Adolf Hitler - the invasion of Poland 1939



Adolf Hitler - the invasion of Poland 1939.

One of the most far reaching decisions made in the twentieth century was that made by Adolf Hitler, leader of Germany, to invade Poland in 1939. His decision led directly to the Second World War, and the deaths of millions.

Hitler was an unusual personality. He was borne in Austria of poor parents, and as a youth, was withdrawn and somewhat solitary. He was very afraid of his father, and there seems to have been a constant battle of wills between them. After failing his art examinations (he had wanted to be a painter) and following his mother’s death he moved to Vienna, where he lived for three years as almost a down-and-out, doing a variety of menial work. During this time, his anti-Jewish and anti Slavic notions began to emerge.

Following a move to Munich, where he worked as an artist and house painter, and on the outbreak of the First World War, he joined the Army almost immediately. Although he remained a solitary person, he was a committed and brave soldier and was decorated several times. After the war, he worked as an agent for the Reichswehr, and developed an intense hatred for Communism.

There can be little doubt that Germany was harshly treated after the war.

Her industry was reined and restricted, her economy was in ruin, and people lived on the edge of poverty. There seems to be little doubt that given Hitler’s real patriotism, this atmosphere of deprivation fuelled his inner rage and hatred for all those who he perceived as oppressing or exploiting ‘his’ people.

His famous book, Mein Kampf (My Struggle) written while imprisoned for various violent offences reveals a lot about his personality.

He was something of a mystic, given to delusions about his own importance, and clearly felt he had been chosen by God to carry out this task of restoring Germany to Greatness, and ridding the world of those who opposed him.

He says “Therefore I believe I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator: by fighting off the Jews, I am fighting for the Lord’s work”.

He was subject to bouts of melancholy and depression, interspersed with periods of incredible energy. A magnetic orator, he was quickly able to enlist the general support of the German people for his expansionist and anti Jewish policies.

He genuinely believed that ‘conscience’ was a weakness, and like most bullies, held the weak in contempt, and feared and idolized those he saw as strong.

From a psychoanalytical viewpoint, Hitler could be said to have taken on his father’s harsh, repressive and totalitarian attitudes and demonstrated them in his own behavior. He displays all the characteristics of a neurotic psychopath.

He frequently used the Freudian defense of projection, denying faults in himself but attributing them to others. An anal character, he required total obedience and adherence to what he decided was appropriate.

From the humanistic/existentialist point of view, Hitler’s early years must have confirmed his essential ‘aloneness’. The feeling that nothing existed that was greater than himself, and that there were no external benchmarks against which he should be judged perhaps explains some of his excesses. Finally he may well have adopted the position suggested by Sartre that when it becomes too troublesome to accept that we do have ultimate responsibility for our actions, we can simply deny them. A feeling that he was guided, destined by some external force could easily have justified his decision to invade Poland. After all, in his view, it was not his fault - the Poles had deserved to be invaded.

Insofar as diversity and motivation are concerned, the concept did not exist in Hitler’s time. Even if it had, Hitler was temperamentally fanatically opposed to diversity in any form. Only that which conformed to his strictly Aryan ideal and theories of racial purity were acceptable in the One Thousand Year Reich.

Murray’s work on motivation and personality centred on his belief that we are driven by an internal state of disequilibrium and dissatisfaction, which we constantly try to assuage.

Leaving aside the basic biological needs for shelter food and sex, he suggested that we also have secondary needs – for achievement and recognition, dominance and aggression, affiliation and acceptance and nurturance and play.

He believed that our behaviour was the result of these secondary needs, and how and whether they were satisfied.

In Hitler’s case, it is clear that in the early part of his life, few if any of these were satisfied. He received little recognition as an artist, and no promotion in the Army beyond the rank of Corporal. By nature he was solitary, and received little nurture from a dominant and aggressive father.

His need for dominance and aggression were never satisfied, and were displayed all too clearly in his expansion of the National Socialist party and his treatment of groups and individuals which he perceived as weaker than himself.

All in all, Hitler’s megalomaniac personality and behaviour are a very good fit for Murray’s theory.

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