Ian Kershaw offers a broad history of Adolf Hitler in his book Hitler 1889-1936. Unlike other biographies, Kershaw writes unbiased findings, to the extent that almost every fact about Hitler is expanded to multiple views and accounts which really allow for the reader to make their own assessments and judgments. I found this rather interesting in that we see this form of Hitler but we choose the fine detailing of how he was developed, who Hitler really was.
The groundings for what made up Hitler appears to lie more within the nurture aspect of his history more than the ambiguous nature of the man, as even “Hitler was frequently inaccurate or careless with detail in the autobiographical parts of Mein Kampf.” Alongside his troubled family upbringing, all instances of Hitler’s surroundings seemed to have added to the fine tuning of his development. We see that his relationship with his parents have laid the foundation for which Hitler viewed the world. His broken relationship with his father lends way to the ego that is Hitler and his unabashed personality and hatred for weakness.
Furthermore, we learn that added blows to his ego, such as his failings to get accepted into academy, and succumbing to the help of Jews to sell his art pieces brewed within him his anti-Semitic beginnings. This was accompanied by the already anti-Semite stronghold in Vienna at the time which was enhanced by the social media. Yes, Hitler as a person added to the effect that he had during his reign, but it would care to show that the social situations in which he was placed multiplied the influence that Hitler had and still has in the world that we live in today.
I couldn't help but to think of the research of Jim Fallon while I read this post. He studied the relationship between genetics, brain damage, the environment, and psychopathic behavior. He found that serial killers almost universally have a "violence gene" (MAO-A) that lies dormant within a fraction of the regular population. In utero, the brain is bathed in an excess of serotonin (which is responsible for calmness) which eventually leads to its desensitization. In conjunction with a violently traumatic experience before puberty, the brain actually rewires itself to an eventual predisposition or apathy towards violence in adulthood.
ReplyDeleteIn Hitler's case it sounds like his relationship with his father produced many of the prerequisites for this condition. Constant antagonism between the two coupled with the fact that his father was abusive while drunk undoubtedly exposed Adolf to a great deal of violence. There is also tremendous possibility that growing up next to a Jewish ghetto not only compounded these traumas but also provided the retaliatory foci that he would carry into his later life.
I don't belive that the propaganda-ridden environment of his adulthood can be exclusively credited with the development of his antisemitic sentiments. I feel like while they confirmed and perhaps shaped his aggression towards Jews, they didn't serve as its genesis.