Dear Colleague,

How are we to understand the fact that political leaders often use organic metaphors to describe their nation’s enemies? I noted in previous issues of the IOWGT Newsletter that Hitler and other Nazi leaders endlessly depicted the Jew as a parasite on the body of the people. And that Lenin and Stalin continually referred to capitalists as leeches that were “sucking the blood of the people.” Why do metaphors like these frequently dominate the rhetoric of leaders who initiate political forms of violence? Please convey your insights to me at Rakoenigsberg@earthlink.net.

In this issue of the Newsletter, I’d like to focus on the case of Adolf Hitler, perhaps the most popular political leader in history. Of course, it’s disturbing to know this. People would like to banish Hitler from the human race. The vehemence of our rejection of Hitler stems from the fact that—deep down—we know that he is one of us. Hitler fanatically embraced the ideology that continues to dominate the world—nationalism—and carried its central propositions to their logical conclusion.

My research has focused on Hitler and Nazism because I believe this case reveals the template that gives rise to many forms of political violence. Nazism was a radical form of nationalism. Everything Hitler did, he did in the name of his “country.” If we can understand why Hitler believed that Germany had the right to kill, perhaps we can comprehend the reasons why we believe that any nation has this right.

Nationalistic violence begins when another nation, group or class of people is defined as “the enemy.” Nationalistic violence revolves around the desire to eliminate or to destroy the enemy. What are enemies and why do people get so excited about them? For Hitler, the fundamental enemy was the Jew. Nazism stemmed from and revolved around Hitler’s belief that the Jew constituted a force or entity working toward Germany’s destruction.

What was the nature and meaning of the Jewish threat that possessed Hitler? We can penetrate the heart of this mystery by analyzing recurring metaphors contained in Hitler’s writings and speeches and posing the question:  What idea contained within the word “Jew” terrified Hitler so profoundly—to the extent that he concluded that every single Jew on the face of the earth had to be eliminated?

Here are a few passages from Mein Kampf conveying Hitler’s idea of the Jew as a “parasite” on the body of the German nation and people: “The Jew was only and always a parasite in the body of other peoples.” “The spider was slowly beginning to suck the blood out of the people’s pores.” “The Jew’s spreading is a typical phenomenon for all parasites: he always seeks a new feeding ground for his race.” “The Jew is and remains the typical parasite, a sponger who like a noxious bacillus keeps spreading as soon as a favorable medium invites him.”

Here are several additional passages: “The Jew is a parasite in the body of other nations.” “The Jew is a true blood sucker that attaches himself to the body of the unhappy people.” “The Jew’s blood-sucking becomes so great that excesses against him occur.” “If the development we see today continued unobstructed, the Jew would really devour the peoples of the earth.” “The heads of Jewry see the approaching fulfillment of their prophecy about the great devouring of nations.” “The rage of the people sometimes flares high against the eternal blood-sucker.” 

Based on the passion and vitriol with which Hitler expressed himself in these passages, we can agree that Hitler was not simply “using” these dehumanizing images in order to justify killing Jews (indeed, when Hitler wrote Mein Kampf in 1924, he was in prison—in no position to kill anyone). Rather, I suggest that the metaphors he used contain within them the reasons for his fear of the Jew and motivations for wanting to destroy them. Hitler’s political career began and evolved based on the anxiety and rage he felt when he conjured up the image of “the Jew.” Hitler experienced the Jew as a parasite upon the body politic, that is (because he so deeply identified with the German nation), as a parasite within his own body.

If the idea of the Jewish enemy was one side of the equation that led to genocide and war—the other side was the idea of the German nation as an actual body politic. If one speaks of a parasite sucking one’s blood, this implies the existence of another (second) organism whose blood is being sucked. What was the nature of the organism to which the Jewish parasite was attached? Of course, for Hitler, this organism was Germany. I suggest that the level of anxiety and rage Hitler experienced was based on the extent to which he equated his own body with that of the German body politic.

Rudolf Hess often introduced his Fuehrer with the statement, “Hitler is Germany, just as Germany is Hitler.” In his speeches, Hitler implored Germans to follow his example and to identify themselves entirely with their nation. Preaching to his people, Hitler declared: “Your life is bound up with the life of your whole people; the nation is not merely the root of your strength, it is the root of your very life.” He proclaimed: “Our nation is not just an idea in which you have no part; you yourself support the nation; to it you belong; you cannot separate from it.”

Hitler’s totalitarianism was based upon his insistence that each and every German abandon his or her individuality in order to become deeply identified with the nation. In his world, there was no room for separateness or separation. Hitler demanded that each German embrace a posture of oneness with their country. He himself was the role model—abandoning his personal life in order to devote his existence to the German nation and people.

When he described the Jew as a parasite upon the body of Germany, it is evident that Hitler experienced the Jew as a parasitic organism affixed to his own body. The Jewish enemy constituted a psychosomatic presence within Hitler’s body, generating hysteria, paranoid rage and the desire to remove or eject the Jew from within his body (politic). Hitler’s odyssey revolved around his struggle to liberate himself from the parasitic (Jewish) organism that he imagined was attached to his body.

Nationalism implies the projection of one’s own life, sense of being and body into the idea of one’s country. We link our ego and self with an entity that seems more significant and powerful than our self. Fanatic nationalists seek to identify entirely with their country. Insofar as Hitler identified his own body with the body politic, he experienced the nation’s enemy—the Jew—as if embedded within his own body. His experience of the Jew as an object within his body was the source of his herculean efforts to remove this object from within the German body politic.

Hitler said: “Our movement alone was capable of creating a national organism.” In place of the State must be set “the living organism—the people.” Hitler conceived of Germany as an actual body politic consisting of the German people as its cells. It followed that the fundamental purpose of politics was to preserve the body politic, to “maintain the substance of the people in bodily and mental health, in good order and purity.”

Hitler, an early embodiment theorist, took the abstract idea of the nation (an “imagined community”) and concretized it, bringing the idea of the nation down to earth. At the Nuremberg rallies, tens of thousands of Germans gathered together in a single location. The German nation was located in the bodies of these people massed together as if to constitute a single organism with Hitler as its head. This gigantic organism—consisting of the German people as cells—was the good or healthy body politic.

On the other hand, existing in opposition to these healthy, German cells was the Jew, a “bacillus infecting the life of peoples,” “a pestiferous bacillus carrier,” “poisonous bacilli.” These Jewish cells or microorganisms were present within—not separate from—the German body politic.  However, as parasitic cells they acted to destroy the life and health of Germany rather than to enhance it. State after state, Hitler said, would either “fall a victim to the Jewish-Bolshevik plague or must take measures for self-protection.”

Hitler conceived of himself as a doctor—someone who had the intelligence to diagnosis Germany’s disease (identify its cause), and the courage to take ruthless measures to achieve a cure. Early in his career, Hitler claimed that it was not sufficient for politicians to “doctor around on the circumference of the distress.”  Rather it was necessary to “penetrate to the seat of the inflammation—to the cause”—and to “lance the cancerous ulcer.” Hitler’s political mission was to remove the source or cause of Germany’s disease, thus restoring the nation’s health and assuring the survival of the German people.

Historians claim that bad strategy led Hitler to attack the Soviet Union in the midst of war against Great Britain. However, in his Secret Book, Hitler spoke of an “inundation of disease bacilli that have their breeding ground in Russia.” He undertook war against the Soviet Union for the same reason he initiated the Final Solution: in order to exterminate “bacilli” that threatened the life of Germany. Even though the war had been lost, Hitler asserted in his Final Will and Testament (written on February 13, 1945): “National Socialism has tackled the Jewish problem by action and not by words. For us, this has been an essential process of disinfection. We have lanced the Jewish abscess; and the world of the future will be eternally grateful to us."

Hitler’s paranoid fantasy about the Jew was the source of the social reality that the Nazis constructed. His use of biological metaphors grew out of his experience of the Jew as a parasite within the Germany body politic, that is (since he was so deeply identified with Germany), as a parasite within his own body. Hitler’s political career revolved around his struggle to free himself from the psychosomatic presence of the Jew. Since Hitler identified the German nation with his body, the need to remove the Jew from within his body led to the Final Solution.

Jews were conceived as a second body attached to the German body: a parasitic organism.  The survival of the nation required the elimination or removal of this second body bound to the national body. In order that the nation might “live on,” it was necessary to remove this disease-generating organism from within the healthy organism. Genocide represented the struggle to eliminate Jews—source of Germany’s disease —from within the body politic, and thus to save the nation.

The essence of Nazism was blurring of the boundaries between self and nation; of the boundary between the human body and the body politic. Perhaps the best example of this blurring—and most succinct articulation of the fantasy that led to genocide--appeared in a pamphlet of instruction issued in 1941 by the office of Alfred Rosenberg. The body, this pamphlet explained, is a highly developed 'State' composed of cells. This body can be "invaded by parasites, such as bacteria," which are "incapable of building up a state" (within the body) themselves. These bacteria, however, can "live in a body," multiply, and "attach themselves to certain spots," where they "secrete their poison."

These bacteria cause "such reactions of the body as can be well compared with the internal processes in the life of nations arising from similar sources." A body thus afflicted must "defeat the bacteria which have penetrated it;" otherwise it will be defeated by them. Once the body has defeated the bacteria, it should for its own sake also "cleanse its whole environment of the bacteria to prevent further infection."

With regard to processes of this kind, the pamphlet goes on to say, "Humanitarian principles cannot be taken into consideration at all," as little as humanitarian principles apply to "disinfecting a body or a contaminated room." It is necessary in such cases to clear a path for a "completely novel way of thinking." Only such thinking can really lead to "the final decision which must be made in our time so as to safeguard the existence of the great creative race."

The use of the body as metaphor for the state is applied so intensely and thoroughly in these passages that the reader becomes confused: the boundary between a human body and the nation-state blurs. In any case, the meaning of these passages is clear: The nation-state is like a body that contains bacteria living in it. A nation—like a human body—must "defeat the bacteria" that have penetrated into it; otherwise it will be defeated by them and will die.

Another example of the blurring of the boundaries between self and nation occurred when Hitler compared “acting radically” to eliminate Jews from within Germany to pulling a tooth. When one pulls a tooth, Hitler said, “One does it with a single tug, and the pain quickly goes away.” Similarly, Hitler insisted that the Jew had to “clear out of Europe.” In other words, Hitler compared the Jew to a painful part of one’s body and eliminating the Jew to extracting a tooth. Genocide was conceived as removing a diseased part of one’s body.

Nazi genocide grew out of this bizarre but coherent fantasy of the Jew as a microorganism attached to and attacking the German body politic. In order for the nation to survive, this disease-generating microorganism had to be removed from Germany, Europe and the Soviet Union. Is it possible that other cases of enemy creation grow out of a similar dynamic? Why do we experience enemies as a source of disease that must be destroyed? Please send your reflections to me at rakoenigsberg@earthlink.net.

With best regards,

Richard Koenigsberg