Hitler as an Embodiment Theorist
Richard A. Koenigsberg
Hitler's Ideology: A Study in Psychoanalytic Sociology

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“The best critical analysis in English of Hitler’s thought.” --Colin Day

It began with Hitler Ideology. Reading Mein Kampf, I discovered strange images and metaphors appearing in Hitler's writing. This was before Lakoff and Johnson...and I didn't have a name for what I was doing.

I was a radical empiricist. Having just completed my PhD in (experimental) Social Psychology, I said to myself: "Why not use the same rigor to analyze significant historical texts?" I studied Mein Kampf, then turned to Hitler’s speeches. Voila! The same images and metaphors were present in HItler's rhetoric.

I soon realized that the metaphors in Hitler's writings and speeches were the key that unlocked the door to everything Hitler thought...and did, revealing his fantasies and desires. I soon understood that one didn't have to visit a secret place to discover who Hitler was and what he wanted. Hitler revealed himself--his ideas and desires--through the words he spoke and wrote.

The statements in Table 1 of Hitler Ideology  (below),"The Country is a Living Organism," reveal the foundation of Hitler's thinking. Hitler conceived of the German nation as a real "body politic;" a "living organism." Conceived is not the right word. He experienced the German nation in this way.

Hitler experienced the German body politic as part of his own body. Germany was inside Hitler and Hitler was inside of Germany. This is where Hitler's ideology began: with his experience of Germany as a body located within his own body.

Table 1. The Country is a Living Organism

Statement Number Statement Source
Book Page
1 France was tearing piece after piece out of the flesh of our national body. MK 133
2 Could anyone believe that Germany alone was not subject to exactly the same laws as all other human organisms? MK 155
3 Our movement alone was capable of creating...a national organism. MK 329
4 From a dead mechanism (the state) there must be formed a living organism. MK 398
5 It will be the task of a folkish state to make certain...that...an influx of fresh blood...takes place. MK 432
6 An attempt to restore the border of 1914 would lead to a further bleeding of our national body...so that there would be no worthwhile blood left. MK 651
7 In case of a war...the German nation (would be) bled white. MK 659
8 The state...is a "volkic" organism. S-I 85
9 In place of...the State--must be set the living organism--the people. S-I

188
10 The towns would not exist...if the peasant did not fill them with his blood. S-I 242
11 What remains is the substance, a substance of flesh and blood, our nation. S-I 433
12 The "living substance," the German people, is a present reality. S-I 441
13 (The) task...was...to build up the entire administration (of the state)...until it became a close organic whole, pulsing with life. S-I 486
14 So much blood has been drawn off...into German economic life abroad...that the circulation has been stopped. S-I 829
15 Economics...is a living process, one of the functions of that body which is the people. S-I 851
16 The Polish Corridor...is like a strip of flesh cut from our body...a national wound that bleeds continuously, and will continue to bleed till the land is returned to us. S-I 995
17 The German people...had become a body corporate pulsing through and through with a vital inner life. S-I 1253