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PAR.TISAN R.EVIEW
Heinz Kohut's concept of narcissistic rage distinguishes this form of
rage from others, as:
... the need for revenge, for righting a wrong, for undoing a hurt by
whatever means, and a deeply-anchored, unrelenting compulsion in
the pursuit of these aims, which gives no rest to those who have suf–
fered a narcissistic injury.
As with Freud's advanced theory of anxiety, I suggest that this Ko–
hutian formulation has an application to politics and history which is as
relevant as its individual clinical use. Less than fifty years after the defeat of
France and the triumphant creation of the Second German Reich as the
dominant military power in Europe, Germany experienced what was
perceived as the shameful humiliation of defeat, dismemberment, guilt,
ostracism from the community of nations, and the imposition of repara–
tions for what was then the bloodiest war in history. The emotional pro–
gram of National Socialism was narcissistic revenge on the Allies who had
humbled Germany and imposed the "War Guilt" clause, Article 231 of the
Versailles Treaty of 1919. The perceived injustice of the internationalization
of Danzig, the Polish corridor, the loss of the Saarland, and the payment of
reparations were to be righted by remilitarization, threats, power, and, if
necessary, coercion.
Justice Holmes once said, "We live by symbols." This is especially
true of crisis politics and the search for stability. D. W. Winnicott de–
fined the transitional space between mother and child as the arena of first
symbolization and creativity. The symbolic codes of German politics
constituted transitional objects which gave security against anxiety in a
world of chaos where the multiple traumas of defeat, inflation, depres–
sion, and a weak Weimar government meant uncertainty, instability, and
lack of continuity.
An example of the importance of Hitler and the emotional charge
of his message as a symbolic transitional object, in distinction to its cog–
nitive content, is the experience described by two sisters in 1934 upon
hearing Hitler for the first time at a rally in Kassel. The sisters' family
name was Heder, from Kreis Fritzlar; their ages were nineteen and
twenty-one; their father had been killed on the Russian front in 1915:
As the first sonorous and warm words sounded, deep silence befell the
place. Never again in life did an event exert such a deep hold on us, as
did this first speech of the Fuhrer. And then the words fell, destroying,
accusing, blazing and rousing, pulling everyone along including those
who were doubtful. He spoke with force to the mass and yet again to
each individual, and he fascinated them. His fateful words engraved
