HITLER'S BODY AND THE BODY POLITIC
By Richard Koenigsberg
According to Freud's theory of psychic determinism, there is no randomness in the life of the mind. That which is uttered or expressed contains meaning. Freud studied dreams, symptoms and slips-of-the-tongue under the assumption that human beings reveal their psychic lives through the vehicle of these representations of mind and body.I study ideology as if manifest content of a dream, seeking to comprehend the ideology's latent content or unconscious meaning. I observe recurring images and metaphors within ideological productions. Through systematic analysis of these recurring images and metaphors, it is possible to reveal the deep structure of an ideology.
This paper represents a reconstruction of Hitler's ideology. What I have discovered through analysis of the images and metaphors contained within his writings and speeches is that Hitler's ideology revolves around a fantasy about the body, more precisely, about the German body politic. Actions undertaken or performed by the Nazis represented the unfolding or acting out of this bodily fantasy.
Hitler embraced Germany as an entity that could "live on." He believed that the German nation had the potential to become immortal. The German body politic, however, according to Hitler, contained a force working to destroy it, the Jew. The Nazi movement constituted a struggle to come to terms with this force of destruction threatening the life of Germany by extinguishing it.
Ideologies are structures within society. However, why do they exist? I seek to uncover the meanings of ideologies and the psychic work that they perform. I suggest that ideologies constitute vehicles for working through deep-rooted psychological issues. Hitler's ideology, for example, represented the medium through which Hitler attempted to come to terms with the problem of death.
It is not possible, in my view, to detach ideas from the organisms that create and embrace them. Hitler's ideology reveals the intimate link between inner and outer, how ideas derive from bodily experience. His ideology constituted a fantasy about the body projected into reality.
At the core of Hitler's perception of reality lay his fantasy of Germany as an actual organism—a "real substance of flesh and blood." Reflecting on territorial settlements after the First World War, Hitler said that France was "tearing piece after piece out of the flesh of our national body." He compared Germany's loss of the Polish Corridor to 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." He called economics a "living process," one of the "functions of the body which is the people," and stated that "so much blood had been drawn off Germany into economic life abroad that the circulation has been stopped."
Hitler's mission followed from this conception of Germany as an actual body. The purpose of every idea and institution within a people, Hitler said, could be only to "maintain the substance of the people in bodily and mental health." Preserving the present "body formed by the people" was the basis of "securing in the future the maintenance of this body which is the people." Hitler's ideology revolved around making certain that the German body politic would "live on."
What made this project difficult was Hitler's belief that the nation contained powerful forces working toward its destruction, the ultimate source of which was the Jew, characterized by Hitler as a "ferment of decomposition among people" and as a "disintegrator of peoples." Whereas most peoples or races act to build cohesion within societies, Hitler declared that the Jewish class constituted a "dissolver of human culture."
Hitler's career reflected his struggle to come to terms with a force of destruction that he imagined was working within the German body politic. The Nazi movement revolved around building up the nation, improving the health of the body politic, and unifying the people so that Germany would never "capitulate before the ferments of disintegration." The goal of National Socialism was to rescue Germany from death.
In order to bar the spread of the process of disintegration, it was essential to take steps to establish a "clear and clean separation between the two races." A clear line of demarcation between the healthy, constructive German people, on the one hand, and the sick, destructive Jewish race, on the other would amount to an "immunization of the German Reich against all disintegrating tendencies."
As the Nazi movement took hold—as Germany recovered her health and strength—Hitler affirmed his determination to protect his achievement. The rejuvenated Reich, Hitler insisted, "no one will in the future be able to shatter or tear asunder." The Nazi Movement would leave behind it a German body politic completely renewed internally, intolerant of anyone who "sins against the nation" and pitiless against anyone who shall attempt once more to "destroy or disintegrate this body politic."
Politics for Hitler constituted a struggle of "life against death," a battle between nations and the Jew, who represented the "demon of the disintegration of peoples, symbol of the unceasing destruction of their life." Germany would demonstrate to the nations of the world that it was possible to maintain cohesion in the face of Jewish destructiveness. By asserting the "national creative will over against the conception of international disintegration," Hitler believed that Germany could triumph.
II. WELDING THE GERMAN PEOPLE INTO ONE BODY
Hitler's ideology derived from a fantasy about Germany as an enormous body politic consisting of citizens as the "cells" of this body. He set forth his desire to bring millions of these cells together in order to create a single, omnipotent organism. By "welding men one to another," the people would transform into a "single block of steel," thus creating an unbreakable unity or indestructible body capable of resisting the force of disintegration.
If the "will and the life-struggle of our people were split into forty or fifty sections," Hitler said, Germany would fall apart. To achieve national unity, it was necessary to eliminate political organizations that worked toward "disunion and disintegration." If Germany succeeded in putting together "a body politic as hard as iron from the conglomeration of parties, associations, unions, concepts of the world and class," then the nation would never again "break in pieces."
The goal of Hitler's speeches and mass-rallies was to fuse millions of people into a "unity of spirit and will." To resist the forces of fragmentation, Hitler implored his people to grow nearer and closer to one another. The German people, Hitler declared, had to be thrown into "the great melting pot, the nation" in order to be "purified and welded one to another."
III: KILLING THE DEATH INSTINCT
The Nazis aspired to remove from within the nation any element that might cause weakness or disease, thus creating a body politic that could never die. National Socialism revolved around the problem of death. The problem of death, however, contains no solution. Freud's concept of the death instinct points to fact that, whatever symbols human beings may construct, organisms inevitably move toward their demise.
Like Hitler, Freud conceived of human existence as a struggle of "life against death." He observed that while organisms possess a life instinct that works to "preserve living substance and to join it into ever larger units," living creatures also possess a death instinct, an internal force working to " dissolve those units and to bring them back to their primeval, inorganic states."
While the aim of the life instinct, Freud hypothesized, is to establish "ever-greater unities and to preserve them thus—in short, to bind together"—the aim of the death instinct is to "undo connections and so destroy things." In the multicellular living organism, Freud said, the libido "meets the death instinct" that works to "disintegrate this cellular being and bring each elemental primary organism into a condition of inorganic stability."
The life or sexual instincts active in each cell, Freud theorized, "take the (other) cells as their object." They "partly neutralize the death instincts in these cells" and thus preserve their life. The life instinct, in short, acts to force or hold together "portions of living substance" within each organism, neutralizing that other force working to "disintegrating the cellular being." The life instinct thus prevents the organism from falling into a condition of "inorganic stability."
Freud's depiction of the struggle-taking place within organisms is nearly identical to Hitler's description of struggles within nations. Where Freud described a force working to "undo connections" and to "disintegrate the cellular being," Hitler described Jews as "no element of organization," but rather a "disintegrator of peoples" whose presence caused the "falling to pieces of the organic structure of the nation." Where Freud defined the death instinct as a force working to "dissolve living units and bring them back to their inorganic states," Hitler divined a process that threatened to "dissolve the German people into its basic elements."
How may we account for this remarkable similarity between Freud's theory and Hitler's ideology? I hypothesize that Hitler's ideology—like Freud's theory—derived from observations and perceptions. Freud experienced or observed a force of disintegration acting within his own mind/body and that of his patients, and developed his theory of the death instinct. Hitler similarly experienced or observed a force of disintegration. Unlike Freud, however, Hitler believed he based his conclusions on what he observed in the outer rather than inner world. Rudolf Hess often declared at mass rallies, "Hitler is Germany, just as Germany is Hitler." Hitler relocated his body in the body politic, leading him to experience his death instinct in the form of a belief that German was disintegrating.
Hitler attached himself to the German nation as an omnipotent body (politic) that could guarantee immortality. His odyssey constituted a struggle to defeat the death instinct, that is, to overcome the force of disintegration he imagined was working to destroy Germany. He aspired to shape the nation into a unique national organism. Unlike other organisms—that move toward their demise—Germany would become an organism that did not contain a death instinct.
IV: IDENTIFICATION OF SELF WITH NATION
Nazism was an extreme form of nationalism insisting on radical identification between self and nation. Hitler asked his people to acknowledge and embrace their profound dependence upon Germany:
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 yourself from it; 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.
Hitler oratory focused upon persuading Germans that they could not separate their own lives from the life of their nation. He insisted that each German individual fuse his body with the body politic.
It is important to note that although Hitler spoke of "the German people", he was not referring to actual persons. When Hitler asserts "the individual is transitory, the people is permanent," it is clear that the concept of the individual and that of the people are in opposition to one another. Individuals are organisms that eventually die. "The people" on the other hand is a different kind of organism—a body politic capable of living forever.
Hitler stated that the liberal Weltanschauung in its deification of the single individual must lead to "the destruction of the people." National Socialism, on the other hand, desired to "safeguard the people" if necessary even "at the expense of the individual." Hitler posed the question, "What is life" and responded by asserting, "Life is the Nation." Individuals had to die, but "Beyond the life of the individual is the nation." If Hitler conceived of the German people as something other than individuals, what exactly did he mean when he spoke of "the people?" What does it mean to say that "the people" will live on though individuals die?
Melanie Klein hypothesizes that anxiety arises from the "operation of the death instinct within the organism." The death instinct evokes fear of annihilation (death) that takes the form of a feeling of persecution. The destructive impulse, according to Klein—projected outward—seems to "attach itself at once to an object." Anxiety transforms into paranoia. One defends against anxiety by struggle to defeat dangerous objects in the outer world.
The death instinct causes the ego to feel "in bits" or falling to pieces. However, just as the ego deflects the death instinct outward, so does the ego attach itself to objects in the external world that become "representatives of the life instinct." By virtue of gratification received by the good object, the organism repeatedly "breaks through states of disintegration." "Good objects" in the external world become a bulwark against bad objects.
Klein's theory, like that of Freud, evokes Hitler's vision of a world where bodies are fragmenting and falling apart. Like Freud and Hitler, Klein conceived of the struggle to master the death instinct as the central theme of existence. Klein observed that the ego acts to displace this internal struggle into the outer world. Just as the death instinct is projected, leading to the creation of bad objects, so human beings externalize the life instinct to create "good objects." The struggle of "life against death," therefore, initially a conflict occurring within the organism, is transformed into a struggle between good and bad objects.
Hitler's Nazi movement constituted a political process whose fundamental purpose was to effect radical separation between the life and death instincts. The German nation became the external representation of the life instinct—the good object; whereas the Jew became the external representation of the death instinct—the bad object. Hitler's political career reflected a furious, maniacal struggle to keep the good object (the nation) separate from the bad object (the Jew).
For many people, the struggle of "life against death" is fought within the arena of their own bodies and personal life. One would suppose that the struggle to exist in the face of internal and external threats is sufficiently arduous, without having to add the challenge of maintaining the life of a second body, one's nation or "body politic." Why did Hitler project the struggle of life against death into the political arena?
For this was the Nazi project: that of maintaining the life of the body politic in the face of perceived threats to its existence. Why were the Nazis willing to sacrifice their own lives and those of millions of others in the name of this project? To explain why people transfer the struggle to maintain their own bodies into the struggle to maintain the life of the body politic, additional explanatory concepts are required.
V: THE NATION AS CONTAINER FOR AN IMMORTAL SELF
The death instinct often is represented as the most obscure of concepts. In actuality, the idea is quite simple. The death instinct points to breakdown that occurs within all organisms, a process that accelerates with aging. As we grow older, our bodies gradually "disintegrate." The death instinct working within causes our bodies to grow weaker, less resilient, and more susceptible to disease.
By age fifty, symptoms of breakdown appear. Nearly everyone suffers from presbyopia, far-sightedness caused by the diminished elasticity of the crystalline lens of the eyes. Many suffer from periodontal disease, breakdown of gums, bone and connective tissue surrounding teeth. Some suffer from osteoporosis, increasing porosity and brittleness of bones. As we age, arteries harden and narrow, causing heart attacks and strokes.
People think of death as what occurs after contracting a fatal disease, suggesting that if one did not contract a fatal disease one might live forever. The idea of the death instinct draws attention to the fact that we're continually breaking down. People know that their bodies are in the process of decay. On the other hand, it's extremely unpleasant to realize that we are moving toward our demise.
Ernest Becker hypothesized that denial of death lies at the source of culture building and the creation of ideological systems. According to Becker, human beings attach desperately to symbolic systems that contain the promise or possibility of "living on" after one dies. The ego attaches to an ideology, equating self-perpetuation with perpetuation of the ideology with which it identifies. Human beings bind to "immortality systems" that they defend hysterically and violently.
For Hitler, Germany was the immortal object with which he identified. Denial of death took the form of attempting to create or forge an indestructible body politic that could live forever. Ordinary organisms break down or disintegrate. The Nazis imagined that they could shape a German nation that would become a different kind of organism. They would create a body politic that did not contain a death instinct and therefore could live forever.
Hitler's ideology revolved around "maintaining the life of the nation." Germany would "live on." Hitler's dream of ceaseless existence—his fantasy of immortality—was projected into the idea of the never-ending existence of the German nation. Hitler and the Nazis dedicated their lives to creating a German body politic that would live longer than the body of the individual. Whereas Hitler's body was destined to disintegrate, the German Reich could live forever, or at least for a thousand years.
The problem with being an organism as compared to, say, a mountain, is that living creatures don ' t last as long. The cultural impulse, therefore, often is directed toward building monuments, for example, megaliths and pyramids whose life span is longer than the human life span. Hitler relished the creation of monumental buildings that were arising in order to "strengthen the National Socialist State." Since "we believe in the eternity of this Reich," Hitler proclaimed, therefore, "these works of ours shall also be eternal."
Buildings, however, were only a symbol of the "eternity of the Reich." The fundamental meaning of immortality for Hitler was that of "a people which lives forever." The ideology of National Socialism was designed to lead the individual "away from the personal to the eternal." Though men come and men die, Hitler declared, "this community shall last forever."
We now understand what Hitler meant when he said that National Socialism strived to "safeguard the people as such, if necessary at the expense of the individual." The term "the people" has nothing to do with actual persons. Rather, this term symbolized the idea of a national community that could live forever. Nazism meant renunciation of individual life in the name of devotion to the immortal community. Individuals come and go, but "a people" could last forever.
Johann Fichte, a prominent German nationalist writing in the early 19th century, articulated this idea of the nation as a container for the immortal self. Life merely as such, he said, "mere continuance of changing existence," has never had any value for the "noble-minded man." Rather, such a man embraces life only as the "source of what is permanent." Permanence is promised to this man, however, only by the "continuous and independent existence of his nation ." The "devouring flame of higher patriotism," Fichte said, embraces the nation as "vesture for the eternal."
The promise of a life here on earth extended beyond the period of life here on earth—"that alone it is which can inspire men even unto death for the fatherland." One is willing to devote oneself to one's country, even to die for it, because one's nation holds the promise of immortality. One's nation represents the idea of the eternal contained within everyday reality, that which persists even as individuals die.
Human beings aspire to affect the course of history. Belief in the "eternal continuance of one's influence on this earth" is founded on the hope of the "eternal continuance of the people from which one has developed." Belief in the immortality of our nation inspires and allows us to "plan what is permanent," to imagine our own life as an eternal life. The desire to comprehend one's own life as an eternal life is the bond that "unites one's own nation in a most intimate fashion with oneself."
Driven by the denial of death and wish for immortality, people identify with their nations as "vesture for the eternal." Human beings aspire to fuse with this object, bind their small bodies to an "omnipotent" body politic. Hitler waged a furious struggle to "maintain the life of the people" because he imagined that his own life and that of his people were one. Hitler's fantasy was that he would "live on" as part of the history of Germany.
Many social movements are sustained by this dream of immortality. What distinguished Hitler's ideology was the extent to which the idea of immortality was conceived in physical or bodily terms. Hitler's fantasy revolved around the perpetuation of German as an actual body (politic). Hitler stated that what he had "called into life in these years"—his Nazi movement—would not be "an end in itself" since "all can and will be transient." What would endure was the "permanent element," that is, the "substance of flesh and blood which we call the German people."
The Nazi movement, Hitler insisted, did not regard position or standing in life as decisive, since such considerations "fade into insignificance before the millennia. Such things come—and go." That which abided was the "substance itself —a substance of flesh and blood—our people." It was the substance of the people, Hitler declared, that "truly exists, that remains," and it was to this substance of the people that one should "feel oneself to be responsible."
Hitler's ideology of immortality insisted that Germany was a real body that could live forever. An early "embodiment theorist," Hitler was not satisfied with the idea of the nation as an abstraction or "social construction." Rather, his fantasy revolved around Germany as an actual "substance of flesh and blood." It was to this actual body (politic) that Hitler devoted his life.
VI: THE FINAL SOLUTION AS DENIAL OF DEATH
Hitler's project was to create a people so closely united—fused together—that they could think, feel and act as a single organism. Such a body politic would be indestructible, not only in the present but in the future as well. Hitler and the Nazis devoted their lives toward creating an organism that would be different from all other organisms. They aspired to fashion a body (politic) that was so healthy and powerful that it would not succumb to death.
The Jew in Hitler's ideology was a force working to destroy Germany. National Socialism was the attempt to come to terms with this destructive force. The "Final Solution"—concluding phase of Hitler's struggle against death—represented a form of radical surgery whose purpose was to "remove" Germany's death instinct. By eliminating the Jew, Hitler hoped to quash the process of disintegration.
Hitler ideology of the body politic derived from Hitler's experience of his own body. In spite of his efforts to create a perfectly healthy nation, Hitler's repressed death instinct continually returned in the form of his belief that Germany was disintegrating. Hitler had projected the struggle of "life against death" into the political arena and waged a furious battle to "maintain the body of the people." Hitler aspired to defeat death by embracing the idea of a body politic that could live forever. However, in spite of his efforts, Hitler could not rid himself of "anxiety of being destroyed from within."
The "Jew" represented Hitler's experience and perception of his own death instinct, his recognition or realization that all bodies die. In spite of Hitler struggle to deny death, he could not entirely repress the voice within that spoke the truth. Yet Hitler refused to heed this inner voice declaring that all bodies die. Rather, Hitler became infuriated, enraged. To embrace the truth, Hitler would have had to acknowledge that his Nazi project had been in vain; that he had devoted his life to an illusion.
Therefore, in a climactic act of manic determination, Hitler initiated the Final Solution, a struggle to destroy death—the Jew—once and for all. Hitler insisted that Germany would not die, that the body politic could live on forever. He redoubled his efforts, threw more wood into the flames. Genocide represented Hitler's final attempt to solve the problem of death.