Dear Colleague,

People wonder why Hitler attacked the Soviet Union in the midst of Germany’s battle against Great Britain. Well, he didn’t hate the British so much; they bore a resemblance to Aryans.

However, at the heart of Hitler’s decision was his wish to be true to himself and Nazi ideology. From the beginning, Nazism contained his deepest desire: destruction of the arch-enemy of civilization, “Jewish-Bolshevism.”

In a state of profound anxiety (paranoia), Hitler embarked upon a struggle of “life against death.” He would act to protect Germany (and Western civilization) from an “inundation by disease bacilli which at the moment have their breeding ground in Russia,” thereby rescuing the world.

Hitler’s thinking about attacking Russia and destroying Communism does not differ substantially from the thinking of General  Jack D. Ripper who (in the movie “Dr. Strangelove”) also sought to save the world by destroying Russia, site of the “international Communist conspiracy” working to “sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.”

Who is more deluded, leaders who project their fantasies into the political arena and act out them out?

Or social scientists who continue to insist—in the face of all evidence—that political behavior is guided by “rational choice.”

What are the sources of this strange, sad delusion—the persisting Western belief that human behavior is governed by rationality?

Best regards,

Richard Koenigsberg