Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler: two polarizing names in world history. The famous psychoanalyst Otto Kernberg experienced them both.
Frankfurt – What Sigmund Freud once was, Otto Kernberg is today: probably the best-known psychoanalyst of today. The 95-year-old fled the Nazis and studied dictators such as Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin. He now lives in the USA, where the greatest threat to democracy is probably Donald Trump’s possible re-election lies dormant. Kernberg comes in an interview with the Mirror can’t help but see parallels between the rise of Trump and Hitler – and also in their personalities.
Psychoanalyst Kernberg compares the situation surrounding Trump and Hitler: “Similar”
The fact that Trump became president at all was “scary,” said Kernberg. After the victory over National Socialism, he thought: “Now the age of democracy is coming. I have the United States always felt as a place of freedom. “It’s a big disappointment to me what’s happening there right now.” Trump wants to be president again.
A remote diagnosis of Trump is out of the question for Kernberg. He says he wants to “make it very clear” that he is not giving Trump a clinical diagnosis of “malignant narcissistic personality” because he was unable to examine it himself. That’s why he doesn’t know “whether Trump is completely different in his private life.” Nevertheless, “his political behavior corresponds to these pathological traits,” which is why it seems justified to “speak of a political, malignant, narcissistic structure.” This type of personality exists but it also happens in other countries.
The situation of the Nazi rise and that of Trump is also comparable: it is “similar”. Kernberg explained in an interview with Mirror, there were leaders of “extreme nationalist groups” elsewhere at the beginning of the Nazi movement. More than the problem of a single personality like Trump, he is interested in how one can diagnose and prevent the possibility of infection in larger population groups.
Kernberg: “Identifying with a leader makes you feel great”
Kernberg refers to Freud, who diagnosed it when he was born in Vienna in 1928. His colleague “showed that identifying with a leader makes you feel great – and free to let your aggression run wild. And that in such large groups the intelligence of the individual is reduced.”
It is clear to him that democratic institutions must be defended, as well as the right to free, independent elections and the impartiality of judges. In addition, young people need to learn “the dangers of seducing large groups.” Despite the populist tendencies, Kernberg hopes that Trump will be defeated and that “the democratic system will survive this renewed attack.”
Trump-Hitler comparisons have recently been the subject of legal cases
Trump-Hitler comparisons recently caused a stir and a legal case in the USA: a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit Republicans against the broadcaster CNN in which Trump claimed he had been compared to Hitler in the reporting of his efforts to rig the 2020 election. The same thing recently happened to Hubert Aiwanger. (cgsc)
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