Warlords
Under scrutiny
Mental state
Hitler |
*** |
It would almost be comforting to regard Nazism as the product of individual psychosis and paranoia, and indeed during World War I, Hitler was described as 'dangerously psychotic' by a military physician. But although their behaviour was in many ways what we would think of as psychotic and paranoid, none of the Nazi leaders who were brought to justice after the war would have been considered mentally unfit to stand trial by modern standards. Nor would Hitler have been had he survived. Indeed, not until the last year or so of the war did those around him consider his mental state to be a problem. This was possibly the result of Parkinson's disease, which often results in a loss of decision-making capacity as well as the characteristic shaking from which Hitler was certainly suffering towards the end of the war. His doctors also noticed a serious deterioration in his mental state following the failed assassination attempt in 1944, and Hitler's chief of staff later said that by 1945, 'he had lost his mental flexibility and imagination.'
