HITLER’S INSANITY
ANDREW NORMAN BRINGS HIS KNOWLEDGE AS AN AUTHOR AND PHYSICIAN TO CAST NEW LIGHT ON HITLER’S MENTAL DISORDERS
Author: Andrew Norman Publisher: Fonthill Media Price: £25 Released: Out now
Adolf Hitler continues to fascinate like no other tyrant in history. It is not that his reign of terror was any more repellent than the horrors perpetrated by the likes of Genghis Khan, Attila or, for that matter, the führer’s contemporary, Joseph Stalin. In the latter’s case, Stalin’s crimes failed to cause the same outrage because, on the one hand, the evils of Communism went ignored, when not denied, by the influential left-wing Western intelligentsia, along with the working classes who were led to believe in Communism as their defender against capitalist exploitation. The simple fact that the USSR was a crucial ally in the war against Nazism served to deflect attention from Stalin’s genocidal acts. Another helpful factor in Stalin’s favour was his avuncular demeanour, which belied a murderous character so patently conspicuous in Hitler’s fiendish eyes.
Hitler was possessed of a hysterical mind and, unlike the shadowy Stalin, he made no attempt to conceal his demonic temperament. Those around him were only too aware they were dealing with a man given to loss of reason, one who at the snap of a finger could have them stood in front of an SS firing squad.
The madness of Hitler is masterfully revealed by Andrew Norman, who brings to his study the credentials of a trained physician as well as seasoned biographer. The author has drawn on testimonials of top Nazi leaders, many given at the Nuremberg war crimes trials. Their chilling commentaries show how Hitler’s henchmen were mesmerised by Hitler’s powerful, deranged personality. Take, for instance, the remarks of Nazi foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, made shortly before he was hanged: “I was impressed with him [Hitler] from the moment I first met him, in 1932. He had terrific power, especially in his eyes. Hitler always, until the end, and even now, had a strange fascination over me.”
Julius Streicher was one of the most sinister and vicious characters in Hitler’s entourage. The Nazi propagandist and merciless anti-semite likewise admitted to having been captivated by Hitler at their first encounter, when Streicher claimed to having experienced something “which transcended the commonplace”. He heard an “inner voice”, that bid him get up and introduce himself to this messianic speaker.
There is the intriguing question of what brought on Hitler’s insanity. Eduard Bloch, the family’s personal physician and ironically an Austrian Jew, was impressed by the young Hitler’s almost obsessive devotion to his mother. Bloch described how Hitler’s personality changed dramatically “and for the worse” after his mother’s death.
August Kubizek, an acquaintance of Hitler’s youth, believed that family intermarriage was a factor in his schizophrenia.
While Norman casts doubt on the alleged inbreeding among Hitler’s immediate forebears, there is evidence of hereditary schizophrenia. Syphilis arises as another likely factor in Hitler’s mental degeneration. His personal physician, Theodor Morell, was certain the führer was in the final stages of the ailment and may even have suffered from Parkinson’s Disease. “What the German people did not know about Hitler,” Norman wrote, “was that the Führer heard voices, so-called command hallucinations.” The author goes on to explain that Hitler would seek solitude in the woods, waiting for voices to speak and issue him his instructions.
That Hitler was mad is beyond doubt. What Norman brings to light is Hitler’s own awareness of his mental disorder, and how his ailments hastened his decline, and with it the destruction of much of Europe.
“THAT HITLER WAS MAD IS BEYOND DOUBT. WHAT NORMAN BRINGS TO LIGHT IS HITLER’S OWN AWARENESS OF HIS MENTAL DISORDER”