Foundation for the Study of Political Pathology

Andrew Hammer, Executive Director

Presents

Why did Hitler initiate the Final Solution and take Germany to war? Based on analysis of Hitler’s rhetoric—the words, images, and metaphors contained within his writing and speeches—Koenigsberg’s study reveals the “hidden narratives” that were the source of genocide. Hitler’s actions—the history he created—followed as a consequence of his fantasy that by destroying the Jewish “disease” Germany might live forever.

“This work deserves to be an instant classic. With care and caution, Koenigsberg remains close to the data from which he adduces his theory. Koenigsberg suggests that what is at stake is larger than an explanation of Hitler, Nazism, or even nationalism: it is, rather, an explanation of culture itself. Koenigsberg's genius has unlocked many of the unconscious secrets of a timeless drama.”
    —Howard F. Stein, Journal of Psychoanalytic Anthropology

“Brilliant and fascinating: Koenigsberg's work is so insightful that it should be required reading in the education of everyone in the civilized world.”
     —Joe E. Wyatt, Society of Modern Psychoanalysis

“This is a truly bold and provocative treatise. The nation is seen as the symbolic embodiment of a communal ego, cleansed of the ‘badness’ introduced by a particular class of persons within a nation’s boundaries whose ‘removal’ by whatever means is easily rationalized if goodness is to be restored. The interpretations are intriguing and illuminating, the scholarship creative and careful. Koenigsberg provides a provocative account of the profound interplay of exceptional political commitments and psychopathology.”
     —Dan B. Thomas, Professor of Political Science in the journal Political Psychology

Table of Contents

• Part I: Ideology and Phantasy
  • Chapter I: Hitler's Ideology
    1. Destructive Forces in the National Body
    2. The Source of Destructive Forces
    3. The Struggle Against Submission
    4. The Union of Austria and Germany
    5. The Individual and the Nation
    6. Conclusions: the Psychological Meaning of Hitler's Ideology
  • Chapter II: The Death of Hitler's Mother
    1. The National Body = Hitler's Dying Mother
    2. The Denial of Death
    3. The Struggle Against Submission
    4. Reality and Unconscious Fantasy
    5. Summary and Conclusions
• Part II: Social Behavior
  • Chapter III: Anti-Semitism
    1. The Maintenance of the "Goodness" of the German People
    2. "Separating" the Jew
    3. Psychodynamics
  • Chapter IV: War
    1. War as a Struggle Against Death
    2. "Protecting the Rear"
    3. The Need for Territory
    4. Summary: Motives for War
• Part III: Theory
  • Chapter V: Ideology and Fantasy
  • Chapter VI: Nationalism
    1. Introduction
    2. The Nationalist Ideology
    3. The Denial of Separateness
    4. Serving the Country = Serving the Mother
    5. The Country as a Projection of Infantile Narcissism
    6. "Save the Country"
    7. The Maintenance of the "Goodness" of the Nation
    8. Summary and Conclusions

About the Author

Richard Koenigsberg is a psychologist and historian, considered a leading authority on Hitler and Nazism. His influential book, Hitler's Ideology, has been called "the best critical analysis of Hitler's thought." His keynote addresses on warfare and genocide include presentations at the Church Center of the United Nations, the United World College, the Colloquium on Violence and Religion, and at the Annual Holocaust Conference.

He is Director of the Library of Social Science, a firm devoted to the development and promotion of significant scholarship. His Ideologies of War website is a highly regarded online platform which publishes work by the most prominent authors in the field--and has attracted a world-wide audience.

His other books include Nations Have the Right to Kill and The Psychoanalysis of Racism, Revolution and Nationalism. He holds a PhD in Social Psychology from the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research.