THE PURSUIT OF THE NAZI MIND By the same author: Faces of Degeneration: A European Disorder, c. 1848–c. 1918 War Machine: The Rationalisation of Slaughter in the Modern Age Svengali’s Web: The Alien Enchanter in Modern Culture Rome or Death: The Obsessions of General Garibaldi As co-editor, with Lyndal Roper, D reams and History: The Interpretation of Dreams from Ancient Greece to Modern Psychoanalysis THE PURSUIT OF THE NAZI MIND hitler, hess, and the analysts D ANIEL P ICK 1 1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Daniel Pick 2012 The moral rights of the author have been asserted First Edition published in 2012 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Library of Congress Control Number: 2012931194 ISBN 978–0–19–954168–3 ‘so plainly mad . . . ’ (Rebecca West, A Train of Powder ) This page intentionally left blank Contents List of Plates ix 1. Introduction 1 2. Characters and Causes 2 4 3. ‘The Deputy Madman’ 4 4 4. Getting Through to Hess 6 5 5. Madness and Politics 8 6 6. The OSS 108 7. Hitler’s Mind 128 8. So Plainly Mad? 153 9. Nuremberg: Conspiracy and Confession 166 10. Sane Futures? 1 82 11. Legacies 2 16 12. Afterword 2 59 Appendices 271 Notes 286 Further Reading 338 Acknowledgements 345 Index 347 This page intentionally left blank List of Plates 1 . Into exile . . . 1938. Sigmund and Anna Freud on their journey from Vienna to London after the Anschluss (© Hulton- Deutsch Collection/Corbis) 2 . Picture of Hess and his sister Margarete, as children. This image was reproduced in T he Case of Rudolf Hess (1947) 3–5. The Führer as a baby, alongside his parents, Klara Poelzl and Alois Hitler, recycled in Walter Langer’s T he Mind of Adolf Hitler (1972) (© Bettman/Corbis; Interfoto/ akg-images; akg-images) 6 . Hitler’s messianic performances (© International News Photo) 7–9. From a postcard series in the 1920s, ‘Adolf Hitler Speaks, 6 Photographic Moments’ (© akg-images) 10–12. Stills from Leni Riefenstahl’s T riumph of the Will (1935) 13. A Nuremberg rally, 1934 (© Bettmann/Corbis) 14. Hitler addresses the SA, Dortmund, 1933 (© 2004 TopFoto/ ImageWorks) 15. Walter Langer (Courtesy of The Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute) 16. Henry Dicks (Courtesy of Adrian Dicks) 17. ‘Wild Bill’ Donovan (Courtesy of the Library of Congress) 18. Rebecca West (Cecil Beaton/Vogue, © Condé Nast Publications Ltd.) 19–21. Scenes from Fritz Lang’s T he Testament of Dr Mabuse (1933) (Nero-Film AG) 22–3. The hero of Fritz Lang’s M inistry of Fear (1944) discovers the mysterious Dr Forrester’s tome, T he Psychoanalysis of Nazidom (© 2011 NBCUniversal, Inc., all rights reserved) 24. Hess at the International Military Tribunal, interviewed by Col. Amen and other offi cials, 1945 (© akg-images) 25. Hess, Göring, and Ribbentrop in the dock (© De Agostini Picture Library/akg-images)