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This volume brilliantly puts forward the interlocking of needs and beliefs of the german populace after world war i with nazi ideology and hitler's leadership. resources drawn upon by the author are erudition in the sociology of nazism, understanding of the new psychology of the self, and sensitivity to the attitudes expressed by nazi rulers and followers.
Weinstein makes a basic set of ideas do yeoman's service as he depicts the interacting mental sets of the german people, hitler, and the nazis:
(1) the need for stability, coherence, order, and hierarchy as a recoil from fragmentation and chaos. the “inability to act or confusion with respect to norms or acceptable modes of behavior” triggered catastrophic ego states. these factors were all obviously related to the societal and personal disintegrative forces following world war i.
(2) the need for grandiosity which would compensate for the denigration following collapse of inflated national illusions. on an individual level, greatness would make up for that erosion of self-esteem from being “locked in a hopeless battle with the representatives of a hostile and depriving reality.” that this reality was not understood added to the mortification.
(3) stemming from material deprivations and distress at being unfairly misprized by fate and the world, a litigious sense of unusual entitlement.
(4) finally, a theme sounded too softly by the author: the compulsive repetitive feature of these strivings exacerbated as they were by traumas. the unfolding of these variables is followed by the author into such diverse areas as the exaltation of struggle and combat, the pageantry of marching columns, hierarchic and tyrannical government, military strategy, the comprehensions of time and space, the conquest and enslavement of “inferior” peoples, and the annihilation of the jews.
Nowhere have i read a keener portrayal of the ways in which the germans construed themselves and the world. the author skillfully delineates fundamental assump