Age of Sociopaths

Hitler’s responsibility for the Holocaust, and indeed for the Second World War in Europe, tends to overshadow everything else he did. However, some of his other wanton and cruel acts would, in anyone else, have been regarded as awful enough to condemn him as the sociopath he was.

Among these, was his behaviour towards his half-niece Geli Raubal. Nineteen years his junior when, at seventeen, he had her move into his Munich apartment. She stayed there, for six years, increasingly closely sequestered.

No one knows whether there was a sexual relationship between them: it seems likely that Hitler suffered a number of sexual problems, and one of the most serious was his confusion of dominance with gratification. Geli wanted to study; he forbade it. She got into some kind of an affair with Hitler’s chauffeur; Hitler ordered her to end it and fired the chauffeur. She wanted to go back to Vienna (like Hitler, she was Austrian); Hitler wouldn’t hear of it.

That final refusal tipped her over the edge. He left for one of his great rallies in Nuremberg. Within hours, she was dead, killed by a bullet in her lungs from Hitler’s own pistol.

Geli Raubal with her uncle Adolf Hitler
who, it turns out, was as unbearable at home as outside

There have been suspicions that the death was a murder. There have been suggestions she was beaten. The most likely explanation is that, driven to despair by becoming a virtual prisoner of her uncle’s, she took her own life.

This is one death, and probably suicide, which fades into insignificance compared to the millions who were murdered in the Holocaust. But, as Stalin said, one death is a tragedy while a million is simply a statistic. The story of Geli Raubal highlights something about Hitler’s character, even in the intimate sphere, away from the adulation of the rallies or the cowed obedience of soldiers and secret policemen.

Hitler simply didn’t care what Geli wanted. She saw her simply as an agent to satisfy his wishes. When she showed any sign of independence of will, he reacted with fury and took impulsive action, such as firing the chauffeur or denying Geli’s right to go have any kind of life outside the apartment.

These are the classic symptoms of the personality disorder which used to be known as sociopathy: an inability to feel empathy for other people, egocentrism to the point of narcissism, a refusal to follow social conventions, emotional instability and impulsiveness that can lead to aggression and violence.

The world paid a high price to free itself of the sociopathy of Hitler. But the evil wasn’t wiped out, merely driven underground. It has re-emerged in our times.

Obviously the great sociopath today is Donald Trump. 

• Unable to feel, let alone express, sympathy for victims of racist violence? 
• Unmoved by the cruelty of separating the children of immigrants from their parents at the US border? 
• Callously telling victims of Californian fires, made far worse by the global warming he refuses to recognise, that they should rake their forests? 
• Describing American war dead as losers? 
• Pretending that an epidemic responsible for the deaths of quarter of a million Americans, isn’t serious? 
• Firing collaborators by Tweet?

All these are the behaviour patterns of a man incapable of empathy, so entirely absorbed in himself as to be unable even to imagine how others might be offended by his actions. And hasn’t his behaviour since the election shown his refusal to live by normal social standards? 

His narcissism, too, comes through strongly in his refusal to believe that any election can be valid if it doesn’t crown him. He has retreated from his defeat into denial and absence from the public sphere, engaging in practically no governing except for the occasional bursts of impulsive action – firings, troop withdrawals without planning – while spending most of his time sulking in his room, watching too much TV, firing off the occasional disgruntled tweet or emerging occasionally to play golf.

Trump the loser

Well, unless he can pull off what looks increasingly incredible, and snatch election victory from Joe Biden, we may be rid of him by 20 January. Without fighting a war, which is some progress since Hitler’s days. But that would only be the start.

Alongside Coronavirus, there seems to be an epidemic of sociopathy around the world. The latest case has emerged in Britain, in the form of the Home Secretary, Priti Patel. An official investigation into her behaviour has found her guilty of bullying. The Prime Minister’s adviser on ethics ruled that she had breached the Ministerial code of conduct. Boris Johnson, however, decided that she had not, so it was the adviser that resigned, not Patel.

The most telling comment by Patel on the affair was her public apology: “I’m sorry that my behaviour has upset people and I have never intentionally set out to upset anyone”. I suspect it’s true. She had no idea her behaviour would offend people. Why? Because she’s incapable of placing herself in another person’s place and imagining how she would feel, if she were subjected to the same actions.

In other words, she’s incapable of empathy. 

Priti Patel and Boris Johnson
In their sociopathic comfort zone

So, it would seem, is her boss. Boris Johnson is saying that, in his view, there’s nothing reprehensible about Patel’s behaviour. This isn’t the first time he’s reached that kind of view. When his then principal adviser, Dominic Cummings, flagrantly breached the Covid restrictions he’d been instrumental in framing, and drove several hundred miles while infected, Johnson did nothing about it. 

It’s hard to know just how much effect that had on compliance with the rules. You know, “if the PM doesn’t mind, why should I?” That kind of thing. There must have been some of it, and certainly compliance hasn’t been good, so Johnson’s behaviour can hardly be regarded as Prime Ministerial, any more than Patel’s was Ministerial.

Even more striking is that when Johnson finally fired Cummings, it was because he’d got up the nose of Johnson’s girlfriend Carrie Symonds. While it was the anonymous populace, Johnson didn’t care. But when it was a matter affecting his own domestic arrangements, his reaction was swift, sure and brutal. Cummings was out, like Hitler’s chauffeur.

Yes, indeed. Sociopathic behaviour in power seems common these days. And that’s without even mentioning Erdogan, Bolsonaro, Duterte, Orbán and a host of others. The infection has spread to many places. Perhaps if and when Trump goes, it will start to recede. But we shall need to fight it all the way, and stay vigilant.

Sadly, just wearing a mask won’t be enough.