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Hitler's Ideology Embodied Metaphor, Fantasy and History Richard A. Koenigsberg |
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2007.
(Originally published as: Hitler's Ideology: A Study in Psychoanalytic Sociology) 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 Hitler’s ideology and the Holocaust. Koenigsberg’s book was the first to study political rhetoric from the perspective of embodied metaphor. Conceiving of the Jew as a “force of disintegration,” parasite, and as a bacteria within the German body politic, the Final Solution represented a struggle to destroy the source of Germany’s disease—and thereby to save the nation. Hitler often is thought of as an anomaly. Koenigsberg’s classic study demonstrates that Hitler acted based on the conventional ideology of nationalism: devotion to one’s nation and a desire to destroy its enemies; willingness to die and kill—to sacrifice lives—in the name of a sacred object. Hitler’s actions—the history he created—followed as a logical consequence of the ideology that he promoted. Hitler imagined that by destroying the Jewish disease—source of death—Germany might live forever. The Final Solution grew out of a fantasy about an immortal body (politic). Richard Koenigsberg received his Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research. He has been writing and lecturing on Hitler, Nazism and the Holocaust for nearly forty years. Formerly a Professor of Behavioral Science, he presently is Director of the Center for the Study of War, Genocide and Terrorism. His online writings have generated excitement throughout the world. REVIEWS: "When political figures refer to national crises as 'cancers,' Richard Koenigsberg feels its no accident. He feels such expressions are echoes of a nation's hidden belief systems. If you can understand the underlying fantasies that provide politicians with such rhetoric, then you can understand the country. This book presents an ingenious technique for identifying the psychological origins of political and social events." --The Village Voice “This work deserves to be an instant classic. With care and caution, Koenigsberg remains close to the data. 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 “One of the most exciting books to appear in a long time, suggesting implications for a deeper insight into the relationship between the human psyche and social policy. Koenigsberg shows that Hitler’s behavior followed as a logical consequence of his perception of reality. The amount of data that Koenigsberg provides is overwhelming. Hitler speaks of Germany as a living organism and as a national body afflicted with a disintegrating disease, and of the Jew as a deadly poison and a parasite. The implications of what Koenigsberg writes are far-reaching.” --Ronald A. Brauner, The Reconstructionist | ||
