Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil
Encyclopedia
Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil is a 1998 book by journalist Ron Rosenbaum
Ron Rosenbaum
-Life and career:Rosenbaum was born into a Jewish family in New York City, New York and grew up in Bay Shore, New York. He graduated from Yale University in 1968 and won a Carnegie Fellowship to attend Yale's graduate program in English Literature, though he dropped out after taking one course...

 which tells of Rosenbaum's struggles with the "exceptionalist" character of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

's personality and impact on the world or, worse from his point of view, his struggle with the possibility that Hitler isn't an exception at all, but on the natural continuum of human destructive possibility.

For example, Rosenbaum discusses a theory advanced by Rudolph Binion, a professor at Brandeis University
Brandeis University
Brandeis University is an American private research university with a liberal arts focus. It is located in the southwestern corner of Waltham, Massachusetts, nine miles west of Boston. The University has an enrollment of approximately 3,200 undergraduate and 2,100 graduate students. In 2011, it...

, who believes that Hitler's personality was moulded or deformed by witnessing as a child the suffering of his mother, Klara
Klara Hitler
Klara Hitler née Pölzl was an Austrian woman, the wife of Alois Hitler and the mother of Adolf Hitler.-Family background and marriage:...

, who died of breast cancer
Breast cancer
Breast cancer is cancer originating from breast tissue, most commonly from the inner lining of milk ducts or the lobules that supply the ducts with milk. Cancers originating from ducts are known as ductal carcinomas; those originating from lobules are known as lobular carcinomas...

.

Binion says that Hitler's mother was treated by a Jewish doctor, Eduard Bloch
Eduard Bloch
Dr. Eduard Bloch was a Jewish-Austrian doctor practicing in Linz . Until 1907 Bloch was the doctor of Adolf Hitler's family...

, with the standard remedy of the time, iodoform
Iodoform
Iodoform is the organoiodine compound with the formula CHI3. A pale yellow, crystalline, volatile substance, it has a penetrating odor and, analogous to chloroform, sweetish taste. It is occasionally used as a disinfectant...

. Bloch was excessive in his prescribed dosages of iodoform, however, and the caustic and scarring effects of this chemical exacerbated his patient's suffering. Binion believes Hitler's rage at this was transferred to the Jewish people as a whole.

See also


Having been brought up as a Roman Catholic it is likely that his hatred of Jews came from the Benedictines that educated him.
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