ISSN: 0022-1198
CODEN: JFSCA
Page Count: 6

The Hypnosis of Adolf Hitler
Post, DE
Clinical assistant professor of psychiatry, LSU Medical Center, Department of Psychiatry/ELSH, LA

(Received 29 July 1997; accepted 12 March 1998)

Abstract

A little-known United States Naval Intelligence document (declassified in 1973) for the first time identified Dr. Edmund Forster as the psychiatrist who treated Adolf Hitler during his recovery in Pasewalk Military Hospital.

The fact that Adolf Hitler served as a corporal in World War I is known. However, little has been known as to the psychiatric treatment of Hitler during the autumn of 1918 after he fell victim to a mustard gas attack while serving in the front lines with The 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment.

Historians (Rudolph Binion and John Toland) have acknowledged Hitler's days in the Pasewalk Hospital, but Hitler's psychiatric treatment was not the focus of their attention.

The author of the present paper (a psychiatrist) sets out to better understand what is known about Forster's encounter with Adolf Hitler; and discusses the possibility that suggestions given to Hitler under hypnosis may have influenced the course of history.

Keywords:
forensic science, forensic psychiatry, psychohistory, hypnosis, Hitler, Ernst Weiss, The Eyewitness (Der Augenzeuge), Toland, Binion, Post, Pasewalk, Forster

Paper ID: JFS14374J
DOI: 10.1520/JFS14374J
ASTM International is a member of CrossRef.