do they find it impossible to accurately read their adversary but they find it equally impossible to differentiate between their self-interests and those, in a political sense, of the nation. [...]

[...] While the sociopath is without moral beacon or conscience, the Narcissist has a conscience, but finds it flexible and accommodating to overwhelming self interest.[10] Narcissism is further characterized by the need to project not only perfection and an ‘ideal' self but by the need to complete what is an inherently incomplete personality through relationships or aspirations of perfection.[11] Suffering from an inherently injured self- image, exacerbated by a loveless or violent childhood or trauma, the narcissist seeks ever larger audiences for affirmation and fulfillment, all the while projecting a perfection (now taken as necessary for continued affirmation) and admonishing or objecting those traits they see as violating their ‘ideal self image.'[12] This set of characteristics is compelling because we can see in it not only the echoes of Hitler's own childhood an abused mother and a violent father, as well as his rejection from art school, his wanderings in Vienna and his experiences during the First World War but also those of his German contemporaries during their defeat and suffering following the Treaty of Versailles. [...]