Hitler ‘caught up in a web of religious delusions’
London – During World War II the British used every weapon at their disposal in the fight to defeat Hitler. One, however, was more subtle than most: psychoanalysis.
A secret report into Hitler’s mental state, drawn up by British intelligence, has been discovered after remaining unread since the war.
The document showed that analysts had noticed signs of paranoia in the Nazi leader’s rhetoric, and attempted to explain his preoccupation with ‘‘the Jewish poison’’.
It also suggests that he was caught up in ‘‘a web of religious delusions’’. The report’s author, John MacCurdy, a Cambridge psychologist, wrote that Hitler believed that ‘‘the Jews are the incarnation of Evil, while he is the incarnation of the Spirit of Good. He is a god by whose sacrifice victory over Evil may be achieved’’.
The document was found in a collection of papers belonging to the family of Dr Mark Abrams, a social scientist who worked with the BBC’S Overseas Propaganda Analysis Unit and the Psychological Warfare Board during the war.
Abrams, who died in 1994, went on to become a pioneer of market research and polling.
The paper, which was based on a speech by Hitler to the Reichstag in April 1942, was uncovered by Dr Scott Anthony, who is working on the history of public relations at the University of Cambridge.
Anthony said: ‘‘At the time that it was written, the tide was starting to turn against Germany. In response, Hitler began to turn his attentions to the German home front. This document shows that British Intelligence sensed this happening. Maccurdy recognised that, faced with external failure, the Nazi leader was focusing on a perceived ‘enemy within’ instead, namely the Jews.
‘‘Given that we now know that the Final Solution was commencing, this makes for poignant reading.’’ Abrams, who believed analysis of speeches could reveal the enemy’s subconscious mind, identified Hitler’s three ‘‘morbid tendencies’’: shamanism; epilepsy and paranoia.
By 1942, however, Hitler’s shamanism – ‘‘an exploitation of hysterical symptoms by which the shaman works himself up in the presence of a crowd until he believes he is transmitting messages from the spirits’’ – was on the wane. MacCurdy refers to the speech’s ‘‘dull flatness of delivery’’.
Instead his other two tendencies increased. Epilepsy referred to Hitler’s cold, ruthless streak, but also a tendency to lose heart when his ambitions failed. Mccurdy thought Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union which had stalled, had exposed this fatalism: ‘‘This is the speech of a man who is seriously contemplating the possibility of utter defeat, and sees hope for victory only in successful blockade of Britain by U-boat warfare.’’
Hitler’s growing paranoia meant an extension of his ‘‘Jew phobia’’, wrote Maccurdy. Previously, he said, Hitler had believed that international Jewry was bent on the destruction of Germany: ‘‘Now it is more of a universal diabolical agency.’’
His tendency to abandon an endeavour which seems fruitless, and his paranoid delusion of divinity, had combined in the myth of Hitler as a ‘‘dying god’’.
Maccurdy wrote: ‘‘He does not say this in so many words, but such a system of ideas would rationalise what he does say that is otherwise obscure.
‘‘The notion of a great military victory has passed into the background, while he poses more as a martyr, the speech ending on the theme of his death . . . It is probably impossible to exaggerate the importance of this delusion for German morale.’’
Documents about Abrams’ life are held by the Churchill Archives, University of Cambridge.