Foundation for the Study of Political Pathology: The Psychology of War, Genocide, and Terrorism

Videos

Richard Koenigsberg with David Gornoski: War as Sacrifice Things Hidden Ep 57

Host David Gornoski speaks with Dr. Richard Koenigsberg about the psychology of war, suggesting it’s driven less by survival than by a ritual of sacrifice. Drawing from history, Koenigsberg shows how nations frame dying for one’s country as a noble, almost sacred act—binding citizens together through shared bloodshed. This ideology, dominant in the 20th century, has waned in recent decades as modern wars claim far fewer lives, suggesting a cultural shift away from mass human sacrifice.

Richard Koenigsberg with David Gornoski: Why do Nations Feel They Have The Right To Kill

Host David Gornoski and social psychologist Richard Koenigsberg dig into the psychology of war. Drawing on his studies of World War I and Nazi Germany, Koenigsberg notes that nations often glorify warfare—and dying for one’s country—as a sacred duty. War becomes a blood sacrifice that unites a nation’s people—not unlike ancient religious rituals. Leaders embrace warfare even when battles bring staggering losses. While this sacrificial mindset dominated the Twentieth Century, Koenigsberg noted a sharp decline in casualties in the Twentieth Century. Are human beings moving away from a willingness to sacrifice lives in the name of national glory?

Richard Koenigsberg with Howard Bloom : Politics as Delusion

In this wide-ranging conversation, Howard Bloom and Richard Koenigsberg explore the psychology of leaders, the (ideology) of nationalism, and how shared delusions shape politics and history.. The dialogue moves through historical examples, showing how perceived enemies and collective myths forge social cohesion. Along the way, personal anecdotes and sharp humor bring warmth to an otherwise sobering examination of how dangerous ideas can be turned from “nonsense” into common sense.

Richard Koenigsberg with Sulavon: S4 E11 Sulavon's SheShed featuring Dr. Richard Koenigsberg

Dr. Richard Koenigsberg recounts his path from academia to creating and running a scholarly book marketing business. Drawing on decades of research, he compares Hitler’s scapegoating of Jews to Donald Trump’s rhetoric about immigrants, warning of the dangers of political fantasies. Advocating “Awakening from the Nightmare of History,” he suggests that certain historical events might be viewed as forms of collective psychoses. He champions multiculturalism and moving beyond narrow ethnic or national identities.

Richard Koenigsberg: World War I & the Body

In this powerful and provocative monologue, Richard Koenigsberg explores the idea that warfare—particularly World War I and World War II—functions not as a rational pursuit of political or territorial gain, but as a collective act of self-destruction and sacrifice for the nation-state. Drawing from historical data and personal reflections, he argues that the First World War was a mass ritual of sacrifice, where millions died or were maimed to affirm their devotion to their countries. He connects this to Hitler’s ideology, suggesting that the Holocaust can also be seen through the lens of sacrifice. Hitler believed that if German soldiers were required to die for the state, so too should Jews, whom he vilified for not being part of the sacrificial national identity. Koenigsberg challenges conventional historiography, criticizing the cultural denial surrounding these ideas, asserting that the glorification of heroism and nationalism masks the grim reality of mass human destruction.

Richard Koenigsberg with Robert Samuels: Psychoanalysis, Hitler, and Politics

In this wide-ranging and reflective interview, Richard Koenigsberg discusses his psychoanalytic approach to understanding Hitler, National Socialism and political ideology. He argues that Hitler’s conception of the Final Solution derived from his understanding of warfare, in which human beings are compelled to die for the state. Hitler believed that Jews sought to avoid fighting and dying in battle, so they had to be compelled to die. The logic of genocide derived from the logic of sacrificial death in war. Koenigsberg delves into the psychological roots of ideology, particularly the fantasy of an the nation-state as an omnipotent object, to which human beings are required to submit.

The World Has Become One Body

The German “volk” symbolized individual German human beings massed together to constitute a single body. The Nazi phantasy was that each and every German human being was contained within the volk, united with each and every other German human being. “One Reich, one Fuhrer, one people.” Hitler did not allow for the possibility that a German human being could exist separately from the Reich body. Totalitarianism means that a nation is constituted by human beings massed together to create a single organism. Each human being is a cell of an enormous national body. Koenigsberg hypothesizes that the the Internet replicates this fantasy of human beings bound together as one to constitute a single body. Each human being binds to the Internet Body through his or her computer or cell phone. According to this Fantasy, there is not a single human being existing separately, unbound from this Internet Body. The world has become one.

Dead Soliders as Gifts to the God

Arthur H. Feiner and Edgar Levenson (1968-69) discuss "The Compassionate Sacrifice" as a gift, an “act of renouncement” requiring that the worshipper give some of his substance or goods to the gods. The worshipper does this because he believes his own survival requires the god's survival. If the worshipper is to live, “the gods must not die." In our time, the god worshipped is the nation-state and the worshipper’s gift is his own body and blood in warfare. We call this “sacrifice.” By virtue of giving this gift to the god, the survival of the worshipper is assured. For the worshipper to live, the god must not die. Why has this god, "society," assumed such power over the minds, bodies and hearts of human beings? Why do we forfeit our lives in the name of nations and their leaders? A history of the Twentieth Century might be written as an answer this question.

The Proof of the Pudding is in the Dying

The fundamental meaning of war is not killing, but compelling human beings to die. The endless slaughter of the First World War lasted from July 28, 1914 through November 11, 1918. Well before the war ended, memorials were constructed to honor soldiers who had died. Could this have been the purpose of the war, which otherwise seemed chaotic and meaningless? To create memorials to honor dead soldiers?

The construction of memorials continued throughout the war and for many years after the war, paying homage to those who had died. French soldiers died, British soldiers died, Russian soldiers died, German soldiers died. The reality of the nation-state grew out of the deaths of these soldiers. The proof of the pudding was in the dying, demonstrating devotion to a sacred ideal, bringing the ideal into being. The death of millions of soldiers during the First World War established the nation-state as the fundamental political entity of Western civilization. Death and memorialization perform a validation function. The proof of the pudding is in the dying.