Nazism reveals irrational destruction at the heart of the historical process. Collective destructiveness is so common that we are tempted to say that it is normal. It is more accurate to state that political history is a form of psychopathology. It seemed recently there might be an “end to history.” But human beings could not bear existence in the absence of “something to kill and die for.” We create history. It is not something separate from us. This fantasy—that political destruction is something other than the self—lies at the core of our pathology.

In nationalism, the body politic takes the place of one’s own body. The volk is a double of the self: the king’s second body. Totalitarianism means that everyone is contained within and constitutes this body politic. There is one Reich, one Fuhrer: all Germans exist in a state of fusion with this body. There is no such thing as separation.

The totalitarian fantasy: nothing can exist separately from the omnipotent organism—its people as cells of an enormous body. St. Paul’s fantasy of the church—many human beings united into one body—is where this fantasy begins: the foundation of Western politics.

To identify with a body politic is to escape one’s own body: relocate the self into a new body. Sacrifice means abandoning one’s frail body in the name of an immortal one with which one imagines one is fused. Nazism grows out of this dream of an immortal body.

The “parasite” symbolizes an object that drains the life of the self. The parasite is the immortal object: none other than Germany. What is parasitic is precisely the belief in immortality: attachment to the nation—causing one to sacrifice concrete existence with its pleasures.

The parasite sucking Hitler’s blood—the blood of the people—is the German nation. The dream of immortality sucks the life out of one’s body. Jews symbolized this parasite: the fantasy of an immortal body within Hitler’s body.

According to Hitler, Jews went their own way; did their own thing. The idea of separation meant they were “getting away” with something. Why did the soldier have to sacrifice his life and not Jews? The Holocaust means, "Death to the non-believer:” proof of the reality of Germany. The Final Solution was undertaken to show how futile it is to attempt to evade the obligation to sacrifice one’s life.

Historians look at narratives of war and conquest as if they possess a real or practical meaning. The sound and the fury signify nothing. However, the human race sees war as a sign of its humanity: its capacity to rise above other animals; to sacrifice for abstract concepts.

The sacrifice of concrete existence to omnipotent objects (the fantasy of immortality) is the source of the experience of suffering. One needs to feed the object. The omnipotent nation is the parasite draining one’s lifeblood. The parasite is the negative of the idealized object: fantasy of omnipotence in its destructive guise.

Jews symbolized the negative version of the idealized object: desire for immortality as death and destruction. Jews represented doubt or skepticism: Germany experienced as a force of death. Perception of the fantasy of immortality as source of destruction is what disintegrates the wish to attach to Germany. But Hitler cannot bear separation: “That no one can, no one must say to me.”

The Nazis externalized the struggle for survival, “to be or not to be,” into the German nation. Germany would be a perfect, omnipotent body containing no weakness, no death, no imperfection. The German body would consist of millions of Germans: an all-mighty, indestructible body.

Hitler wished to sacrifice the German people to the idea of the volk. He feeds the blood of his soldiers to this fantasy. Jews symbolized resistance to this fantasy: deserters or traitors who didn’t believe. Lack of belief in Germany is what made the Jew a force of disintegration. Jews symbolized destruction of the fantasy.

Hitler’s genius consisted of putting forth ideas in words and phrases that precisely embodied the national fantasy. Germans were obedient to Hitler because he articulated or expressed something inside of them. Hitler brought forth a fantasy—and seduced the German people to act upon it.

The Nazis brought the death camps into being—performed the Final Solution—as the articulation of a meaningful fantasy. Hitler aspired to “save the nation:” to rescue Germany. This fantasy united the German people. Killing Jews was part and parcel of the fantasy of rescuing Germany—killing enemies working to destroy Germany.

The shared belief system or fantasy uniting Germans was the source of everything that occurred. An ideology “feels true” to the people who embrace it. It seems logical when it resonates with a shared fantasy. History enacts shared fantasies. “Events” follow based on cultural narratives. What is enacted confirms the truth of an ideological fantasy.

Nazism reveals irrational destructiveness at the heart of the historical process. Collective destructiveness is so common that we are tempted to say that it is normal. Perhaps it is more accurate to state that political history is a form of psychopathology. It seemed recently that there would be an “end to history.” But human beings could not bear existence in the absence of “something to kill and die for.”

We create history. It is not something separate from us. This fantasy—that politics is something other than the self—lies at the core of our pathology. We pretend destruction is coming from afar. We deny responsibility.

The monumental destructiveness of Nazism allows a “foot in the door.” Hitler carried certain political fantasies to a grotesque, bizarre conclusion. He made a mockery of the very ideologies he defended. He revealed nationalism as profound pathology: its passion for identifying and killing “enemies.”

The Nazis enacted a fantastic, even psychotic, fantasy. But the fantasy they enacted is not radically different from the fantasy that other societies have enacted throughout history. The issue of “banality” conveys the idea that the ordinary and psychotic go together. Psychotic enactments are so common in history that we shy away from using the term psychotic. This would imply that shared psychosis constitutes the essence of the historical process.

Political violence is undertaken in the name of “the nation” or “the people.” It is conceived as moral and necessary. “Evil” actions are undertaken—in the name of destroying evil. Destroying evil means killing the enemy. We love war because it gives us the opportunity to kill enemies, that is, to destroy evil. Hitler carried out ideas about destroying an enemy to an extent that they had never been carried out before.

We are unwilling to say that the grotesque acts undertaken by the Nazis grew out of the most ordinary political discourse, namely “love of country.” Hitler declared: “We may be inhumane, but if we rescue Germany we have performed the greatest deed in the world.” Radical violence is justified when undertaken in the name of rescuing a sacred ideal.

There is a Disneyland dimension to our capacity to accept as “normal” highly pathological forms of political behavior. People embrace and enjoy this normal destructiveness. Everyone wants to believe that there is “something to kill and die for:” confirming our belief in superordinate values beyond concrete existence.