13 - Is Hitler mad? Personality disorders

Summary

Is Hitler mad? was apparently a question psychologists and psychiatrists had to get used to being asked by lay people between 1933 and 1945. The US government asked the same question, privately, to Henry A. Murray, whose theory of 20 personality needs is described in Chapter 8, and who specialised in in-depth analyses of personality. His report, which was kept secret for many years, gave a qualified yes to the lay person's question. Hitler did not appear to suffer from a diagnosable ‘mental illness’, such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder (known in Murray's day as manic depression). Hitler did, however, appear to Murray to have a personality disorder, specifically counteractive narcism (sic.), which is presently called narcissistic personality disorder. It is defined as ‘a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behaviour), need for admiration, and lack of empathy’. Murray based his analysis on a detailed study of everything known about Hitler. Here are three, of many, examples:

• narcissistic sensitivity (low tolerance of criticism): Hitler could never stand any criticism of his paintings;

• need for recognition (self-exhibition) (extravagant demands for attention and applause): the way Hitler was presented at the Nuremberg rallies;

• need for rejection (verbal depreciation): extract from Mein Kampf: it brought me internal happiness to realise definitely that the Jew was no German.

Murray made a prediction that was confirmed: that defeat would result in Hitler killing himself.