Characteropaths and their victims thus represent pathological,
ponerogenic factors which, by their covert activity, easily en-
gender new phases in the eternal genesis of evil, opening the
door to a later activation of other factors which thereupon take
over the main role.
A relatively well-documented example of such an influence
of a characteropathic personality on a macrosocial scale is the
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107
last German emperor, Wilhelm II.35 He was subjected to brain
trauma at birth. During and after his entire reign, his physical
and psychological handicap was hidden from public knowl-
edge. The motor abilities of the upper left portion of his body
were handicapped. As a boy, he had difficulty learning gram-
mar, geometry, and drawing, which constitute the typical triad
of academic difficulties caused by minor brain lesions. He de-
veloped a personality with infantile features and insufficient
control over his emotions, and also a somewhat paranoid way
of thinking which easily sidestepped the heart of some impor-
tant issues in the process of dodging problems.
Militaristic poses and a general’s uniform overcompensated
for his feelings of inferiority and effectively cloaked his short-
comings. Politically, his insufficient control of emotions and
factors of personal rancor came into view. The old Iron Chan-
cellor had to go, that cunning and ruthless politician who had
been loyal to the monarchy and had built up Prussian power.
After all, he was too knowledgeable about the prince’s defects
and had worked against his coronation. A similar fate met other
overly critical people, who were replaced by persons with
lesser brains, more subservience, and, sometimes, discreet psy-
chological deviations. Negative selection took place.
Since the common people are prone to identify with the em-
peror, and through the emperor, with a system of government,
the characteropathic material emanating from the Kaiser re-
sulted in many Germans being progressively deprived of their
ability to use their common sense. An entire generation grew
up with psychological deformities regarding feeling and under-
standing moral, psychological, social and political realities. It is
35 The eldest grandchild of Queen Victoria, Wilhelm symbolized his era and
the nouveaux riche aspects of the German empire. The kaiser suffered from a
birth defect that left his left arm withered and useless. It was claimed that he
overcame this handicap, but the effort to do so left its mark, and despite
efforts of his parents to give him a liberal education, the prince became im-
bued with religious mysticism, militarism, anti-semitism, the glorification of
power politics. Some have claimed that his personality displayed elements of
a narcissistic personality disorder. Bombastic, vain, insensitive, and pos-
sessed with grandiose notions of divine right rule, his personality traits paral-
leled those of the new Germany: strong, but off balance; vain, but insecure;
intelligent, but narrow; self-centered yet longing for acceptance. [Editor’s
note.]
108
PONEROLOGY
extremely typical that in many German families having a
member who was psychologically not quite normal, it became
a matter of honor (even excusing nefarious conduct) to hide
this fact from public opinion, and even from the awareness of
close friends and relatives. Large portions of German society
ingested psychopathological material, together with that unreal-
istic way of thinking wherein slogans take on the power of
arguments and real data are subjected to subconscious selec-
tion.
This occurred during a time when a wave of hysteria was
growing throughout Europe, including a tendency for emotions
to dominate and for human behavior to contain an element of
histrionics. How individual sober thought can be terrorized by
a behavior colored with such material was evidenced particu-
larly by women. This progressively took over three empires
and other countries on the mainland.
To what extent did Wilhelm II contribute to this, along with
two other emperors whose minds also were incapable of taking
in the actual facts of history and government? To what extent
were they themselves influenced by an intensification of hys-
teria during their reigns? That would make an interesting topic
of discussion among historians and ponerologists.
International tensions increased; Archduke Ferdinand was
assassinated in Sarajevo. Unfortunately, neither the Kaiser nor
any other governmental authority in his country were in pos-
session of their reason. What dominated the subsequent events
was Wilhelm’s emotional attitude and the stereotypes of
thought and action inherited from the past. War broke out.
General war plans that had been prepared earlier, and which
had lost their relevance under the new conditions, unfolded
more like military maneuvers. Even those historians familiar
with the genesis and character of the Prussian state, including
its ideological subjugation of individuals to the authority of
king and emperor, and its tradition of bloody expansionism,
intuit that these situations contained some activity of an un-
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109
comprehended fatality which eludes an analysis in terms of
historical causality.36
Many thoughtful persons keep asking the same anxious
question: how could the German nation have chosen for a Fue-
hrer a clownish psychopath who made no bones about his
pathological vision of superman rule? Under his leadership,
Germany then unleashed a second criminal and politically ab-
surd war. During the second half of this war, highly-trained
army officers honorably performed inhuman orders, senseless
from the political and military point of view, issued by a man
whose psychological state corresponded to the routine criteria
for being forcibly committed to a psychiatric hospital.
Any attempt to explain the things that occurred during the
first half of our century by means of categories generally ac-
cepted in historical thought leaves behind a nagging feeling of
inadequacy. Only a ponerological approach can compensate for
this deficit in our comprehension, as it does justice to the role
of various pathological factors in the genesis of evil at every
social level.
The German nation, fed for a generation on pathologically
altered psychological material, fell into a state comparable to
what we see in certain individuals raised by persons who are
both characteropathic and hysterical. Psychologists know from
experience how often such people then let themselves commit
acts which seriously hurt others. A psychotherapist needs a
good deal of persistent work, skill, and prudence in order to
enable such a person to regain his ability to comprehend psy-
chological problems with more naturalistic realism and to util-
ize his healthy critical faculties in relation to his own behavior.
The Germans inflicted and suffered enormous damage and
pain during the first World War; they thus felt no substantial