Kata Kita, Vol. 9, No. 3, December 2021, 389-397 e-ISSN: 2598-7801
DOI: 10.9744/katakita.9.3.389-397
Adolf Hitler’s Pathological Narcissistic Personality Disorder in Mein Kampf Fayola Isabelle Hartanto1, Dwi Setiawan, S.S., MA-ELT., Ph.D.2 English Department, Faculty of Humanities and Creative Industries, Petra Christian University, Siwalankerto 121-131, Surabaya, 60236, INDONESIA E-mail: fayolaisabelle99@gmail.com 1, dewey@petra.ac.id 2
ABSTRACT Given the argument that an autobiography can be deconstructed like any other fictional texts, this article analyzes Mein Kampf (1939), an autobiography written by Adolf Hitler by treating the text as a fiction. Doing so reveals Adolf Hitler the character, who is very influenced by Adolf Hitler the writer. With the use of Otto F. Kernberg’s (2004) theory on pathological narcissistic personality disorder, this article attempts to find Adolf Hitler the character’s narcissistic personality disorder inside of Mein Kampf and the reasons for such personality disorder. The investigation reveals that the symptoms of the character’s narcissism can be found in the character’s self, emotional life, and social functioning which fit into Kernberg’s (2004) description of a narcissistic patient. On the other hand, the character’s authoritarian parental figure and innate talents are the reasons for the personality disorder. Keywords: autobiography; narcissism; adolf hitler; mein kampf
INTRODUCTION Despite the long history that an autobiography had, few scholars took little interests in analyzing this genre, at least, not before the era of deconstruction. It was neglected for more than half a century, jumbled around between departments of history and literature for most part of the 20 th century. Initially, autobiography was used as a historical evidence. However, with more and more historians doing their own research, it is becoming clear that autobiography lacks accuracy and is very subjective to serve as a historical evidence (Berryman, 1999). It was in the era of structuralism and deconstruction that the critical study of autobiography began to be taken seriously. In his journal, Paul Jay (1987) outline three critics who suggest deconstructing autobiography. By doing so, autobiography began to lose its historical usefulness and began making a way into creative literature. When it comes to the authors of autobiography, the lists are endless. Many famous people such as Nelson Mandela and Barrack Obama have written their autobiography which then serve as inspirations for other people. Another person who also had written his autobiography was the world’s most renowned dictator, Adolf Hitler. However, instead of inspiring people by his autobiography, his work was once banned in several countries. Mein Kampf, or translated as My Struggle in English, tells the story of Adolf Hitler that he wrote during the time he was imprisoned for a failed putsch in Munich, 1923. In 1925, the first volume of this book is published followed by the second volume in 1926. The book tells a little bit of Adolf Hitler’s childhood and consists mostly of his plans and struggles to make Germany glorious. This autobiography, as real as Hitler may wanted it to be, was made clear by other biographies such as The Mind of Adolf Hitler written by Walter C. Langer (1972). For instance, in Mein Kampf, there is a story of when Adolf Hitler was hit by a smoke bomb, but with Langer’s research, it seems like the incident likely did not happen. Those discrepancies are not unusual considering how autobiography was said to create multiple contradictory self-images of the writer (Berryman, 1999). Thus, these differences of the real-life events as well as the events written inside of Mein Kampf inspired me to analyze Mein Kampf like one would do with any other fictional texts and deconstruct it. Doing so creates two personas of Adolf Hitler: Adolf Hitler the writer and Adolf Hitler the character. These two personas are
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