The article I cited in my discussion of the mass death that occurred at the end of the Second World War is entitled “The Cult Leader as Agent of a Psychotic Fantasy of Masochistic Group Death: The ‘Revolutionary Suicide’ in Jonestown.” The passages in this article do not refer to what happened during the last days of Nazi Germany, but rather illuminate the final days of the Peoples Temple movement and mass suicide at Jonestown.

Another article examining the Jonestown mass suicide from a clinical psychology perspective is entitled “The Group Psychology of Mass Madness.”

The authors propose the concept of “collective pathological regression within a charismatically led mass movement.” Their analysis of the Reverend Jim Jones shows how his actions triggered the “mass madness that engulfed the inhabitants of Jonestown.”

The following terms, then, were used by the mental health professionals I have cited in their analysis of the mass suicide at Jonestown: psychotic fantasy, masochistic group death, revolutionary suicide, mass madness and collective psychological regression.

We witness in the final days of the Third Reich a case of mass slaughter on a scale that dwarfs what occurred at Jonestown. During the last year of the war, 1945, nearly 900 Germans died every two hours, every day, for four consecutive months. Certainly terms like “masochistic group death,” “revolutionary suicide” and “mass madness” are applicable to the Nazi case.

Yet in 45 years of research, I do not recall having come across a clinical study of the mass death in Germany at the end of the Second World comparable to the ones I have cited on the Jonestown suicide. Studies of Hitler’s psychopathology are common, but rarely does one find studies addressing the pathology of the entire German society.

Why do we find it so easy to pathologize individuals and “cults,” but so difficult to conceptualize large-scale social and political movements as forms of psychopathology—however bizarre and massively destructive they may be?

Because of radical Islam, people have begun to look more closely at the relationship between psychopathology and politics. Paul Berman in Terrorism and Liberalism (2003) compares suicidal violence in the Middle East with the suicidal violence of the Nazis, observing that Nazis were victimizers, but also the “boldest, greatest and most sublime of death’s victims.” Just as Nazis died for Hitler and Germany, so suicide bombers at the World Trade Center died for Bin Laden and Allah.

Addressing the issue of collective psychopathology, Berman struggles to embrace his conclusions. It is very odd, he writes, to think that millions or tens of millions of people might end up “joining a pathological political movement.”

Individual madmen might step forward, Berman states, but surely “millions of people are not going to choose death, and the Jonestowns of this world are not going to take over entire societies.” Looking at the historical record, however, one is compelled to conclude that indeed millions of people have chosen death and Jonestowns have taken over entire societies on many occasions.

I’ve noted that over 200 million people died in the 20th century as a result of political violence initiated by nations and ideological movements. Some of the best-known cases of political slaughter occurred in Stalin’s Soviet Union, in Mao’s China, in Pol Pot’s Cambodia and of course in Nazi Germany.

Where are clinical studies of these enormous cultural events that brought death and injury to millions of human beings? Why do people find it easy to speak of psychopathology when analyzing the case of Jonestown, yet difficult to apply this language to episodes like the last days of Nazism—even though the magnitude and lethality of what occurred in Germany was so far greater?

The most obvious difference is that the Peoples Temple constituted a fringe group, whereas Nazism represented a political movement within a major Western nation. The Peoples Temple consisted of a small number of people, whereas Nazism constituted a mass movement with tens of millions of adherents. When this many people embrace a movement, we don’t ordinarily call it a cult.

Producing ample evidence to support his concept of political psychopathology, Berman still scratches his head as if befuddled. “Is the world truly a place,” he asks, “where mass movements bedeck themselves in shrouds and march to the cemetery?” It is time to embrace the reality that the world is indeed in such a place. During the course of the 20th century, political leaders created mass movements that persuaded people to march to the cemetery.

I propose a concept of collective psychopathology that is contained within the normal structures of society. Typical forms of historical writing do not allow for this. Historians function primarily to report and record what happened. The nature of the historical craft is to normalize whatever has occurred, however destructive, strange or bizarre the events may seem.

What is the meaning of civilizational psychopathology—our tendency toward collective self-destruction? The concept of “masochistic group death”—the phrase used by Twemblow and Hough to describe what occurred at Jonestown—is an entirely appropriate characterization of the Nazi case. Drumming up support for the war, Goebbels instructed Germans that it was their duty to die for Germany, proclaiming: “Fuehrer command! We will follow.” The German people followed Hitler and Goebbels into the valley of death.

Nazi leaders—like Jim Jones—seduced their people to die in the name of the movement that they embraced, embodied and promoted. They asked German soldiers to be obedient unto death. When told that 30,000 German officers had died in a futile effort to defend Berlin, Hitler declared, “But that’s what young men are for.”