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Last-Modified: 1998/01/29

"If we stop looking for new facts and focus on the significance
within the total picture of what we already know, we will come
upon sources of information in our study of Hitler that have thus
far not been properly evaluated and therefore are not readily or
widely accessible. As far as I know, for example, little
attention has been paid to the important fact that Klara Hitler's
hunchbacked and schizophrenic sister, Adolf's Aunt Johanna, lived
with the family throughout his childhood. At least in the
biographies that I have read, I have never found a connection
made between this fact and the Third Reich's euthanasia law. To
find any significance in this connection, a person must be able
and willing to comprehend the feelings that arise in a child who
is exposed daily to an extremely absurd and frightening form of
behavior and yet at the same time is forbidden to articulate his
fear and rage or his questions. Even the presence of a
schizophrenic aunt can be positively dealt with by a child, but
only if he can communicate freely with his parents on the
emotional level and can talk with them about his fears.

"Franziska Hoerl, a servant in the Hitler household when Adolf
was born, told Jetzinger in an interview that she had not been
able to put up with this aunt any longer and left the family on
her account, stating simply that she refused to be around `that
crazy hunchback' any longer.

"The child of the family is not allowed to say such a thing.
Unable to leave, he must put up with everything; not until he has
grown up can he take any action. When Hitler was grown and came
to power, he was finally able to avenge himself a thousandfold on
this unfortunate aunt for his own misfortune. He had all the
mentally ill in Germany put to death, because he felt they were
`useless' for a `healthy' society (i.e., for him as a child). As
an adult, Hitler no longer had to put up with anything; he was
even able to `liberate' all of Germany from the `plague' of the
mentally ill and retarded and was not at a loss to find
ideological embellishments for this thoroughly personal act of
revenge." (Miller,  195-6)

                           Work Cited
                                
Miller, Alice. For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in child-rearing
and the roots of violence. Translated by Hildegarde and Hunter
Hannum. New York: Noonday Press - Farrar - Straus - Giroux, 1990.
Originally published in German under the title `Am Anfang war
Erziehung.'



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