The Fuhrer Derailed.

As I was reading chapter five of Spielvogel I started highlighting things about Hitler’s personality that seemed unusual or radical. As I highlighted more and more crazy things about his personality I soon realized I was thinking of the word crazy. Referring back to my notes from class on Tuesday, I saw that I wrote down “Hitler was not an insane fool.” Fool, no. Insane, yes. Reading an article written by Dr. Stephen A Diamond lead me to believe that Hitler was insane. Adolf Hitler had signs of multiple psychological disorders, according to modern medicine. I then went to compare the signs of psychological disorders in the article to the highlighted sections in Spielvogel. Diamond starts with HItler’s childhood, which is mentioned to most likely be the root to his abnormal behaviors. “Hitler evidently suffered also from severe anxiety… One pathological attempt to exert absolute control over the environment and one’s self can be seen in obsessive-compulsive disorder. OCD is, by definition, an anxiety disorder, and can be understood psychologically as an ultimately losing battle for power and control over the inescapable reality of existential anxiety.” [1]  Spielvogel points out that Hitler “insisted on a fixed seating order for meals, and any deviation resulted in an outburst of anger.” [2]  Hitler was nonetheless afraid of his insecurities being visible to the public, which was one source of his anxiety.

Adolf could not stand being around people who could possibly be superior to him [3], which Dr. Diamond mentions to be, “what Adler referred to as ‘masculine protest,’ consisting of a compensatory striving for superiority (to counteract feelings of inferiority), aggression, ambition, avarice and envy, coupled with constant ‘defiance, vengeance, and resentment’…Pathological narcissism develops as a compensatory defense against these painful wounds and inferiority feelings.” [4] What I took away from this was perhaps Hitler had a quiet and small pain of self loathing because of his anxiety. In attempt to otherthrow his anxiety, “he maintained a very close relationship with his personal physician, who helped manage the Fuehrer’s anxiety symptoms with numerous medications, many of which were highly unorthodox, and are said to have included both sedating barbiturates and stimulating amphetamine on which Hitler came to depend.” [5] An angry man, with daddy issues, running a country while strung out on prescription medication, it’s no wonder conversations with him were one sided.

Along with Adolf’s intense daddy issues and pill problem, it appears he suffered from post traumatic stress disorder from his service in WWI, which is why he was temporarily blind before coming to power. [6] Spielvogel mentions how Hitler was cruel to his lover, Eva, and had “tendency to take Eva for granted.” [7] I believe that the Fuhrer’s mistreatment of his only known lover to stem from his “…developed “syphilophobia,” a dread of being contaminated by sexual contact with women, leading eventually to sexual impotence according to acquaintances.” [8] I could continue to list evidences of other psychological disorders that Adolf Hitler is believed to have had but I have confidence that I have proven my claim that Hitler was indeed derailed.

1. Dr. Stephen A Diamond, “How Mad Was Hitler?” https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evil-deeds/201412/how-mad-was-hitler (October 7, 2015)
2. Jackson J. Spielvogel, Hitler and Nazi Germany, A History. (New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc. 2005), 127.
3. Speilvogel, 127.
4. Diamond.
5. Diamond.
6. Diamond.
7. Spielvogel, 128.
8. Diamond.