ABSTRACT
With the individual problem, psychology is needed when a man comes to the end of his tether. In other fields psychology comes into its own when other means prove inadequate. Political science, economics, diplomacy, and that cynical state-opportunism known as Realpolitik, have all made an attempt to explain the grim confusion of the present state of affairs. But certain questions in the minds of calm, sensible people remain unanswered, and it is these insistent, residual questions which psychology must be called upon to answer:
How, for instance, did Adolf Hitler, a fundamentally illegitimate personality, unsupported by dynastic tradition, adequate education, or political inheritance, come to be dictator of modern Germany?
How is it possible for the German to be, on the one hand, obedient, domesticated, law-abiding and reasonable and, on the other, capable of wholesale and even sadistic cruelty?
Can we regard the Hitler phenomenon as purely German, or could a similar catastrophe overtake the British people?
