What Did Freud Say About Hitler When He Was Just A Child?
Who among us, watching a documentary on Nazism, has never thought that Hitler suffered from some mental problem? In fact, in 1942 the British Intelligence Service analyzed a speech that Hitler had given that same year, in which clear indications of hysteria, epilepsy and even paranoia could be seen.
Long before reaching power, the very young Adolf Hitler (to be more exact, when he was still a child) was already showing signs of mental imbalance. To analyze his situation, his family doctor, Eduard Bloch, consulted a recognized Viennese doctor, named Sigmund Freud.
According to some studies carried out by Laurence Marks and John Forrester, dedicated to the life and works of Freud, in 1895 the founder of psychoanalysis suggested that little Adolf be hospitalized in a mental health center for children. Unfortunately, his advice was not taken into consideration.
Freud and little Adolf
When he was only six, Adolf Hitler suffered from very vivid nightmares in which he saw himself falling into deep abysses or where he was persecuted and beaten to death. These incidents and many others convinced Dr. Bloch that the child needed the help of a specialist and for this he resorted to Sigmund Freud, who carried out psychoanalytic visits of great fame, to which both members of the upper class of the society than of the bourgeoisie.
Doctor Bloch asked Freud for advice on the case of Adolf Hitler several times, and the diagnosis was always the same: the need for hospitalization and treatment, with which Hitler’s mother, Klara, completely agreed. However, Adolf was not treated, as his father, Alois Hitler, did not consent. He was in fact a very uncompromising man who wanted his son to continue studying to work as a customs clerk.
Hitler’s father mistreated his son with even physical punishments, and for this reason little Adolf even tried to run away from home several times in childhood. According to scholars, in order to prevent his mistreatment from being discovered, Alois always prevented the hospitalization and psychological treatment of his son.
Upon reaching 18 years of age, Adolf Hitler was denied access to the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts twice (between 1907 and 1908), which resulted in the boy suffering from several very severe nervous breakdowns. , which accentuated his psychological malaise.
The Jew who was saved by the Führer
In 1938, when Nazism reached the peak of power and Austria was annexed by Germany to form the Anschluss, Austrian Jews began to be killed by the Gestapo. But there was a doctor of Jewish origin who wrote directly to Hitler asking for protection , and it was the Führer himself who ordered Martin Bohrmann to hide it. The pardoned doctor was Dr. Eduard Bloch, who did not suffer any mistreatment, but managed to obtain a passport that allowed him to emigrate to the United States with his wife.
Reading this story it is impossible not to wonder what would have happened if Hitler’s father had agreed to have his son treated. What would have happened if that child received adequate psychological treatment ? We cannot fail to imagine that, probably, the history of the whole of humanity would have taken another path and the horrors of the Holocaust would never have occurred. Unfortunately, however, these are only guesses and we will never know.
