246 Part II Psychodynamic Theories
A Psychohistorical Study of Hitler
Following Freud (see Chapter 2), Fromm examined historical documents in order
to sketch a psychological portrait of a prominent person, a technique called psy-
chohistory or psychobiography. The subject of Fromm’s most complete psychobio-
graphical study was Freud (Fromm, 1959), but Fromm (1941, 1973, 1986) also
wrote at length on the life of Adolf Hitler.
Fromm regarded Hitler as the world’s most conspicuous example of a person
with the syndrome of decay, possessing a combination of necrophilia, malignant nar-
cissism, and incestuous symbiosis. Hitler displayed all three pathological disorders.
He was attracted to death and destruction; narrowly focused on self-interests; and
driven by an incestuous devotion to the Germanic “race,” being fanatically dedicated
to preventing its blood from being polluted by Jews and other “non-Aryans.”
Unlike some psychoanalysts who look only to early childhood for clues to
adult personality, Fromm believed that each stage of development is important and
that nothing in Hitler’s early life bent him inevitably toward the syndrome of decay.
As a child, Hitler was somewhat spoiled by his mother, but her indulgence
did not cause his later pathology. It did, however, foster narcissistic feelings of
self-importance. “Hitler’s mother never became to him a person to whom he was
lovingly or tenderly attached. She was a symbol of the protecting and admiring god-
desses, but also of the goddess of death and chaos” (Fromm, 1973, p. 378).
Hitler was an above-average student in elementary school, but a failure in high
school. During adolescence, he experienced some conflict with his father, who wanted
him to be more responsible and to take a reliable civil service job. Hitler, on the other
hand, somewhat unrealistically desired to be an artist. Also during this time, he began
increasingly to lose himself in fantasy. His narcissism ignited a burning passion for
greatness as an artist or architect, but reality brought him failure after failure in this
area. “Each failure caused a graver wound to his narcissism and a deeper humiliation
than the previous one” (Fromm, 1973, p. 395). As
his failures grew in number, he became more
involved in his fantasy world, more resentful of
others, more motivated for revenge, and more
necrophilic.
Hitler’s terrible realization of his failure as
an artist was blunted by the outbreak of World
War I. His fierce ambition could now be chan-
neled into being a great war hero fighting for his
homeland. Although he was no great hero, he
was a responsible, disciplined, and dutiful sol-
dier. After the war, however, he experienced
more failure. Not only had his beloved nation
lost, but revolutionaries within Germany had
“attacked everything that was sacred to Hitler’s
reactionary nationalism, and they won.... The
victory of the revolutionaries gave Hitler’s
destructiveness its final and ineradicable form”
(Fromm, 1973, p. 394).Adolf Hitler personified for Fromm
the syndrome of decay. © Ingram
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