In February 1942, Omnibook Magazine published an article titled “Is Tomorrow Hitler’s?” recounting a 1938 conversation with Carl Gustav Jung in Zurich. In the discussion, Jung offered profound insights into Adolf Hitler’s personality and his relationship with the German nation. His observations provide a psychological framework for understanding fascism’s appeal and destructiveness.
Jung categorized leaders in what he called “primitive societies” into two archetypes: the brute force of the strongest bully or the visionary seer, akin to a prophet. He considered Hitler to belong to the latter category. Observing Hitler in Czechoslovak cities, Jung described his demeanor as that of a dreamy visionary, reflected in the distant, entranced gaze on his face.
The phenomenon that nearly all Germans would fall prostrate before Hitler, exhibiting near-religious adoration, while foreigners saw only an unremarkable, uneducated Austrian corporal, struck Jung as deeply symbolic. To him, Hitler was the embodiment of the unconscious identity of his supporters. Jung famously remarked, “Hitler is the mirror of every German’s unconscious.”
He elaborated further:
“He is the loudspeaker which magnifies the whisper of the German soul until they can be heard by the German conscious ear. He is the first man to tell every German what he has been thinking and feeling all along in his unconscious about German fate, especially since the defeat in the World War, and the one characteristic which colors every German soul is the typically German inferiority complex, the complex of the younger brother, of the one who is always a bit late to the feast. Hitler’s power is not politica; it is magic.”
Jung also pointed out the psychotic elements of Hitler’s personality, noting, “He himself has referred to his Voice. His Voice is nothing other than his own unconscious, into which the German people have projected their own selves, that is, the unconscious of seventy-eight million Germans. This is what makes him powerful.”
Fascism as an Ideology of Projection
Jung argued that fascism thrives on collective identification. The leader becomes a totem—a simplistic caricature of personality into which followers project their unconscious desires and fears. Hitler, described by Jung as a “personality model made of boards and canvas,” embodied this totemic role. His followers, consumed by their own inferiority and repressed anger, were drawn to him not for who he was, but for what he represented: a reflection of their darkest selves.
This phenomenon, Jung observed, was not confined to ideological abstraction but manifested in concrete behaviors. He recounted an encounter with a young German Nazi volunteer fighting for Franco in Spain. This soldier described how his “education” elevated him above the Spanish and Moorish population in their occupied territories:
“When we conquer a town, the ignorant Spaniards and Moors smash and loot houses and offices, looking for money and jewelry. But I, with my academic knowledge, head straight to the cinema projection room and remove the lenses. Each lens is worth 10,000–15,000 pesetas. Education, you see, is the key to superior looting.”
The Mechanics of Destruction
Jung highlighted two destructive traits within Nazism:
- Projection of Evil: The unconscious projection of Germans’ own fears and inferiority onto the figure of Hitler, making him a vessel for their collective darkness.
- Narcissistic Delusion of Superiority: The illusion of education and moral justification for plunder, cloaked in a veneer of intellectual sophistication.
Jung described this combination as uniquely catastrophic, turning the Nazi movement into the most destructive force in Europe at the time. The mindless adoration of Hitler, expressed in frenzied rallies, and the embrace of organized atrocities like the Holocaust, stemmed from this collective psychological dynamic.
The Collective Problem of Evil
For Jung, the problem of fascism was not the leader himself but the collective unconscious of his followers. A leader like Hitler becomes dangerous only when he is willing to surrender to the “call of evil.” As Jung noted, true leaders are always guided by something beyond themselves—Hitler was guided by a “Voice” that led him, and those who followed, into a moral abyss.
Jung’s analysis reminds us that fascism is not just a political ideology but a psychological phenomenon rooted in the collective unconscious. The dynamic between a leader and his followers reveals the destructive potential of unexamined fears, resentments, and desires. By understanding these forces, societies can better guard against the allure of demagoguery and the dark pull of collective projection.
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