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The Study of Man: The Complex behind Hitler's Anti-Semitism
- Abstract
For hours,” says Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf, “the black-haired Jew boy, diabolic joy in his face, waits in ambush for the unsuspecting girl whom he defiles with his blood. . . .”
Most Hitler biographers and students of racial bias, in their quest for the origins and real nature of the Fuehrer’s peculiar brand of anti-Semitism, have come to feel that the answer lies hidden in this notorious passage. The most widely accepted interpretation is that of a kind of semi-deliberate turnabout, a change of roles, as it were. As Rudolf Olden, one of Hitler’s most conscientious biographers, puts it: “Was it perhaps someone else, dark-haired too, but Aryan, who ‘for hours lay in wait,’ while the girl he awaited in vain went off ‘unsuspectingly’ with a Jewish rival?”
A tempting surmise, but a far too superficial one. And from what is known of Hitler’s life there is not a shred of evidence to support it. One must delve into deeper layers of his mind if one hopes to unravel the meaning of this obviously pathological fantasy.
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