The Mind of Adolf Hitler
Encyclopedia
The Mind of Adolf Hitler: The Secret Wartime Report, published in 1972 by Basic Books
, is based on, and contains as its core, a World War II
report by psychoanalyst Walter C. Langer
which probed the psychology of Adolf Hitler
from the available information. The report was prepared for the Office of Strategic Services
(OSS) and submitted in late 1943 or early 1944; it is officially entitled "A Psychologial Profile of Adolph Hitler: His Life and Legend". The report is one of two psychoanalytic reports prepared for the OSS during the war in an attempt to assess Hitler's personality; the other psychoanalytic report is "Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler
".
The book contains not only Langer's report, but also a foreword by his brother, the historian William L. Langer
, an introduction by Langer himself and an afterword by the psychoanalytic historian Robert G.L. Waite
.
. The research and investigation for it was done in collaboration with three other clinicians – Professor Henry A. Murray of the Harvard Psychological Clinic, Dr. Ernst Kris
of the New School for Social Research, and Dr. Bertram D. Lewin of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute – as well as research associates Langer notes in his introduction to the book that one of the three essentially dropped out of the project because he was too busy with other work, but he gives no names. "He promised, however, to write down his views and conclusions and submit them ... Unfortunately, not a word was ever received from him" although he did apparently confirm to Langer by telephone that he agreed with the diagnosis of Hitler's perversion.
The report was classified as "Secret" by the OSS, but was eventually declassified in 1968. After receiving some encouragement from fellow scholars, particularly Professor Henderson Braddick of the Department of International Relations at Lehigh University
Langer decided to publish the report in book form. The original report is in the public domain
and is available on the Internet on a number of sites.
, Eduard Bloch
, Hermann Rauschning
, Princess Stephanie von Hohenlohe
, Otto Strasser
, Friedlinde Wagner
, and Kurt Ludecke
. The so-called "Hitler Source Book" which was appended to the wartime report, ran over one thousand pages and was indexed against the report. The groundbreaking study was the pioneer of offender profiling
and political psychology, today commonly used by many countries as part of assessing international relations.
In addition to predicting that if defeat for Germany was near, Hitler would most likely choose suicide, Langer's report stated that Hitler was "probably impotent" as far as heterosexual relations were concerned and that there was a possibility that Hitler had participated in a homosexual relationship. The report stated that:
Langer's report also concluded that Hitler loved pornography and masochistic sex, and in particular that he had "coprophagic
tendencies or their milder manifestations" in his heterosexual relationships, and masochistically derived "sexual gratification from the act of having a woman urinate or defecate on him." Langer concluded that Hitler was "probably a neurotic psychopath bordering on schizophrenia."
The report briefly mentions some claims that a Rothschild
fathered Alois Hitler
– Adolf's father, who was illegitimate – when Hitler's paternal grandmother, Maria Schicklgruber
, supposedly worked as a house servant in Vienna, but concludes "[f]rom a purely scientific point of view ... it is sounder not to base our reconstruction on such slim evidence but to seek firmer foundations." While there are numerous statements in the report that have proven, on further investigation, to be erroneous, it is nevertheless an invaluable study piece for any serious historian of the Third Reich. The bibliography of the report contains close to 400 entries.
In a review of The Mind of Adolf Hitler for The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, Martin Waugh concluded that Langer's work was important "because of its value to the historian; because it was a 'first' for this country's intelligence services; and because of the official recognition of psychoanalysis the assignment implied."
Basic Books
Basic Books is a book publisher founded in 1952 and located in New York. It publishes books in the fields of psychology, philosophy, economics, science, politics, sociology, current affairs, and history.-History:...
, is based on, and contains as its core, a World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
report by psychoanalyst Walter C. Langer
Walter C. Langer
Walter Charles Langer was a Cambridge, Massachusetts psychoanalyst best known for his role in preparing a World War II psychological analysis of Adolf Hitler in 1943 for the Office of Strategic Services, that predicted his suicide as the "most plausible outcome" among several possibilities...
which probed the psychology of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
from the available information. The report was prepared for the Office of Strategic Services
Office of Strategic Services
The Office of Strategic Services was a United States intelligence agency formed during World War II. It was the wartime intelligence agency, and it was a predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency...
(OSS) and submitted in late 1943 or early 1944; it is officially entitled "A Psychologial Profile of Adolph Hitler: His Life and Legend". The report is one of two psychoanalytic reports prepared for the OSS during the war in an attempt to assess Hitler's personality; the other psychoanalytic report is "Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler
Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler
Analysis of the Personality of Hitler: With Predictions of His Future Behavior and Suggestions for Dealing with Him Now and After Germany's Surrender was a report prepared by Henry A. Murray for the United States Office of Strategic Services during World War II...
".
The book contains not only Langer's report, but also a foreword by his brother, the historian William L. Langer
William L. Langer
William Leonard Langer was the chair of the history department at Harvard University and the World War II volunteer head of the Research and Analysis branch of the Office of Strategic Services...
, an introduction by Langer himself and an afterword by the psychoanalytic historian Robert G.L. Waite
The Psychopathic God
The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler is a 1977 book written by Robert G. L. Waite. It was republished in 1993 by Da Capo Press of New York.It is a psychohistorical examination of German dictator Adolf Hitler explores the events "by documenting accounts of is behaviour, beliefs, tastes, fears and...
.
History of the report
The wartime report was commissioned by the head of the OSS, William J. "Wild Bill" DonovanWilliam Joseph Donovan
William Joseph Donovan was a United States soldier, lawyer and intelligence officer, best remembered as the wartime head of the Office of Strategic Services...
. The research and investigation for it was done in collaboration with three other clinicians – Professor Henry A. Murray of the Harvard Psychological Clinic, Dr. Ernst Kris
Ernst Kris
Ernst Kris was an Austrian psychoanalyst and art historian. Kris was the son of Leopold Kris, a lawyer, and Rosa Schick.Born in Vienna, Austria in 1900, died in New York City, New York in 1957....
of the New School for Social Research, and Dr. Bertram D. Lewin of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute – as well as research associates Langer notes in his introduction to the book that one of the three essentially dropped out of the project because he was too busy with other work, but he gives no names. "He promised, however, to write down his views and conclusions and submit them ... Unfortunately, not a word was ever received from him" although he did apparently confirm to Langer by telephone that he agreed with the diagnosis of Hitler's perversion.
The report was classified as "Secret" by the OSS, but was eventually declassified in 1968. After receiving some encouragement from fellow scholars, particularly Professor Henderson Braddick of the Department of International Relations at Lehigh University
Lehigh University
Lehigh University is a private, co-educational university located in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley region of the United States. It was established in 1865 by Asa Packer as a four-year technical school, but has grown to include studies in a wide variety of disciplines...
Langer decided to publish the report in book form. The original report is in the public domain
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
and is available on the Internet on a number of sites.
Content and conclusions
The report used many sources to profile Hitler, including a number of informants, including Ernst HanfstaenglErnst Hanfstaengl
Ernst Franz Sedgwick Hanfstaengl , was a Harvard-educated German businessman who was an intimate of Adolf Hitler before falling out of favor and defecting. He later worked for Franklin D...
, Eduard Bloch
Eduard Bloch
Dr. Eduard Bloch was a Jewish-Austrian doctor practicing in Linz . Until 1907 Bloch was the doctor of Adolf Hitler's family...
, Hermann Rauschning
Hermann Rauschning
Hermann Rauschning was a GermanConservative Revolutionary who briefly joined the Nazis before breaking with them. In 1934 he renounced Nazi party membership and defected to the United States where he denounced Nazism...
, Princess Stephanie von Hohenlohe
Stephanie von Hohenlohe
Princess Stephanie Julianne von Hohenlohe was a member of a German princely family by marriage and a close friend of Adolf Hitler who spied for Nazi Germany.-Early life:...
, Otto Strasser
Otto Strasser
Otto Johann Maximilian Strasser was a German politician and 'left-wing' member of the National Socialist German Workers Party. Strasser was part of the ‘left-wing’ faction of the party, along with his brother Gregor Strasser, and broke from the party due to disputes with the ‘Hitlerite’ faction...
, Friedlinde Wagner
Friedlinde Wagner
Friedelind Wagner was the daughter of German opera composer Siegfried Wagner and his Welsh wife, Winifred Williams and the granddaughter of the famous composer Richard Wagner. Born in Bayreuth, she was known by the nickname "Maus" or "Mausi"...
, and Kurt Ludecke
Kurt Ludecke
Kurt Ludecke was an ardent German nationalist, a playboy and international traveler who joined the Nazi party in the early 1920s and who used his social connections to raise money for the NSDAP...
. The so-called "Hitler Source Book" which was appended to the wartime report, ran over one thousand pages and was indexed against the report. The groundbreaking study was the pioneer of offender profiling
Offender profiling
Offender profiling, also known as criminal profiling, is a behavioral and investigative tool that is intended to help investigators to profile unknown criminal subjects or offenders. Offender profiling is also known as criminal profiling, criminal personality profiling, criminological profiling,...
and political psychology, today commonly used by many countries as part of assessing international relations.
In addition to predicting that if defeat for Germany was near, Hitler would most likely choose suicide, Langer's report stated that Hitler was "probably impotent" as far as heterosexual relations were concerned and that there was a possibility that Hitler had participated in a homosexual relationship. The report stated that:
[t]he belief that Hitler is homosexual has probably developed (a) from the fact that he does show so many feminineFemininityFemininity is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles generally associated with girls and women. Though socially constructed, femininity is made up of both socially defined and biologically created factors...
characteristics, and (b) from the fact that there were so many homosexuals in the PartyNational Socialist German Workers PartyThe National Socialist German Workers' Party , commonly known in English as the Nazi Party, was a political party in Germany between 1920 and 1945. Its predecessor, the German Workers' Party , existed from 1919 to 1920...
during the early days and many continue to occupy important positions. It is probably true that Hitler calls FoersterAlbert ForsterAlbert Maria Forster was a Nazi German politician. Under his administration as the Gauleiter of Danzig-West Prussia during the Second World War, the local non-German population suffered ethnic cleansing, mass murder, and forceful Germanisation...
"Bubi", which is a common nickname employed by homosexuals in addressing their partners. This alone, however, is not adequate proof that he has actually indulged in homosexual practices with Foerster, who is known to be a homosexual.
Langer's report also concluded that Hitler loved pornography and masochistic sex, and in particular that he had "coprophagic
Coprophagia
Coprophagia or coprophagy is the consumption of feces, from the Greek κόπρος copros and φαγεῖν phagein . Many animal species practice coprophagia as a matter of course; other species do not normally consume feces but may do so under unusual conditions...
tendencies or their milder manifestations" in his heterosexual relationships, and masochistically derived "sexual gratification from the act of having a woman urinate or defecate on him." Langer concluded that Hitler was "probably a neurotic psychopath bordering on schizophrenia."
The report briefly mentions some claims that a Rothschild
Rothschild
Rothschild is a common German surname. It is a habitational name from a house distinguished with a red shield , the earliest recorded example dating from the 13th century...
fathered Alois Hitler
Alois Hitler
Alois Hitler was an Austrian civil servant who was the father of Adolf Hitler.-Early life:...
– Adolf's father, who was illegitimate – when Hitler's paternal grandmother, Maria Schicklgruber
Maria Schicklgruber
Maria Anna Schicklgruber was Adolf Hitler's paternal grandmother.- Family :Maria was born in the village of Strones in the Waldviertel area. She was the daughter of Theresia Pfeisinger , and farmer Johannes Schicklgruber...
, supposedly worked as a house servant in Vienna, but concludes "[f]rom a purely scientific point of view ... it is sounder not to base our reconstruction on such slim evidence but to seek firmer foundations." While there are numerous statements in the report that have proven, on further investigation, to be erroneous, it is nevertheless an invaluable study piece for any serious historian of the Third Reich. The bibliography of the report contains close to 400 entries.
In a review of The Mind of Adolf Hitler for The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, Martin Waugh concluded that Langer's work was important "because of its value to the historian; because it was a 'first' for this country's intelligence services; and because of the official recognition of psychoanalysis the assignment implied."
External links
- "Langer's Wartime Report to OSS" from University of the West of EnglandUniversity of the West of EnglandThe University of the West of England is a university based in the English city of Bristol. Its main campus is at Frenchay, about five miles north of the city centre...
- "Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler" from Cornell UniversityCornell UniversityCornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
Law Library - Langer's Wartime Report at Nizkor.orgNizkor ProjectThe Nizkor Project is an ongoing Internet-based project run by B'nai Brith Canada which is dedicated to countering Holocaust denial. It was founded by Ken McVay as a central Web-based archive for the large numbers of documents made publicly available by the users of the newsgroup alt.revisionism...