Fortalezas

The Search for the “Nazi Personality”

Early attempts at understanding the perpetrators of the Holocaust were a search for homogeneity. In other words, they were a search to defend our general belief that all Nazis were very similar to each other and very dif- ferent from each of us. As we have seen, however, the perpetrators of the Holocaust were not uniformly similar in ideology or, certainly, in psy- chopathology. But didn’t it stand to reason, many suggested, that the Nazis

would be characterized by a homogenous, nonpathological personality struc-

ture? Moreover, wouldn’t this personality structure — though not abnormal in a clinical sense — be extraordinarily different from the personality struc- ture of the rest of us? In other words, wouldn’t they have more in common with each other than with any other group of people? In short, wasn’t there a single Nazi personality — aggressive, militaristic, disciplined, undemoc- ratic, and antisemitic in nature — that made the perpetrators more suscep- tible to committing extraordinary evil?

Between the autumn of 1942 and the spring of 1944, British psychi- atrist Henry V. Dicks examined 138 German prisoners of war. The method of examination was a prolonged, personal, nondirected interview with each prisoner. No formal psychological testing procedures or scripted questions were used. As a matter of fact, the interviewer merely represented himself as an officer privately interested in the prisoners as men — not as a psychi- atrist or mental health professional. The lack of professionalism, both in data gathering and ethical practice, is appalling. Thus, it comes as little sur- prise that Dicks found exactly what he expected, and wanted, to find — a homogeneous personality structure that existed in greater concentration in more “Nazi” personalities than in other Germans.

What was this homogeneous personality structure? Labeled the “High

F Syndrome” (F for “fanatical”), it was very similar to the “average” mem-

ber of the Wehrmacht described by Dicks in a 1944 War Office Research Memorandum titled Psychological Foundations of the Wehrmacht. Dicks, adopting a decidedly psychoanalytic approach, wrote:

The “average” member of the Wehrmacht can be described as tense, earnest, in- dustrious, meticulous, over-respectful to authority and anxious to impress. He is a martinet in his dealings with his social inferiors and his subordinates. He is very touchy about status. He requires uniformity and order, and is uneasy in unfore- seen situations. . . . He idealises his women in their role as mothers and as objects

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towards whom libidinal aim-inhibition is demanded; but he also deprecates them socially and sexually on the plane of reality. . . . Conformity and “loyalty,” as of a servant to his master, are rated among the highest virtues. . . . A weak authority is despised. . . . Allegiance to paternal authority is furthered by the projection of the German’s own repressed aggressive feelings to the authority itself.34

Unfortunately, Dicks did not use a control or comparison group. As a result, one is left to wonder if his description of the “High F Syndrome” does not, in fact, characterize the military personnel of most nations. For- tunately, such slippery and ill-founded descriptions of the “Nazi Personal- ity” would not go unchallenged. They would be confronted by the same ex- tensive data bank that was used to confront the “mad Nazi” thesis — the Rorschach records of Nazi war criminals. In addition to gauging psy- chopathology, the Rorschach test also allows for a comprehensive descrip- tion of an individual’s personality — an estimate of cognitive and emotion- al resources, perceptual accuracy, information processing, stress tolerance, problem-solving style, modulation of affect, goal orientation, self-esteem, interpersonal relations, and so on. In short, the Rorschach gives us a win- dow onto an individual’s most striking or dominant personality character- istics, those that are relatively consistent over time and across different sit- uations, those that differentiate him from others.

Returning to our discussion of the Nuremberg Rorschachs, recall that Gilbert advanced the notion of a “new inhuman personality type” that he designated “the murderous robots of the SS.” He clearly located one origin of this personality type in psychopathology — specifically, the schizoid per-

sonality.35 _{However, he also clearly designated two nonpathological social}

influences on this personality type: an extreme authoritarianism and a be- lief in the hostile racial ideology of Nazism. He believed that the SS se- lected for, and reinforced, this specific personality type.

Similarly, Kelley — although adamant in his denial of psychopathol- ogy in the Nazi war criminals — was still at least willing to admit to a clus- ter of homogeneous personality traits among the defendants. In 22 Cells in

Nuremberg, Kelley wrote: “No, the Nazi leaders were not spectacular types,

not personalities that appear only once in a century. They simply had three quite unremarkable characteristics in common — and the opportunity to seize power. These three characteristics were: overweening ambition, low ethical standards, a strongly developed nationalism which justified any-

”36

thing done in the name of Germandom.

confirmed the presence of two personality characteristics that, while not abnormalities in a psychiatric sense, were present in many of the defen- dants. The first major personality characteristic they noted was the overall

problem-solving style of the defendants. Among the sixteen Gilbert records,

they reported that an unusually high number of the Nazis (nine) tested as ambitent. Ambitents have failed to develop a consistent preference or style in their coping behaviors when confronted with difficult tasks. In other words, these are individuals who essentially have no mind of their own. They rely heavily on others as well as on an external structure for guidance in problem solving. Generally, this leads to less efficiency and more vacil- lation in decision-making operations.

Zillmer and colleagues describe the ambitent tendencies of the Nazi elite as a “chameleonlike” personality that allowed the defendants to adopt the beliefs and objectives of whatever leadership was in power at the mo- ment, rather than basing their judgments on an “internal compass.” Very few showed well-established, but reasonably adaptable, problem-solving skills. Again, this is not a measure of psychopathology but simply a par- ticular problem-solving style that is a relatively stable psychological feature of the individual — that is, a personality trait.

Zillmer and his coauthors also present a second, less stable personality characteristic that broadly defined many of the Nuremberg defendants:

overconfidence. This was manifested in an increased self-esteem that may have

included a sense of entitlement and an overvaluing of self. Related to this, the Nuremberg group as a whole was more likely than a comparison control group to blame the Rorschach test itself, the testing situation, or the ex- aminer for any uncertainty or uneasiness they felt about the quality of their responses.

With the exception of these two characteristics, however, the authors conclude that “research on the records of the Nazi elite failed to identify a homogenous Nazi personality. In fact, the differences among the members of this group by far outweighed any similarities. . . . The Nazi elite demon- strated a complex range of personalities and cannot be simply defined in

strict terms.”37

The Nuremberg defendants were the architects of the Holocaust. But what about the rank-and-file individuals who actually carried out mass murder? Did they all exhibit a common personality style in which the es- sential feature was a pervasive pattern of dependent and submissive behav- ior? Again, the Copenhagen Rorschach records of Danish citizens convicted

Psychopathology, Personality, and Evil • 75

of collaborating with the Nazi occupation and German military personnel offer insight.

Providing a much larger data bank than the Nuremberg Rorschachs, the Copenhagen records reveal a cluster of personality traits that character- ized many, but not all, of the Danish perpetrators. Among these are the findings that many rank-and-file Nazis were not deep thinkers and may have had difficulty in making their own decisions; were deficient in stress tolerance and vulnerable to even typical levels of subjective stress; showed coping deficits; showed signs of social skill deficits that may have been manifested in an inability to form close, supportive attachments outside the structure of the Nazi organization; appear to have had low self-esteem with a tendency to view themselves as victims of circumstances; had an incon- sistent and ineffectual problem-solving style (that is, “ambitent”); were more likely to experience anxiety or feelings of depression (that is, emo- tional stress) rather than suffering from worry or other negative thoughts and preoccupations (that is, cognitive stress); tended to process information simplistically and unimaginatively, making them particularly susceptible to prejudice and bigotry; and had indications of rigid and pessimistic thinking.

Perhaps the most telling personality characteristic, however, was the tendency for the Copenhagen subjects to view themselves and others as simple, incomplete part-objects. Zillmer and his coauthors argue that a “strong case can be made that the Nazis were not capable of perceiving themselves and other human beings as complex, integrated personalities. Such overly simplistic attitudes lend themselves to arbitrary, prejudicial be- liefs about the integrity of human beings and may make it possible for in- dividuals such as the Danish collaborators to treat others as if they were not

human.”38

While certainly not desirable, we are reminded that these personality characteristics are not — in and of themselves — pathological. Neither are they prevalent enough throughout the sample to define a homogenous rank-and-file “Nazi personality” profile. Few, if any, of the Rorschach pro- tocols contain all — or even most of — the constructs identified as “com- mon” in the sample. Indeed, the variations from person to person are much more striking than the similarities.

At best, we can see these as a number of personality traits that may have served as predisposing factors for having participated in Third Reich atrocities. Collectively, they may represent a general susceptibility to the

influences of the Nazi movement. As the authors conclude: “The above per- sonality traits may nevertheless serve as predisposing characteristics. In this sense the presence of them may make individuals more vulnerable to the influences of a Nazi movement, or for that matter, any political movement. . . . We must therefore conclude that under certain social conditions, just about anyone could have joined the Nazi movement, but that there were in-

dividuals who were more likely to join.”39

Even here, though, we must keep in mind the scores of people with this same cluster of traits who did not participate in the atrocities as well as the scores of perpetrators without these specific traits who did partici- pate in the atrocities. In summary, when looking at the perpetrators, we do not find homogeneity of personality traits. Rather, we are confronted by a disturbing heterogeneity that undermines the notion of a uniform “Nazi personality.”

The Authoritarian Personality

Historically, social psychologists — including myself — have been drawn to the phenomenon of prejudice. Many important questions have emerged from this study: Do there exist individuals who regularly and consistently display prejudice? In other words, is there a singular, homogeneous per- sonality type that is characteristically predisposed to prejudicial thoughts, feelings, and behaviors? Is there a uniform personality that consistently and regularly accepts those who are similar to them and rejects those who are different from them? In short, are there people who are predisposed toward being prejudiced simply because of the kind of people they are? Moreover, does this personality make them more susceptible to fascist ideology, crim- inalization or, perhaps, the commission of extraordinary evil? Several noted psychoanalysts and psychologists addressed these questions — Erich Fromm, Erik Erikson, Wilhelm Reich, Abraham Maslow, and Ross Stagner, among others. In the 1940s, however, it would fall to a group of researchers at the University of California at Berkeley — two of whom had fled Nazi Ger- many — to build on these works and offer the first quantitative conceptu- alization of a fascism-prone personality.

The Berkeley researchers — Theodor Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel Levinson, and Nevitt Sanford — were initially drawn to uncovering the psychological roots of an antisemitism so poisonous that it led to the Holocaust. Eventually, however, their investigation broadened to outline a personality that would be predisposed to a wide variety of hatred — in

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other words, not a personality that was descriptively prejudiced but a per- sonality that predisposed one to prejudice. They eventually discovered that individuals who harbor prejudicial attitudes toward one group (that is, Jews) tend to be the same individuals who harbor prejudicial attitudes to- ward other groups (blacks, Hispanics, Mormons, socialists, etc.). In 1950, their findings, and the explanation for those findings, were published in a book titled The Authoritarian Personality (TAP). Over five years in the mak- ing, and nearly 1,000 pages in length, TAP became an instant landmark in

the field of social psychology.40

How did they come to these findings? Adorno and his colleagues first identified a group of individuals who possessed antisemitic attitudes and then assessed the extent to which these people also possessed a general aver- sion to all people who diverge from white, middle-class American norms and values. By comparing responses from a newly developed antisemitic questionnaire to those from a well-established scale measuring ethnic prej- udice, Adorno and his colleagues discovered a consistent pattern of preju- dicial attitudes. Apparently, according to the criterion of consistency across targets, a prejudiced personality does indeed exist. Prejudice appeared to be less an attitude specific to one group than a general way of thinking about those who are different.

Having identified the existence of a prejudiced personality, these re- searchers turned their attention to the origins of this personality. In the late 1940s, psychoanalysis was at the peak of its popularity in academia. Fit- tingly, the authors of TAP were themselves psychoanalytically oriented; three of them were personality psychologists, and the fourth, Adorno, was a philosopher specializing in the ethics of music. Utilizing the theoretical ideas of Freudian personality dynamics, they postulated that the origins of this personality were in the innate, and socially unacceptable, drives of sex and aggression. When the restraints against the expression of these drives are unusually harsh, the individual becomes anxious, insecure, and unusu- ally attuned to external authority sources for behavioral guidance. This rev- erence for authority goes far beyond the normal, balanced, and realistic re- spect for valid authority that most of us have; it reflects an exaggerated, emotional need to submit.

Prejudiced individuals, according to the four researchers, were the chil- dren of domineering fathers and punitive mothers who engaged in unusu- ally harsh child-rearing practices. These practices involved a combination of threats, coercion, and the deliberate use of parental love and its withdrawal to promote obedience. In other words, authoritarian parents are not able to

show their children affection without reservation; it is contingent on the child’s good behavior. The result is children who are decidedly insecure and, paradoxically, extremely dependent on their parents. Moreover, such chil- dren fear their parents and experience unconscious hostility toward them. Adorno and his colleagues claimed that these unconscious childhood conflicts led insecure and dependent children to grow up to be adults who were excessively submissive and obedient to those in positions of power and authority. Similarly, the fear and hostility of their childhood years become a well of repressed resentment within them. This hostility is displaced and finds it way into aggression toward members of minority groups and other people perceived to be less powerful than themselves — even while the in- dividual maintains an outward respect, and desire, for authority. These are people inclined to obey authority and to act aggressively toward people not in authority. To those above, they bow; those below, they kick. In short, big- otry addressed and, to some extent, resolved their deepest needs.

As adults, these individuals displayed the behavioral elements of a syndrome that was first called the fascist character, then the anti-democratic, and, finally, the authoritarian personality. Adorno and his colleagues identi- fied nine a priori clusters of personality dimensions — many surprisingly similar to Dicks’s “High F Syndrome”— that made up the authoritarian personality:

1. Conventionalism: Rigid adherence to conventional middle-class values.

2. Authoritarian Submission: Submissive, uncritical attitude to- ward idealized moral authorities of the in-group.

3. Authoritarian Aggression: Tendency to be on the lookout for, and to condemn, reject, and punish, people who violate con- ventional values.

4. Anti-Intraception: Opposition to the subjective, the imagina- tive, the tender-minded.

5. Superstition and Stereotypy: The belief in mystical determinants of the individual’s fate; the disposition to think in rigid cate- gories.

6. Power and “Toughness”: Preoccupation with the dominance- submission, strong-weak, leader-follower dimension; identi- fication with power figures; overemphasis on the convention- alized attributes of the ego; exaggerated assertion of strength and toughness.

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7. Destructiveness and Cynicism: Generalized hostility, vilification of the human.

8. Projectivity: The disposition to believe that wild and dangerous things go on in the world; the projection outward of uncon- scious emotional impulses.

9. Sex: Exaggerated concern with sexual “goings-on.”

These clusters were conceptualized as a single syndrome, a more or less en- during structure in the person that renders her receptive to “antidemocra- tic” propaganda.

To assess the authoritarian personality, Adorno and his coauthors con- structed a thirty-eight-item scale (later trimmed to thirty items) that they named the Implicit Antidemocratic Trends or Potentiality for Fascism Scale be- cause they believed that the authoritarian personality makes individuals susceptible to antidemocratic or fascist propaganda. Over time, it simply became known as the F scale.

What else do we know about a person when we know his or her score on the F scale? Research utilizing the F scale suggests people who are high on authoritarianism do not simply dislike Jews or dislike blacks, but, rather, show a consistently high degree of prejudice against all minority groups (including, recent studies indicate, AIDS patients). Any selection of a particular hate target is guided by convenience and social convention. In addition, research suggests that high-scoring individuals display consider- able cognitive rigidity and intolerance for ambiguity, as well as the firm be- lief that other people tend to think and feel as they do. High authoritarians tend to reject minorities and foreigners, accept the attitudes of those in power, and identify with authoritarian characters in television situation comedies (for example, Archie Bunker).

Although authoritarianism will not always coincide with authoritarian behavior, high authoritarians also are more obedient to authority and more likely to raise their own children in an authoritarian manner. On the polit- ical front, supporters of extreme right-wing parties, candidates, and pro- grams have sharply higher F scale scores than those who support prodemo- cratic and liberal points of view. Finally, it also has been shown that high