World War II American attempt to psychoanalyse Hitler
Analysis of the Personality of Adolph 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 StatesOffice of Strategic Services during World War II. It was one of two psychoanalytic reports prepared for the OSS on Nazi Germany leader Adolf (sometimes spelled "Adolph") Hitler; the other was "A Psychological Analysis of Adolph Hitler: His Life and Legend" (later published in book form under the title 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 copyright permission to publish the report online from Murray's family in 2004.[1] 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 OSS chief William J. Donovan.
History
Murray prepared the report, which consists of the following:
6 unnumbered pages of Introductory Material (consisting of a cover page, a foreword and a table of contents)[2]
Section 3 (numbered as pages 82 – 227) appearing here, which is intended for "psychologists and psychiatrists."
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 asserts that Langer copied from Murray without crediting his work.
^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.
^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 complete document. [dead link]