Margaret Mahler theorized “symbiosis” as a central dimension  of psychic life. She defined symbiosis as that state of “undifferentiation, of fusion with mother,” in which the 'I' is “not differentiated from the ‘not I’.”

The essential feature of symbiosis is “hallucinatory or delusional, somatopsychic omnipotent fusion with the representation of the mother” and in particular, the "delusion of a “common boundary of the two actually and physically separate individuals.”

A nation is a "mother country," symbolizing the fantasy of  that one's own body and many other bodies are bound together to constitute one body. The organization of modern political life is based on these "things" (countries) with which people equate their own lives and bodies.

People are willing to die and kill to remain fused with these objects. Day in and day out, people speak endlessly and obsessively about "the country"--without a clue as to what they are talking.

The fantasy is powerful and all-pervasive. Academics deconstruct just about everything, but "countries" remain the ground of being. One can be for or against a nation. One can love a country or hate it. But it is nearly impossible (if not sinful) to "imagine there's no country" (J. Lennon).

The psychic state of symbiosis revolves around the longing for “oneness.” Under the spell of symbiotic fantasy, distinctions between self and Other blur. Norman O. Brown states (1959/1985) that the "primal act of the human ego is a negative one—not to accept reality, specifically the separation of the child’s body from the mother’s body.”

Denial of separateness governs the lives of individuals. Instead of conceiving of oneself as a singularity, people imagine that they are contained within an “omnipotent system—a dual unity with one common boundary.”

Hitler projected his own symbiotic fantasy into political units. Austria symbolized Hitler’s body and Germany the body of his mother. Hitler’s political ideology aimed to destroy the boundary separating Austria and Germany—so that the two separate bodies politic could fuse into one body politic. 

The actualization of this fantasy would mean that henceforth the “twofold destinies of Austria and Germany would be eternally one.” If Hitler had his way—fulfilled his dream—there would be “no separation of history into Germany and Austria.”

Astonishingly--by virtue of an extraordinary "triumph of the will" --this dream was fulfilled: the "Anschluss (German: “Union”) of Austria and Germany through annexation of Austria by Hitler in 1938.

Hitler--as well as millions of Austrians and Germans were ecstatic: Austria had "returned to its never-forgotten ancestral home."