Still trying to explain Hitler

[Paul Mackin]

Don't know how much the reviewed book helps explain Hitler. More grist 
for the mill, though.

Theories that tie brilliance (including perverse brilliance) to 
accompaning disfunctions such as extreme paranoia hold a fascination, 
because they point to a  kind of catch 22 in earthly existence I think 
many of us sense.


P.





http://nytimes.com/2003/01/01/books/01ANGI.html?pagewanted=1

"Central to Ms. Hayden's premise is the fact that in the later stages of 
syphilis the disease can affect the brain in much the same manner as 
does manic-depressive illness, another condition often associated with 
artistic genius. As neuro-syphilis sets in, she says, episodes of pain 
and depression are rewarded with sessions of "creative euphoria, 
electrified, joyous energy" and "heightened perception, dazzling new 
insights, and almost mystical knowledge." The author proposes that 
Beethoven's sublime final compositions, like the "Ode to Joy" of the 
Ninth Symphony, or the serenely shocking golds and blues of van Gogh's 
last paintings, may owe something to Treponema pallidum, the syphilis 
bacterium, which affects the central nervous system like a psychoactive 
drug and induces the illusion of great light.

"Or great darkness. Hitler's pathologic paranoia and his profound hatred 
of Jews were possibly accentuated by syphilis, Ms. Hayden writes, which 
he may have contracted as a young man from a prostitute, who may or may 
not have been Jewish. In "Mein Kampf," Ms. Hayden points out, Hitler 
devotes an inordinate number of pages to the horrors of syphilis, a 
disease he links to Jews."