Hitler's Forgotten Library

[joeallonby]

Read the Langer book under the title "The Mind of Adolph Hitler".

Really creepy stuff, particularly the the history of his relationship with
his niece Geli who disappeared and was presumed murdered by Hitler very
early on.

The psychoanalysis in absentia has been discredited/credited back and forth
many times. Nevertheless, Langer's book comes across as well researched and
balanced to the point of cold-blooded neutrality. In this context, Hitler
seems even more monstrous when the reporter is unemotional and scientific.

Thanks again, Doug.

Peace
Joe

on 4/22/03 10:27 AM, pynchonoid at pynchonoid at yahoo.com wrote:

> <http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2003/05/ryback.htm>
> 
> The Atlantic Monthly | May 2003
> 
> [...]Hitler's habit of highlighting key concepts and
> passages is consonant with his theory on the "art of
> reading." In Chapter Two of Mein Kampf he observed,
> 
> A man who possesses the art of correct reading will,
> in studying any book, magazine, or pamphlet,
> instinctively and immediately perceive everything
> which in his opinion is worth permanently remembering,
> either because it is suited to his purpose or
> generally worth knowing ... Then, if life suddenly
> sets some question before us for examination or
> answer, the memory, if this method of reading is
> observed ... will derive all the individual items
> regarding these questions, assembled in the course of
> decades, [and] submit them to the mind for examination
> and reconsideration, until the question is clarified
> or answered. [...]
> 
> By his own admission, Hitler was not a big fan of
> novels, though he once ranked Gulliver's Travels,
> Robinson Crusoe, Uncle Tom's Cabin, and Don Quixote
> (he had a special affection for the edition
> illustrated by Gustave Dor?) among the world's
> greatest works of literature. The one novelist we know
> Hitler loved and read was Karl May, a German writer of
> cheap American-style westerns.[...] Hitler was wont to
> say that he had always been deeply
> impressed by the tactical finesse and circumspection
> that Karl May conferred upon his character Winnetou
> ... And he would add that during his reading hours at
> night, when faced by seemingly hopeless situations, he
> would still reach for those stories, that they gave
> him courage like works of philosophy for others or the
> Bible for elderly people. [...]
> 
> Among the piles of Nazi tripe (much of it printed on
> high-acid paper that is rapidly deteriorating) are
> more than 130 books on religious and spiritual
> subjects, ranging from Occidental occultism to Eastern
> mysticism to the teachings of Jesus Christ?books with
> titles such as Sunday Meditations; On Prayer; A Primer
> for Religious Questions, Large and Small; Large Truths
> About Mankind, the World and God. Also included were a
> German translation of E. Stanley Jones's 1931 best
> seller, The Christ of the Mount; and a 500-page work
> on the life and teachings of Jesus, published in 1935
> under the title The Son: The Evangelical Sources and
> Pronouncements of Jesus of Nazareth in Their Original
> Form and With the Jewish Influences. Some volumes date
> from the early 1920s, when Hitler was an obscure
> rabble-rouser on the fringe of Munich political life;
> others from his last years, when he dominated Europe.
> One leather-bound tome?with WORTE CHRISTI, or "Words
> of Christ," embossed in gold on the cover?was well
> worn, the silky, supple leather peeling upward in
> gentle curls along the edges. Human hands had
> obviously spent a lot of time with this book.
> [...] In the spring of 1943, while the outcome of
> World War II hung in the balance, the U.S. Office of
> Strategic Services?forerunner to the CIA?commissioned
> Walter Langer, a Boston-based psychoanalyst, to
> develop a "psychological profile" of Adolf Hitler. As
> Langer later recalled, this was the first time the
> U.S. government had attempted to psychoanalyze a world
> leader in order to determine "the things that make him
> tick." 
> Over the course of eight months, assisted by three
> field researchers and advised by three other experts
> in psychology, Langer compiled more than a thousand
> typewritten, single-spaced pages of material on his
> "patient": texts from speeches, excerpts from Mein
> Kampf, interviews with former Hitler associates, and
> virtually every printed source available. Langer
> wrote, 
> 
> A survey of all the evidence forces us to conclude
> that Hitler believes himself destined to become an
> Immortal Hitler, chosen by God to be the New Deliverer
> of Germany and the Founder of a new social order for
> the world. He firmly believes this and is certain that
> in spite of all the trials and tribulations through
> which he must pass he will finally attain that goal.
> The one condition is that he follow the dictates of
> the inner voice that have guided and protected him in
> the past.  [Bush, Slayer of Evildoers has that same
> tendency ...]
> 
> One of the most heavily marked books is Magic:
> History, Theory and Practice (1923), by Ernst
> Schertel. [...] According to a Web site for Germany's
> sadomasochistic community, Schertel wrote numerous
> books on flagellation and eroticism, and was "a
> central figure" in the German nudist movement of the
> 1920s and 1930s.
> 
> Hitler's copy of Magic bears a handwritten dedication
> from Schertel, scrawled on the title page in pencil. A
> 170-page softcover in large format, the book has been
> thoroughly read, and its margins scored repeatedly. I
> found a particularly thick pencil line beside the
> passage "He who does not carry demonic seeds within
> him will never give birth to a new world."   [...did
> somebody say Blicero...]
> 
> Among the numerous volumes dealing with the spiritual,
> the mystical, and the occult I found a typewritten
> manuscript that could well have served as a blueprint
> for Hitler's theology. This bound 230-page treatise is
> titled The Law of the World: The Coming Religion and
> was written by a Munich resident named Maximilian
> Riedel. [...] 
> 
> In this densely written treatise Riedel established
> the groundwork for his "new religion," replacing the
> Trinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost with a new
> tripartite unity, the "K?rper, Geist und Seele"?"body,
> mind, and soul." [...]
> Riedel's "trinity" seems to have attracted Hitler's
> particular attention. A dense penciled line parallels
> the following passage: "The problem with being
> objective is that we use objective criteria as the
> basis for human understanding in general, which means
> that the objective criteria, that is, the rational
> criteria, end up serving as the basis for all human
> understanding, perception and decision-making." By
> using the five traditional senses to achieve this
> "objectivity," Riedel declared, human beings exclude
> the possibility of perceiving?through the additional
> seven senses he identified?the deeper forces of the
> world, and are thus unable to achieve that unity of
> body, mind, and soul. "The human mind never decides
> things on its own, it is the result of a discourse
> between the body and the soul," he claimed.
> The sentence not only caught Hitler's
> attention?beneath it is a thick line, and beside it in
> the margin are three parallel pencil marks?but was
> echoed two years later in one of his monologues. "Mind
> and soul ultimately return to the collective being of
> the world," Hitler told some guests in December of
> 1941. "If there is a God, then he gives us not only
> life but also consciousness and awareness. If I live
> my life according to my God-given insights, then I
> cannot go wrong, and even if I do, I know I have acted
> in good faith." [...]
> 
> 
> 
> 
> =====
> <http://www.pynchonoid.blogspot.com/>
> 
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