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- The Mind of Adolf Hitler: The Secret Wartime Report, published in 1972 by Basic Books, is based on a World War II report by psychoanalyst Walter C. Langer which probed the psychology of Adolf Hitler from the available information. The original report was prepared for the United States' Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and submitted in late 1943 or early 1944; it is officially entitled A Psychological Analysis of Adolph Hitler: His Life and Legend. The report is one of two psychoanalytic reports prepared for the OSS during the war in an attempt to assess Hitler's personality; the other is Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler by the psychologist Henry A. Murray who also contributed to Langer's report. The report eventually became 1,000 pages long. The book contains not only a version of Langer's original report but also a foreword by his brother, the historian William L. Langer who was Chief of Research and Analysis at the OSS during the war, an introduction by Langer himself, and an afterword by the psychoanalytic historian Robert G.L. Waite. The report made several predictions about Hitler's future which proved to be accurate:
* As the war turns against him, his emotions will intensify and will have outbursts more frequently. His public appearances will become much rarer, because he's unable to face a critical audience.
* There might be an assassination attempt on him by the German aristocracy, the Wehrmacht officers or the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, because of his superhuman self-confidence in his military judgment.
* There will be no surrender, capitulation, or peace negotiations. The course he will follow will almost certainly be the road to ideological immortality, resulting in the greatest vengeance on a world he despises.
* From what we know of his psychology, the most likely possibility is that he will commit suicide in the event of defeat. It's probably true he has an inordinate fear of death, but possibly being a psychopath he would undoubtedly "screw himself up" into the superman character and perform the deed. (en)
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