“Yes. All the papers reported on the trial, but I’ve never actually read the speech.”
“Unlike all the other weaklings pleading not guilty, he proclaimed his guilt again and again. ‘If,’ he said, ‘overthrowing this government of November criminals, who stabbed the valiant German army in the back, is high treason, then I am guilty. If wanting to restore the glorious majesty of our German nation is treason, then I am guilty.’ If wanting to restore the honor of the German army is treason, then I am guilty. The judges were so moved, they congratulated him, shook his hand, and wanted to acquit him, but they could not: he insisted on pleading guilty to treason. In the end, they sentenced him to five years in the minimum security prison at Landsberg but assured him of an early pardon. And, thus, in one extraordinary afternoon, he suddenly went from being a small-time politician and laughing stock to a universally admired national figure.”
“Yes, I’ve noticed his name is now known to all. Thanks for filling me in. There’s something sticking in my mind I’d like to return to—your strong term ‘pestilence.’ What happened between you and Adolf Hitler?”
“What didn’t happen? The most recent thing—the real reason I’m here—is that he publicly humiliated me. He had one of his major tantrums, and in a rage he viciously accused me of incompetence, disloyalty, and all the crimes in the calendar. Don’t ask me for more details. I have blotted it out and remember only fragments, the way one remembers a flitting nightmare. It has been two weeks, and I still haven’t recovered.”
“I see how shaken you are. What prompted this rage?”
“Party politics. I decided to run some candidates in the 1924 parliamentary elections. Clearly our future is in that direction. The disastrous putsch proved that we had no choice but to enter the parliamentary system. Our party was in tatters and would have dissolved entirely otherwise. Since the NSDAP was outlawed, I proposed that our members join forces with a different party, led by Field Marshal Ludendorff. I discussed this at length with Hitler in one of my many visits to the Landsberg prison. For weeks he refused to make a decision but finally granted me the authority to decide. That’s like him—he’ll rarely make a decision on policy, leaving it instead to his subordinates to battle it out. I made the choice, and we did well in the election. Later, however, when Ludendorff attempted to marginalize him, Hitler publicly denounced my decision and proclaimed that no one could speak for him—thus withdrawing all authority from me.”
“It sounds as though his rage at you is displaced anger—that is, it was misdirected and flowed from other sources, especially the prospect of losing his power.”
“Yes, yes, Friedrich. Exactly. Hitler is preoccupied now with one thing and one thing only—his position as leader. Nothing else, certainly not our basic principles, matters as much. Ever since he was pardoned after thirteen months in Landsberg, he has changed. He has developed a faraway look, as though he sees what others cannot, as though he is above and beyond terrestrial matters. And he now absolutely insists on everyone calling him ‘Führer’—nothing else. He’s grown inexpressibly distant with me.”
“I remember your talking during our last meeting about how you felt he stayed distant from you, how chagrined you were when you witnessed him being more intimate with others—was it Göring you talked about?”
“Yes, exactly. But it’s far more extensive now. In public he holds himself back from everyone. And this lout, Göring, is a big part of the problem. Not only is he unctuous, divisive, and abusive to me, but his open drug addiction is a disgrace. I’m told that in public meetings he takes out his bottle of pills every hour and gulps a handful. I tried to throw him out of the party but could not obtain Hitler’s agreement. In fact, Göring is the other major reason I’m here today. Though he is still out of the country, I’ve heard from good sources that Göring is spreading the vicious rumor that Hitler deliberately chose me to lead the party in his absence because he knew I was the most unsuitable candidate imaginable. In other words, I’d be so inept that Hitler’s own position and power would be unthreatened. I don’t know what to do. I’m ready to jump out of my skin.” Alfred sank back into his chair, hands over his eyes. “I need your help. I keep imagining talking to you.”
“What do you imagine my saying or doing?”
“There I draw a blank. I never get that far.”
“Try to imagine my speaking to you in a manner that would relieve your pain. Tell me, what would be the perfect thing for me to say?” This was one of Friedrich’s favorite ploys, as it always led to deeper investigation of the therapist-patient relationship. Not today.
“I can’t, I can’t do it. I need to hear from you.”
Seeing that Alfred was too agitated to do much reflection, Friedrich offered support as best he could. “Alfred, here’s what I’ve been thinking as you spoke. First, I feel the weight of your burden. This is a horror story. It’s as though you’re in a viper’s nest and you’re dealt with unfairly and viciously by everyone. And though I’m listening hard, I haven’t heard any affirmation from any source.”
Alfred exhaled loudly. “You already understand. I knew you would. No one else validates anything I do. I made the correct decision about the election, and the Führer now pursues exactly the same path I proposed. But never, never do I ever hear praise.”
“From no one in your life?”
“There’s praise from my wife, Hedwig—I remarried recently—but her praise isn’t important. Only Hitler’s words count.”
“Let me ask you something, Alfred. This abuse you’re getting, the vicious rumors, Hitler’s demeaning tirade, the total lack of appreciation—why do you put up with it? What keeps you locked in, asking for more? Why aren’t you taking better care of yourself?”
Alfred shook his head as though he had been expecting this query. “I dislike sounding banal but I have to live. I need the money. What else can I do? I’m well-known as a radical journalist, and there are no other work opportunities. My professional training as an architect won’t find me work. Did I ever tell you my dissertation project was designing a crematorium?”
When Friedrich shook his head, Alfred continued, “Well, I’m afraid that in Catholic Bavaria no one is clamoring to build more crematoriums. No, I have no other work options.”
“But to yoke yourself to Hitler and to put up with such abuse and allow your whole self-esteem to soar or plunge depending upon his mood is not a good recipe for stability or well-being. Why does his love for you mean so very much?”
“That’s not the way I look at it. It’s not just his love I seek; it’s his facilitation. My raison d’être is race purification. I know in my heart this is my life work. If I want Germany to rise again, if I want a Jew-free Germany and a Jew-free Europe, then I must remain with Hitler. Only through him can I bring these things to pass.”
Friedrich glanced at the clock. There was still ample time, for they had scheduled a double session and another double session tomorrow. “Alfred, I have a thought about Hitler’s change in behavior toward you. I think it’s linked to his change in demeanor, his assumption of a visionary posture. It seems he is trying to re-create himself, to become larger than life. And I think he wishes to distance himself from all those who knew him when he was simply an ordinary human being. Perhaps that lies behind his detaching himself from you.”
Alfred pondered that thought. “I hadn’t quite put it that way. But I think there is much truth to what you’re saying. He has a new in-group, and all of us in the out-group have to work hard to catch his ear. With the single exception of Göring, he’s excluded the entire old guard. There’s one particularly malignant newcomer, Joseph Goebbels, who I believe is going to be the Mephisto of our once upright movement. I can’t stand him, and the feeling is fully reciprocated. Right now, Goebbels is the editor of a Nazi daily in Berlin, and soon he’ll be managing all Nazi elections. And there is another insider: Rudolf Hess. He’s been around for a while and commanded an SA division in the putsch. But still he came into
Hitler’s life much later than I. He was in a nearby cell in Landsberg and visited Hitler daily. Since he had been planning to go into his father’s business, Hess had training as a stenographer and began taking dictation of Hitler’s Mein Kampf. I admit I envied Hess. I’d gladly have gone to jail if I could have met with Hitler daily. They finished the first volume in prison, and I believe Hess did a lot of the editing—much of it very badly. Here I am, the party’s leading intellectual and best writer by far—you’d think he would have asked me to edit it. I could have improved it so much. For sure I would have cut several passages that he now openly regrets having written—the crackpot section on syphilis for sure. But not once did he ask.”
“Why didn’t he ask?”
“I’ve got some good hunches that I can’t share with anyone else but you. For one thing, I think he knew I would not have been an impartial editor because of all the ideas he’d purloined from me. You see, before he went to jail, I was the official party philosopher. In fact, some of the leftist papers regularly published such statements as “Hitler is Rosenberg’s mouthpiece” or “Hitler commands what Rosenberg wills.” This vexed him no end, and now he wants to make it crystal clear that he is the sole author of party ideology and that I had no role in this work. In Mein Kampf he is quite explicit about this. I’ve memorized this line: ‘Within long spans of human progress it may occasionally happen that the practical politician and political philosopher are one.’ He wants to be regarded as this rare kind of leader.”
Alfred leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes for a moment.
“You look more relaxed, Alfred.”
“It helps to talk to you.”
“Shall we explore that. How do I help?”
“You give me new ways to look at what’s happened to me. It’s a relief to talk an intelligent fellow being. I am surrounded by such mediocrity.”
“It’s as though this place, this manner of talking offers some respite from your isolation. Right?”
Alfred nodded.
“Yes,” Friedrich continued, “and I’m glad to offer that. But it’s not enough. I wonder if there is some way I can offer you something more substantial than relief. Something deeper and more enduring.”
“I’m all for that. But how?”
“Let me try. I’ll start with a question. There is a lot of negative feeling coming toward you from Hitler and from many others. My question is: what role do you play in this?”
“I’ve already addressed that. Over and over again, I am resented because of my superior intelligence. I have a complex mind, and most people cannot follow the intricacies of my thought. It’s not my fault, but people feel intimidated by me. As a result of not being able to fully comprehend my ideas, many feel stupid and then lash out at me as though it were my fault.”
“No, that’s not quite what I’m after. I’m really trying to get at the question of ‘What do you want to change about yourself?’ Because that is what I try to do—help my patients change. Your answer that your problem stems from your superior mind leads us to a dead end because naturally you don’t want to want to sacrifice any of your superior mind. No one would want that.”
“I’m lost, Friedrich.”
“What I mean is that therapy consists of change, and I’m trying to help you sort out what you want to change in yourself. If you say that your problems are due entirely to others, then I don’t have any therapeutic leverage other than simply soothing you and helping you learn to tolerate abuse or suggesting you find other associates.” Friedrich tried another tact that almost always was fruitful. “Here, let me put it this way—what percentage of the problems you’re facing are caused by others? Is it 20 or 50 or 70 or 90 percent?”
“There is no way to measure that.”
“Of course, but I don’t expect accuracy; I simply want your wildest estimate. Humor me on this, Alfred.”
“All right, let’s say 90 percent.”
“Good. And that means that 10 percent of these aggravating events that upset you so are your responsibility. That can give us some direction. You and I need to explore that 10 percent and see if we can understand and then change it. Are you with me, Alfred?”
“I’m getting that strange light-headed feeling I’ve gotten each time I’ve spoken to you.”
“That’s not necessarily a bad thing. The process of change often feels destabilizing. So back to work. Let’s examine that 10 percent. I want to know about what role you play in others treating you so abusively.”
“I’ve already covered that. I told you it was the envy of the common man for the one with soaring imagination and intellect.”
“People mistreating you because of your superiority belongs to the 90 percent category. Let’s stay focused on the 10 percent—your part of it. You say you are excluded, disliked, the victim of rumors. What do you do to bring that about?”
“I’ve done my best to persuade Hitler to get rid of the chaff, the small minds—the Görings, the Streichers, the Himmlers, the Röhms—but to no avail.”
“But Alfred, you speak of the superiority of the Aryan bloodline, and yet these very men will, if Hitler prevails, become the Aryan rulers. How can that be if they are part of the Aryan bloodline? Surely they must have some strengths, some virtues?”
“They need education and enlightenment. The book I’m working on will provide the education that our future Aryan leaders will require. If Hitler will only back me, I can elevate and purify their thinking.”
Friedrich felt dazed. How could he have so greatly underestimated the strength of Alfred’s resistance? He tried again. “The last time we met, Alfred, you spoke of how others in your office referred to you as the ‘sphinx’ and also how Dietrich Eckart’s criticism had persuaded you to make some significant changes in yourself. Remember?”
“Past history. That saga and the influence of Dietrich Eckart are over. He died several months ago.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. A big loss for you?”
“It’s mixed. I owe much to him, but our relationship deteriorated when Hitler decided Eckart was too ill and too weak to continue as editor in chief of the VB, and appointed me in his stead. It was not my fault, but Eckart blamed me for it. Though I tried my best, I could not persuade him that I didn’t scheme against him. Only as he approached death did his rancor toward me lessen. At my last visit he beckoned me to come close to his bed and whispered in my ear, ‘Follow Hitler. He will dance. But remember it is I who called the tune.’ After his death Hitler called him the ‘pole star’ of the Nazi movement. But, as with me, Hitler never credited him with teaching him anything specific.”
Friedrich’s energy ebbed, but he kept trying. “Let’s go back to the point I was trying to make. When you worked for Eckart, you told me you wanted to make changes in yourself, to be less of a sphinx, to schmooze—”
“That was then. Now I have no intention of weakening myself to curry the favor of inferior minds. In fact, I now find that thought repugnant. That very idea is a microcosm of the great issue we as a nation must face: the weak are not equal to the strong. If the strong lessen their will and power, if they forsake their destiny as rulers, or pollute their bloodline through intermarriage, then they undermine the true greatness of the Volk.”
“Alfred, you see the world only in terms of strong or weak. Surely there are other ways to view—”
“All of history,” Alfred interrupted, his voice stronger, “is a saga of the strong and the weak. Let me speak frankly. The task of strong men like Hitler, like me, and like you, Friedrich, is to enhance the flourishing of the superior Aryan race. You suggest seeing history in ‘other ways.’ You are referring, no doubt, to the ways of the church that attempt to free us from blood ties and create the sovereign individual who is nothing but an abstraction lacking polarity or potency? All notions of equality are fantasies and contrary to nature.”
Friedrich was seeing a different Alfred today—Alfred Rosenberg the Nazi ideologue, the propagandist, the speaker a
t mass Nazi rallies. He didn’t like what he saw but, as though by reflex, persevered in his role. “I recall that the very first time we spoke as adults, you said that you took great pleasure in a philosophic conversation. You told me that you had had no opportunities for that in years.”
“That is certainly true. Still is.”
“So, can I proffer some philosophic questions about your comments?”
“I welcome it.”
“All that you’ve been arguing this morning rests on a basic assumption: that the Aryan race is superior and that great and drastic efforts should be made to increase the purity of that race. Correct?”
“Go on.”
“My question is, simply, What is your evidence? I have no doubt that every other race, if asked, would proclaim its own superiority.”
“Evidence? Look around at the great Germans. Use your eyes, your ears. Listen to Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, Wagner. Read Goethe, Schiller, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche. Look at our cities, our architecture, and look at the great civilizations our Aryan forebears launched that ultimately crumbled after pollution by inferior Semitic blood.”
“I believe you’re citing Houston Stewart Chamberlain. I’ve now read some of his work and frankly am unimpressed with his evidence, which consists of little more than claiming to see occasional blue-eyed, blond-haired Aryans in paintings of Egyptian or Indian or Roman court figures. This is not evidence. The historians I’ve consulted say Chamberlain simply invented the history that would support his original claims. Please, Alfred, give me some substantial evidence for your premises. Give me evidence that Kant or Hegel or Schopenhauer would respect.”
“Evidence, you say? My blood feelings are my evidence. We true Aryans trust our passions, and we know how to harness them to regain our rightful place as rulers.”
“I hear passion, but I still hear no evidence. In my field we search for causes of strong passions. Let me tell you of a theory in psychiatry that seems most relevant to our discussion. Alfred Adler, a Viennese physician, has written much about the universal feelings of inferiority that accrue simply as a result of growing up as a human and experiencing a prolonged period in which we feel helpless, weak, and dependent. There are many who find this sense of inferiority intolerable and compensate by developing a superiority complex, which is simply the other side of the same coin. Alfred, I believe that dynamic may be at play in you. We talked about your unhappiness as a child, at not being at home anywhere, of being unpopular and striving to attain success partly in order to ‘show them’—do you remember?”