Happiness for Hitler meant belonging to the community; being “part of the people.” If you do not wish to or are unable to be part of the people, do not wish to merge with the community, then you are sick—“incurable.” Hitler calls the wish to be separate, inability to fuse with the community, sickness.

Finally, however, it is the need to be so close, fused with the community—that is the source of sickness. Hitler feels sick in either case. If he tries to separate from the nation, he feels incomplete and fragmented. However, when he fuses with the nation he is overwhelmed, possessed. He loses himself. This is what Hitler cannot permit himself to know: that he is suffering from Germany.

Genocide represented Hitler’s effort to kill his own wish to separate from the nation (symbolized by the Jews). He wanted to kill off his own desire to disconnect from society in order to “do his own thing.” He had been a bohemian in Vienna, alone and isolated. When World War I broke out, he was thrilled. Now, he could cure himself by fusing with Germany. The cure for his disease became his sickness. He clung to the nation and the German people, fused with it absolutely. The root of everything that occurred was his refusal to separate from the idea of Germany.

The disease is an object experienced as too close to one’s own body. Hitler’s disease is the German nation with which he is fused. Hitler feels sick because Germany is inside his body. However, he cannot abandon the object to which he is attached. The Jew represented the negative experience of the good object. The Jew is the German nation in its negative guise. It is onto the Jew that Hitler projects his negative experience of Germany. The Jew is the bad experience of the nation that destroys the good experience. The bad experience of Germany (the mother) causes one to wish to separate from her. Therefore, one must kill off the experience of the bad object. Genocide is killing off the bad experience of Germany.

The bad experience of Germany within one’s body is experienced as a disease within the body politic. Fusion with the nation creates a psychosomatic disease. Genocide is the symptom: rage, paranoia, hysteria, and the effort to liberate oneself from the bad object. The Jew symbolizes the diseased part of the Nazi self that he wishes to “kill off.” The Nazi’s own weakness, sickness and passivity are projected onto the Jew—which becomes a symbol of the Nazi’s masochistic self.

The Jewish “crime” is the wish for separateness or separation. The Jew symbolized the idea that it is not necessary to be devoted to one’s nation or society. The Jew symbolized skepticism and disbelief. The Jew does not worship the nation enough, possesses insufficient ardor. The Jewish crime is that he is not attached to, does not love a nation. He is too separate and free; not part of the Gemeinschaft. This is what Hitler cannot bear: the idea of a realm of reality separate from the group. If Germany is to “live,” it is necessary that everyone be devoted. The idea that someone is not attached or devoted negates the absolute nature of the tie. The Jew arouses the thought that there are “separate” individuals, people outside the symbiotic orbit—who are unwilling to sacrifice their lives for Germany.

Everything is connected, part of the omnipotent body. Therefore, no body is separate from the omnipotent body. Every body is connected to the one, true body. Defective people too are part of the German body. In order to create a body that contains no defects, defective bodies must be destroyed. Every body is a cell of the body politic. There is no such thing as an individual separate from the body politic. To maintain the perfection of the body, bad cells must be destroyed. Genocide is destruction of the bad cells within the national organism.

The nation or body politic symbolizes the self. The Nazi renounces individual existence in order to partake of the perfect, immortal body. Nationalism is negation of the self; renunciation of one’s own body. The nation is a substitute or replacement for the self. When one identifies with the nation, one feels very big and powerful, but also very small because one is a mere fragment or cell within the national organism.

The astonishing “achievement” of Hitler was to have actualized the fantasy of the nation as a body politic, treating metaphors as reality, acted out the fantasy contained within the metaphor. The Nazis treated Germany as if it was a real body. The crowds at the Nuremberg rallies represented for Hitler the apotheosis of Nazism. This is where word became flesh—the abstractions became concrete realities, the nation manifested itself as an actual “substance of flesh and blood.” The marching columns, cheering crowds embody the nation. Hitler can see the volk with his own eyes, know that it is a real, concrete thing. The marching bodies, so close together and unified, constitute the “cellular structure” of the nation. At Nuremberg, the national organism becomes a living reality.

Hitler was “head” of the national organism, controlling its cells. To “obey” or do your duty meant accepting one’s status as a cell of the omnipotent body politic. One was courageous enough to surrender to the symbiosis. To “be a man” meant absolute submission, not being frightened to give one’s life over to the nation. One was so strong that one could submit absolutely and still be a man. Being a man = submitting absolutely.

The Nazi accepted his status as a fragment of the body politic. He made no effort to resist the will of this body. The German soldier and SS-man divorced themselves from their own will became pure instruments of Hitler’s will. His will was re-located, projected into Hitler’s brain. One delegated one's will to Hitler in order to create the fantasy of many people acting as if one, thereby creating an omnipotent body. One abandoned one’s own will--became obedient--in order to partake in the fantasy of an omnipotent body.