Hitler's Ideology: A Study in Psychoanalytic Sociology For information on ordering, please click here. “Such a great book. Incredibly precise, so challenging, the lines of thought are so clear.” —Konnilyn Feig, Ph. D., author of Hitler’s Death Camps: The Sanity of Madness

Studying Mein Kampf and Hitler’s speeches, I noticed the recurrence of certain images, phrases and metaphors. These metaphors focused on the body, specifically on the idea of the German nation as an organism or body politic.

The list of 32 Tables appearing directly below conveys the central themes of Hitler’s ideology. These Table constitute the core—the skeleton or bedrock—of Hitler’s Ideology.

Table 1, for example, “The Country is a Living Organism,” contains seventeen statements from Mein Kampf and Hitler’s speeches. For example, “In place of the State must be set the living organism—the people” and “The German people had become a body corporate pulsing through and through with a vital inner life.”

Table 3, “The Disintegration of the National Body, consists of twenty-nine statements. For example: “The Jew becomes a ‘ferment of decomposition’ among people, and in the broader sense a dissolver of human culture” and “If these critics were to have their way, Germany would fall to pieces.”

In the LSS Newsletters to follow, I will reproduce from Hitler’s Ideology one of the Tables to illustrate how I presented my data.

In the Preface to Hitler’s Ideology, I state that—in aspiring to establish the science of psychoanalytic sociology—I was adhering to the “standards of inductive rigor required in the experimental sciences.” By presenting my findings in tabular form, I sought to clarify and simplify the data. The tables would enable readers to evaluate the evidence that had given rise to—supported—a specific interpretations.

In the Introduction, I explained that my book represented an empirical study of the “relationship between Hitler’s phantasies and his ideology.” I wanted to demonstrate how Hitler’s phantasies, projected into social reality, “shaped his beliefs and defined how he perceived the world.”

I used the term “primary process imagery” to characterize the organic metaphors that appeared throughout Hitler’s writings and speeches. My assumption was that these metaphors conveyed how Hitler felt and thought about terms such as “Germany,” “the Jew,” etc. I wanted to show how Hitler’s metaphors revealed his phantasies and defined his perception of reality.

List of Tables