CrimePsych

Erich Fromm, the well known personality theorist that one introduced in The Syndrome of Decay & Growth used to also study historical documents of prominent persons in history in an attempt to reconstruct a psychological portrait of said person. One of the more famous ones he conducted, that he thought demonstrated the epitome of the syndrome of decay, was Adolf Hitler, who he wrote several papers about.

Hitler was, according to Fromm’s analysis, an individual who demonstrated all three pathological disorders to an extreme; he was attracted to both death and destruction, was very much focused on himself and his own interests while his ‘mother’ was that of the Germanic ‘race’, which he wanted to prevent from becoming contaminated by the Jews as well as other non-Aryan individuals.

While the vast majority of personality theorists suggest that the only important time in a developing person’s life is their childhood, in regards to personality development, Fromm believed that every stage of development needed to be taken into consideration. One of his most famous examples that he used to show support for his ideas was that of Adolf Hitler who’s early life was as normal as the kid next door with nothing that would send him towards the extreme known as the ‘syndrome of decay’. While his mother did spoil him a fair bit, this did not cause his pathology; it only fostered his narcissistic personality style. Hitler was also never lovingly or tenderly attached to his mother – although she was a symbol of protection and admiration for him she was also seen as the goddess of death and chaos.

While Hitler performed at an above average level while in elementary school his entire high school career was plagued by failure. During his adolescence he had ongoing conflicts with his father who wanted him to be a more responsible person and take a civil service job that would give him a reliable and steady income. Hitler however, unrealistically as it seems, desired to be an artist and began losing himself in a world of imagination and fantasy. His narcissism created an incessant need for him to be a famous artist or architect but reality brought him nothing but failure after failure. As with most people, failure can cause wounded pride, and this was definitely the case with Hitler however he felt deeply humiliated each time something didn’t go the way he wanted it. The end result was more failure and a total immersion in his world of fantasy while his personality became more resentful and more necrophilic with a larger need for revenge.

“This was the last straw and brought into existence Hitler’s final and irrevocable form of pathological destructiveness.”

While his continued failures were blunted by the outbreak of WWI, his personality was already well on the way towards the extreme. As the war raged Hitler channelled his ambition for greatness hoping to become a great war hero but alas, this was not to eventuate either. While he never achieved his idolised war hero status he was a responsible, dutiful and disciplined soldier however after the war concluded his failures continued. Not only had Germany lost the war (another nail in the coffin) but revolutionaries inside Germany attacked everything that was sacred to him and won. This was the last straw and brought into existence Hitler’s final and irrevocable form of pathological destructiveness.

Hitler’s necrophilic side was expressed by his unflinching desire to have his enemies not only surrender but his demand that they be totally annihilated. His mania for destroying buildings and cities, his orders to kill ‘defective’ persons i.e. those with a handicap etc, his boredom and the fact that he ordered the execution and slaughter of millions of persons, primarily Jews, also demonstrate this.

On the narcissism front he was only ever interested in himself, his own plans and his own proposed ideology. He had an extremely inflated sense of self importance claiming he could build a ‘thousand year Reich’ while he was only ever interested in people he could use to advance his own selfish needs and desires. His relationships with women were also narcissistic in nature, lacking in genuine love and tenderness, they were always focused solely around his desire for personal pleasure which was usually achieved through voyeuristic fulfilment.

The last of the three disorders to make up the syndrome of decay, and yet another that Hitler was considered to be at the extreme end of the scale for, is that of incestuous symbiosis. The host for his obsession was not a person or group as is generally more common but that of the Germanic race who he was passionately and unequivocally devoted to. He was also a sadomasochist who had a tendency to be withdrawn and lacked the ability or feelings of genuine love and compassion. These characteristics did not make Hitler psychotic, just made him a very heinous and violent individual.

“Any analysis that would distort Hitler’s picture by depriving him of his humanity would only intensify the tendency to be blind to the potential Hitlers unless they wear horns” – Erich Fromm, 1973

It is also important to note here that while this article focused on Hitler and his pathologies there is one distinct group of modern day people that a vast majority of this could likely be applied to; that of the spree killer or mass murderer. While research would need to be conducted to confirm this, having read a lot on the subject there appears to be a relationship between the two, including but definitely not limited to the withdrawn attitude and fantasy world. A future article will be focused on these observations.