Hitler's Ideology: A Study in Psychoanalytic Sociology

Richard A. Koenigsberg

Library of Social Science

Through analysis of the images and metaphors contained within Hitler's writings and speeches, Koenigsberg reveals the deep structure the unconscious meaning of Hitler's belief system. He demonstrates that Hitler s actions the history he created followed as a logical consequence of the ideological fantasy that he conveyed to the German people. Hitler is studied in this work acknowledged as a classic not in terms of the idiosyncrasies of his personality, but as a political leader who embodied and enacted ideologies that dominated the Twentieth Century: nationalism, racism and war.

History

Europe

Koenigsberg examines the idea of the nation as a sacred object saturating our day-to-day reality. Through analysis of the writings of Hitler, Lenin, Sri Aurobindo and others, Koenigsberg articulates core fantasies underlying the ideology of nationalism. What racists and revolutionaries have in common is belief that a particular class of people constitutes a "disease" within the body politic--that must be "removed" if the nation is to survive.  In the final chapter, Koenigsberg examines the dynamics of totalitarianism--an extreme form of nationalism promising omnipotence through identification with a "great human community." Refusing to abandon the dream of omnipotence, radical nationalists, racists and revolutionaries are willing to sacrifice freedom and individuality.   Table of Contents  I. The Country, the Mother and Infantile Narcissism 1. Introduction 2. The Country as Suffering Mother 3. The Country as Omnipotent Mother 4. The Country as a Projection of Infantile Narcissism  II. The Country as a Living Organism 1. Racism and Revolution as a Wish to Eliminate the "Disease" from Within the Body of the Nation 2. The Disease Within the Nation as a Projection of Malignant Internal Objects  III. Revolution as a Struggle against Passivity 1. The Struggle Against Passivity: Hitler 2. The Struggle Against Passivity: Lenin 3. The Struggle Against Passivity: Aurobindo  IV. The Social Psychology of Nationalism 1. The "National Community" 2. Totalitarianism 3. The Renunciation of Personal Gratification in the Name of a Devotion to the Collectivity

The Psychoanalysis of Racism, Revolution and Nationalism

Politics & Social Sciences

Politics & Government

SYMBIOSIS AND SEPARATION lays the foundation for a psychoanalytic theory of culture and politics by focusing on how objects in the external world symbolize infantile objects and fantasies. Culture, Dr. Koenigsberg suggests, facilitates the break with infantile love-objects by representing reality as a realm that contains omnipotence and the possibility of unlimited gratification. Infantile fantasies of omnipotence are replaced by the dream of being bound in a symbiotic tie to one's culture. Society performs developmental functions, facilitating the displacement of psychic energy onto cultural ideals and objects. Koenigsberg develops a psychoanalytic theory of nationalism. Separation from the mother is experienced as mutilation of one's body--the loss of self. One binds to one's country to recover a part of the body experienced as lost. Nationalism seeks restoration of bodily wholeness ("Hitler is Germany, just as Germany is Hitler"). The body politic symbolizes the dual-unity of self and Other contained within a single object. Identification with one's nation, subsequently, may be experienced as oppressive, leading to a struggle for liberation. Koenigsberg illuminates our ambivalent attachment to cultural objects, which simultaneously enhance and diminish the self. 
 Table of Contents 
 I. The Dual Nature of the Human Ego II. The Conversation Process as a Response to Separation III. The Denial of Separateness IV. Internalization V. The Struggle for Separateness VI. The Fantasy of Merger as a Source of Anxiety VII. Conflict and Ambivalence Surrounding Separation-Individuation VIII. The Transitional Object and the Struggle to Separate IX. Culture as a Transitional Object X. The Bodily Roots of the Symbol XI. The Bodily Roots of Culture XII. Repression

Symbiosis and Separation: Towards a Psychology of Culture

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Psychology & Counseling

Nations Have the Right to Kill: Hitler, the Holocaust and War

Why did Hitler believe that it was necessary to destroy the Jewish race? What was the purpose and meaning of this extraordinary project that the Nazis called "The Final Solution?" In this pathbreaking book, Richard Koenigsberg shows how genocide grew out of the logic of warfare. Hitler reasoned that if he had the right to sacrifice his soldiers, he also had the right to send Jews to their deaths. Hitler embraced his role as military leader, stating in the mid-thirties that if millions of Germans had to die in the next war, he would not shrink from this sacrifice. Based on a meticulous reading of Hitler's speeches and Mein Kampf, Koenigsberg shows how Hitler's thinking about warfare led to his decision to exterminate the Jews. Hitler reflected that if he had no compunctions about sending the "best" people to die in battle--German soldiers--why would he not also have the right to send the "worst" people--mortal enemies of Germany--to their deaths? Nations Have the Right

Engineering & Transportation

Engineering

Why did Hitler believe that it was necessary to destroy the Jewish race? What was the purpose and meaning of this extraordinary project that the Nazis called "The Final Solution?" In this pathbreaking book, Richard Koenigsberg shows how genocide grew out of the logic of warfare. Hitler reasoned that if he had the right to sacrifice his soldiers, he also had the right to send Jews to their deaths. 
 Hitler embraced his role as military leader, stating in the mid-thirties that if millions of Germans had to die in the next war, he would not shrink from this sacrifice. Based on a meticulous reading of Hitler's speeches and Mein Kampf, Koenigsberg shows how Hitler's thinking about warfare led to his decision to exterminate the Jews. Hitler reflected that if he had no compunctions about sending the "best" people to die in battle--German soldiers--why would he not also have the right to send the "worst" people--mortal enemies of Germany--to their deaths? 
 Nations Have the Right to Kill focuses on World War I and the Holocaust as two instances of societal mass-slaughter. Hitler fought in the First World War, witnessed the death of hundreds of his comrades, and knew that two million German soldiers had perished. He understood that soldiers are required to go into battle when their nations ask them to do so. But if nations can ask their healthiest and best people to die, why can they not also ask their least healthy and worst people to die? Koenigsberg shows how both the euthanasia program and Holocaust grew out of this line of thought. 
 Nazi ideology revolved around the idea that everyone was required to die for Germany. Just as German soldiers gave their bodies over to the nation-state--became obedient unto death--so Jews would be compelled to do so. The Final Solution sought to convey the message: "Do not imagine that anyone is exempt from the obligation to suffer and to die for Germany!"

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Richard A. Koenigsberg. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Richard A. Koenigsberg

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Richard A. Koenigsberg. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Hitler's Ideology: A Study in Psychoanalytic Sociology

Hitler's Ideology: A Study in Psychoanalytic Sociology

The Psychoanalysis of Racism, Revolution and Nationalism

Symbiosis and Separation: Towards a Psychology of Culture

Nations Have the Right to Kill: Hitler, the Holocaust and War

Nations Have the Right to Kill: Hitler, the Holocaust and War

The Psychoanalysis of Racism, Revolution and Nationalism