Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler

Analysis of the Personality of Adolph [sic] Hitler: With Predictions of His Future Behavior and Suggestions for Dealing with Him Now and After Germany's Surrender was a report prepared by Henry A. Murray for the United States Office of Strategic Services during World War II. It was one of two psychoanalytic reports prepared for the OSS on Nazi Germany leader Adolf Hitler; the other was The Mind of Adolf Hitler.

Murray's report is dated October 1943. A copy in PDF is available from the Cornell Law School library, which received a copy of the report from Murray's family and published it online in 2004. The Cornell copy is serialized as copy number 3 of 30. The report forms a part of the law library's Donovan Collection, which contains the papers of the legendary OSS chief William J. Donovan.

Contents

History

Murray prepared the report, which consists of the following:

  • Part A (pages 1-29), Brief Analysis of Hitler's Personality
  • Part B (pages 29 - 33), Predictions of Hitler's Behavior
  • Part C (pages 33 - 38), Suggestions for the Treatment of Hitler
  • Part D (pages 38 - 53), Suggestions for the Treatment of the German People

The sources for the report, identified in the introductory material, are all published sources, including the paper which was prepared by Vernon (Section 2) under Murray's general supervision. Unlike the report prepared by Langer (see The Mind of Adolf Hitler), Murray conducted no personal interviews of Hitler associates.

There is some overlap between the two wartime reports. Murray's biographer claims that Langer copied from Murray without giving proper credit.

Footnotes

  1. ^ The report's organization is confusing. The table of contents in the Introductory Material refers to Sections 4, 5 and 6, but these sections do not exist; instead, the material for those non-existent sections appears as Parts B, C and D of Section 1.
  2. ^ The title of Section 1 (a "Condensed Review") is confusing, as it is essentially the heart of the entire memorandum, and is not a review of some more fulsome document.

Reference Works

External links