patriotism?

[Crezth]

Hey. Hey guys. I've got an idea.

Let's... oh, wait for it, this is brilliant... not talk about Hitler.

But comparing Hitler to the opposition is such an easy way to weasel out of productive dialogue!

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

But comparing Hitler to the opposition is such an easy way to weasel out of productive dialogue!

Sometimes, you can't take the easy way out. You have to go the hard route.

 

[timtofly]

Hey. Hey guys. I've got an idea.

Let's... oh, wait for it, this is brilliant... not talk about Hitler.

He wasn't patriotic enough?

 

[Traitorfish]

Hitler was quite radical... He used nationalism to get people to back his plan, but he was no conservative.

However, it's probably impossible to classify him since he was completely insane.

Eh, plenty of scholars have made comparative studies of the National Socialist movement, and none of them have turned up insanity as the defining characteristic which distinguishes it from other forms of ultra-nationalism. I think it's more true to say that it's impossible to adequately describe fascism (edit: Fascism or Nazism, before Park gets another headache ) on a silly little chart, because: silly little chart.

 

[Leoreth]

Hitler definitely was not insane in the clinical sense during his rise to power and his early tenure. And I think it's dangerous to describe him that way.

 

[Traitorfish]

At any rate, it would be a uniquely powerful psychosis that managed to generalise itself to all two million members (c.1933) of the NSDAP.

 

[Domen]

Hey. Hey guys. I've got an idea.

Let's... oh, wait for it, this is brilliant... not talk about Hitler.

It's a good idea. Let's watch instead:


Link to video.


Link to video.

 

[Aleksey_aka_al]

russia is barely an issue at all in austrian curricula

So they do not cover such topics as Austrian genocide of Russians in XX century? I'm not surprised.

 

[red_elk]

So they do not cover such topics as Austrian genocide of Russians in XX century? I'm not surprised.

Aleksey, holy king is not a russophobe, he simply expressed his disagreement with your statement about patriotism in a bit strange form . I think you guys misunderstood each other.

 

[kochman]

Hitler definitely was not insane in the clinical sense during his rise to power and his early tenure. And I think it's dangerous to describe him that way.

I've read a pretty good book by a psychologist from Austria who would beg to differ...

http://www.amazon.com/Hitler-Diagno...d=1341520249&sr=8-1&keywords=hitler+diagnosis

Hitler: Diagnosis of a Destructive Prophet [Paperback]
Fritz Redlich (Author)

 

[Ergo Sum]

I've read a pretty good book by a psychologist from Austria who would beg to differ...

http://www.amazon.com/Hitler-Diagno...d=1341520249&sr=8-1&keywords=hitler+diagnosis

Hitler: Diagnosis of a Destructive Prophet [Paperback]
Fritz Redlich (Author)

Psychologists are not to be trusted.

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

Psychologists are not to be trusted.

That's a pretty sweeping condemnation. Care to explain?

 

[madviking]

I think they meant psychiatrist.

In my mind, psychology isn't a science.

 

[Dachs]

If the psychiatrist is not in actual contact with the patient, a diagnosis is merely intellectual onanism, useless at best and actively misleading at worst. If the patient happens to be dead for the diagnosis, so much the worse.

Any attempt to declare Hitler insane after the fact is medically unsupportable and ridiculous.

 

[Leoreth]

I've read a pretty good book by a psychologist from Austria who would beg to differ...

http://www.amazon.com/Hitler-Diagno...d=1341520249&sr=8-1&keywords=hitler+diagnosis

Hitler: Diagnosis of a Destructive Prophet [Paperback]
Fritz Redlich (Author)

I can only read the summary so please excuse me if it's incomplete:

The final chapter offers a psychiatric portrait of Hitler, and it is here that Redlich's analysis reveals the highly combustible mixture of denial, projection, sexual repression, paranoid delusion, and narcissistic rage that transformed Hitler from an aimless, friendless, and vaguely resentful youth into the most destructive force of the twentieth century.

I could kind of agree with all of these terms from what I know about Hitler. None of them amount to actual insanity, though.

And what Dachs said of course.

 

[holy king]

there is no such thing as "insanity". either you require psychiatric treatment or you dont.

given that hitler was a pretty big danger to others he would indeed have required treatment.

 

[kochman]

I can only read the summary so please excuse me if it's incomplete:

I could kind of agree with all of these terms from what I know about Hitler. None of them amount to actual insanity, though.

And what Dachs said of course.

Well, yes, you should read more I think to get a better picture... the severity of those words (which isn't really shown in the synopsis), especially when considering they were co-existing, points to insanity, in my opinion anyhow.

Interesting book.

 

[kochman]

If the psychiatrist is not in actual contact with the patient, a diagnosis is merely intellectual onanism, useless at best and actively misleading at worst. If the patient happens to be dead for the diagnosis, so much the worse.

Any attempt to declare Hitler insane after the fact is medically unsupportable and ridiculous.

Because you've read the book and know what research was done?
Or just because you say so?

 

[Formaldehyde]

This book is apparently already out of print, even though it was published in 1998.

Here is a review which appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine:

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199905273402120

It would be a comfort to have an eminent psychiatrist propose a definitive diagnosis to explain Hitler's behavior, for it would permit us to avoid confronting humanity's capacity for evil. But in Hitler: Diagnosis of a Destructive Prophet, Fritz Redlich does not provide such comfort. Long troubled by the ease with which diagnoses were proffered for the architect of the Holocaust, Redlich, who was forced to flee Austria in 1938, set himself the monumental task of establishing a definitive diagnosis for Adolf Hitler. After reviewing many thousands of pages of documents, including the records of Hitler's attending physicians, and interviewing eyewitnesses to Hitler's behavior, Redlich, with scrupulous attention to detail, worked his way through a thorough psychiatric diagnosis at a distance. The results of this effort are both impressive and persuasive.

The review directly contradicts the notion that this book shows Hitler was "insane":

Redlich convincingly establishes that Hitler did not have any of the major psychoses, as some psychiatrists have suggested. He also rules out borderline personality disorder. He concludes that there is insufficient evidence of any conventional psychiatric disorder that might explain the extreme nature of Hitler's actions, offering what he terms a “politological” rather than a psychiatric diagnosis: political paranoia.

In his thorough diagnostic evaluation of Hitler, Redlich rules out severe mental or physical illness as a cause of his destructive leadership, requiring us to confront the political paranoia that gripped Hitler's Germany — the fit between a malignant leader and wounded followers — and to ask an uncomfortable question as we grapple with the horror of the Holocaust: What is it in us, ordinary human beings, that permits us to respond so enthusiastically to the siren song of hatred?

Now there is a question which has plagued humanity and which continues to do so today in so many ways.

 

[kochman]

And because he doesn't have "major psychoses" means he can't be crazy?
No, it doesn't.
He ruled out "conventional" diagnoses, such as Borderline Personality... and comes up with something else... Which, in my opinion, is sheer crazy. Pretty unique, and the APA hasn't gotten around to it or whatever... one guys diagnosis based on his admittedly incomplete information.

Having read the book, and not just reviews of the book, I can tell you he often discounted things in Hitler's alleged behavior due to lack of evidence...
However, that doesn't mean it didn't occur (especially weird sexual behaviors that were alleged)... it just meant he couldn't scientifically claim it due to lack of proof.

Therefore, on still incomplete data... he came to those conclusions. However, had those been verifiable, he posits in the book... it would have been different.