By Janis Siegel, JTNews Correspondent
What does Adolf Hitler have in common with Joseph Stalin and Saddam Hussein, besides a particular brand of brutality? According to Dr. Theodore L. Dorpat’s newly released book, Wounded Monster: Adolf Hitler’s Path From Trauma to Malevolence, (University Press of America, $47), Hitler came from an exceptionally violent home filled with daily beatings and verbal and emotional abuse.
Dorpat, a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and clinical professor in the University of Washington’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, spoke about “The Roots of Tyranny and Violence” at UW’s Kane Hall. He has over 40 years of experience in research and clinical practice, and has authored over 360 publications and four books.
Wounded Monster documents Hitler’s violence-filled childhood and his psychological progression toward masterminding mass genocide.
In the first of a series of annual lectures sponsored by the Seattle Psychoanalytic Society and Institute (SPSI), the International Studies and Jewish Studies programs of the UW Jackson School of International Studies, and supported by the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, the presentations are designed to explore the ways that psychoanalysis can inform all aspects of society and culture.
“Hitler experienced chronic childhood trauma, then suffered from chronic Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) which then became anger and malevolence,” said Dorpat as he spoke to a packed lecture hall of around 250 listeners. “From age nine to 13 he received beatings from his father. His father also beat his wife and the other children, but Hitler was beaten severely everyday.”
During his early childhood, Dorpat says Hitler was a good student but lost interest in school as he accrued the effects of the abuse.
“Chronic childhood trauma arrests development,” Dorpat said. “He became a failure in school and stopped seeing people. Beginning at about the age of 12 he developed borderline personality disorder and quit school when he was 16. Hitler had trouble in personal relations and viewed relationships with power and dominance.”
Between his passion for psychoanalysis and his lifelong curiosity with World War II history — the life of Hitler in particular — Dorpat documents this scholarly work with letters Hitler wrote from the battlefield during his wartime service. This, said Dorpat, was the source of the PTSD, his second psychological wounding.
“Between 1914 and 1915, in letters from the war, Hitler had symptoms from the traumatic battles and PTSD from combat trauma. But he won six awards and decorations for exceptional courage, and he was one of the few soldiers who survived the end of the war.”
Dorpat said it wasn’t until Germany’s bitter defeat that Hitler’s shame and rage began to overwhelm him. These emotions, claimed Dorpat, dovetailed with the German people’s own sense of shame over their country’s humiliating loss.
“He did not manifest any grossly anti-social behaviors until after World War I,” said Dorpat. “His trauma broke down all of his assumptions of the world. He became addicted to intense feelings of hatred and rage, and he unconsciously projected his desire to dominate the world onto the Jews. After 1919, he had his psychic breakdown.”
In his book, Dorpat tells how Hitler’s psychological breakdown only got worse as the years progressed, contrary to the trend that usually shows improvement in symptoms over time. Hitler’s inner circle fueled his fire by helping “mythologize” his savior image to the German people. Dorpat believes that Hitler’s cohorts and the German people grew his malevolence over time.
“Our personalities are constructed out of our relationships with others and the choices we make,” Dorpat summarized. “The self, the mind, is not given — it is formed. Hitler did to other people what was done to him. People who were terrorized repeat it.
“This [book] takes an empathic position, putting oneself into the shoes of the other. It does not include agreeing, sympathizing or condoning the other.”
Dorpat admits that the material in his new book will not be interesting or even acceptable to some people in the Jewish community who suffered under the Nazi regime but he does not see his work through that lens.
“I was interested in the development of his anti-Semitism and his virulence,” said Dorpat, “but I can understand how some people would not want to read my book. I gave some talks in Jerusalem about 12 years ago and I felt the people there were still suffering from it and talking about it. I felt very sad and touched by their lives.”
The SPSI does not condone or sympathize with Hitler’s behavior, but believes that looking at Hitler’s life through his formative years can show society that life experiences can and do change people.
“I think as Jews we’ve been at the receiving end of stereotyping and scapegoating for years and here we are doing it to others,” said Dr. Pierre Loebel, clinical professor of psychiatry at UW, a Federation member, and a board member of SPSI. “Let’s try to see what makes this man what he was. Because you understand something doesn’t mean you excuse it. It gives us some tools to apply to other people. In spite of what he did, I now have a sense that he wasn’t formed like that, fully finished from his mother’s womb. We have learned that we can talk about appalling behavior in ways that show that other influences were at work.”