1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910790399903321

Autore

Waite Robert G. L (Robert George Leeson), <1919-1999, >

Titolo

Kaiser and Führer : a comparative study of personality and politics / / Robert G.L. Waite

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Toronto, [Ontario] ; ; Buffalo, [New York] ; ; London, [England] : , : University of Toronto Press, , 1998

©1998

ISBN

1-4426-6460-6

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (532 p.)

Collana

Heritage

Disciplina

943.08/4/092

Soggetti

Heads of state - Germany - Psychology

Germany Kings and rulers Psychology

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Includes index.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- PREFACE -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- 1. Two Profiles -- 2. Weltanschauungen: Their Intellectual, Aesthetic, Religious, and Racial Worlds -- 3. Kaiser and Fuhrer as Rulers in Peacetime: Theory and Practice -- 4. Kaiser and Fuhrer as Rulers in War -- 5. Psychological Dimensions -- 6. Kaiser and Fuhrer: The Childhood Experience -- Reflections -- Addendum 1: Scatology in German Life and Letters -- Addendum 2: The Kriegsschuldfrage and Historical Evidence -- Addendum 3: The Kaiser in Exile -- Addendum 4: Historical Continuity versus Change -- Addendum 5: Coprophilic Perversion? -- Addendum 6: Hitler and Incest -- Addendum 7: Dr Bloch and the Genesis of Hitler's Anti-Semitism -- Addendum 8: Hitler and Psychiatrists -- NOTES -- INDEX

Sommario/riassunto

There are some remarkable parallels, and some equally interesting differences, between Adolf Hitler and Germany's earlier ruler, Kaiser Wilhelm II. The most obvious parallel is that both were cult figures who brought their country to ruin and the world to war, but when Robert G.L. Waite began to seriously compare the two men, the number of specific similarities was striking. Kaiser and Führer is the first in-depth examination of the similarities and differences between these two twentieth-century political leaders.Waite uses a psychological approach to throw light on the personal lives and politics of Wilhelm II and Adolf



Hitler. He compares their intellectual worlds, their wartime strategies, and their tortured childhoods. Both men, we discover, had dual personalities - they could be cruel and kind, cowardly and brave, grandiose and vulnerable. Both exhibited homosexual tendencies yet were strongly attractive to women. We see how the personal pathologies of these two men heavily influenced the public policies that resulted in catastrophe.Thoroughly documented and engagingly written this is a classic work of scholarship that will fascinate historians, psychologists, and general readers alike.