The Diary of Anne Frank is one of the most popular bestselling books of all time.

Since its publication in 1947, the journal, written by a Jewish teenager has been
an endeared classic that has proved to be insightful. Anne Frank wrote and kept her
diary while she was in hiding for two years with her family during the Nazi
occupation of the Netherlands. In 1944, her family was apprehended by the Nazi
authorities, and she died from typhoid in 1945 at Bergen- Belsen concentration
camp. The literary works of the diary are believed to have been retrieved by Miep
Gies who later gave it to Anne’s father who was the only known survivor of that
particular family after the war. Since then, there has been about over sixty
publications of the diary in different languages. Its appearance in English was in
the United States of America was inform of The Diary of a Young Girl by Doubleday
and in the United Kingdom by Valentine Michell. The book has been one of the tops
in the list of great books of the twentieth century.
On the twelfth of June the year 1942, Anne received a diary as a birthday present
from her father. It was her thirteenth period, a time when the Nazi occupation had
taken root in the Netherlands. After receiving the diary, she began writing it two
days later on the fourteenth of June the same year. In the following month, her
older sister, Margot received an official summons to report to the Nazi work Camp
in Germany. On the sixth of July, Anne, Margot and their parents, Otto and Edith
went into hiding where they joined by Otto’s business partner and his family, a
wife and a son. Anne’s father was a licensed pectin manufacturer and seller. He
obtained his license in 1933 and opened a business that he named Opekta. Anne and
the other hid in the upper rooms of the annex that had been sealed- off at Otto’s
company building at Amsterdam. They were successful to remain hidden for roughly
two years and one month after which they were discovered and reported to the Nazi
concentration camps in 1944.
Anne and her family go into hiding after her sister receives a summon because they
know for sure she was going to be sent to one of the concentration camps. She
spends her age at puberty developed cooped up in a room that she shares with an
elderly dentist. However, she is lucky because Otto’s business partner has many
books and a radio which helped her grow her knowledge of literature and politics.
Because she has nothing else to do, Anne Frank invested most of her energy in
writing and studying. Nevertheless, she starts caving in and grows further away
from the other members of the annex including her family. As she continues to grow,
Anne becomes more sensitive to what is going on in the world around her outside the
annex. She develops a friendship with Peter who in a sense comforts her during this
challenging period. At this point, Anne starts to feel alone, and it is unbearable
thinking that everyone hates her. In a way, she feels like she is always being
criticized and she cannot do anything about it because there is no escape. It gets
to a point where she thinks that it would have been better if she and her family
had just died instead of taking refuge in the annex.
Anne continued to write the impressions she got until that time she and her fellow
annex members were discovered. Her entries were made in the form of letters to
several imaginary friends employing the use of pseudonyms to conceal the identities
of the rest of the people she was in hiding with. Just like any usual teenager, she
was confused about the feelings she had towards her friends and family and a
supposed romantic interest as well as her evolving thoughts about life in general.
Her adverse optimism is what made her work very important in history.
In that diary, Anne expresses her desire for one person that she could call her
most true friend. This is the person that she could confide in and share her most
profound thoughts and feelings. She also observes that she had many friends as well
as many admirers, Kitty was her most entrusted friend to whom she entrusted her
innermost thoughts. She also writes about how close she was to her father and how
distant she was with her mother. She highly admired her sister and how sweet and
intelligent she was.
Anne Frank’s story is one of the Holocaust stories that has come to be recognized
and important especially for teenagers. Anne not only wrote the diary but also did
a good job editing her work. Anne was inspired by her ideas which somewhat sounded
absurd and impossible to achieve because she genuinely believed that everyone could
be good at heart. She wrote the diary in a way that implied it was to be read; she
hoped to aspire others especially when the war came to an end.
Netherlands became directly involved in the World War II in 1940. When the war
broke out the Netherlands proclaimed neutrality just as it had before when World
War I broke out. Nevertheless, Adolf Hitler ordered his troops to invade the
Netherlands during World War II. On May 1940, the Dutch forces surrendered to the
Nazis a day after the Rotterdam bombing. The royal family and most of the Dutch
government officials saved themselves by escaping to London. After the defeat,
Netherlands was placed under German occupation until 1945 when Germany surrendered.

With the surrender of the Dutch officials, the German occupation officially began,
a period where there was a toll in human life and suffering that was enormous. “I
looked out of the open window, over a large area of Amsterdam, over all the roofs
and on the horizon, which was such a pale blue that it was hard to see the dividing
line. As long as this exists, I thought, and I may live to see it, the sunshine,
these cloudless skies, while this lasts I cannot be unhappy.” This line is Anne’s
description of her life and that of her friends from the attic overlooking
Amsterdam. For many people today, Anne Frank’s diary is a representation of a
glimpse of what it was like during the Nazi invasion and occupation of the
Netherlands. Between the time that Adolf Hitler took power in Germany in 1933 and
when World War II ended in 1945, there was an approximate total of over six million
Jews were killed by the Nazi machinery. It is also believed that another five
million people other than Jews lost their lives to the Nazi ideology.
The Nazi occupation was a period of the worst atrocities to be committed against
human life in the world’s history. About seventy-five percent of Jews died at the
hands of the German military in Netherlands, very few of them were able to stay
alive and survive to return home at the end of the war. Escaping Netherlands during
the war was also impossible for many because many of the neighboring countries had
also fallen to the German rule. A flight across the Netherlands border only meant
entry into another region controlled by the Nazi. Additionally, passage through
German controlled waters was highly dangerous and very risky. This would explain
why Anne and her family sought to hide within the Netherlands instead of
considering to move out of the country.
When they first invaded the Netherlands, Hitler did not seem like he was interested
in alienating the Dutch people. His ultimate goal was to conquer the territory and
make it part of Germany after the war. The German administration did not force Jews
into ghettos or burn down their synagogues a fact that led the Dutch to develop the
idea that eventually they would outlast the German rule so long as they obeyed the
law. Little did they know that that was the beginning of their hardships that would
last five long years.
“When I returned from the concentration camp alone, I saw that a tragedy of
inexpressible extent had hit the Jews, my people, and I was spared as one of them
to testify, one of those who had lost his dear ones.” As much as Anne provides us
with a positive outlook on events, these words from Otto show us how much suffering
there was. But what is it that would lead someone to commit all these monstrosities
against human life and dignity? Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party have known to play
a significant role in instigating World War II and the Holocaust. He is remembered
for causing irreparable damage and loss of lives in Europe. To this day, many
people still wonder what would lead a person to act in such a horrendous, horrific
and murderous way. Psychological instability, especially during childhood, inspires
some individuals to choose destructive paths/ personalities.
The most famous psychological analysis of Hitler’s personality was done by Dr.
Murray. Dr. Murray points out that there are very few insights into the early
childhood life of Hitler. Nevertheless, he is believed to have been a frail and
sickly child. His father was one who was physically abusive and tyrannical. He
whipped both Hitler and his older brother regularly a factor that would later shape
Hitler as a rebel. When he came to be eleven years of age, Hitler would not cry
even after his father gave him more than thirty strokes; he refused to give his
father that satisfaction. At this point, Hitler felt tied up because he could not
control the situation that he was in but discovered that he could control his
actions as well as his emotions. It is said Hitler’s hate for the Jews was fueled
by his hatred for his father who died when Hitler was only fourteen years old.
The persecuted Jews served as scapegoats for Adolf Hitler’s residual fury. As an
adult, Hitler was a person who primarily obtained his motivation from the feelings
of revenge and resentment that he had within him as a result of previously being
subjected to narcissistic wounding and profound feelings of inferiority. This kind
of character develops as a form of defense from the deficiency and painful scars.
Nonetheless, although Hitler had experienced these things during his childhood, his
character exceeded pathological narcissism to the extent of psychopathic
narcissism.
Because he was made to feel inferior, Hitler opted to pursue his ravenous hunger
for power through politics. This kind of attitude is common among many politicians
of the world, but there is a difference between an everyday politician and Hitler
more so because Hitler was focused on dominating the world rather than just
participating German politics. Every human being seeks out a specific measure of
power and control whether they do it directly or indirectly, knowingly or
unknowingly. This is so because we are prone to factors that we assert our
individual will live in the world that we live in and our influence on others as
well as ourselves. Failing to have this power/ control as minimal as it is like
Hitler would have negative implications for the future as one grows into adulthood.

Physical or sexual assault/ abuse cause someone to feel helpless and powerless
especially during childhood leading them to develop an exceptionally aggressive
will for power when they mature into adulthood. Like Hitler, a person produces an
overwhelming feeling and desire for vengeance, defiance, and resentment. It is
evident that Hitler suffered from anxiety. His destructive behavior whether before
or after rising to power was a form of obsessive and compulsive defense mechanism
against his painful anxiety. He made several pathological attempts to exert
absolute control over his surrounding environment. This behavior is identical to
OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder). By definition, OCD is a type of anxiety
disorder. In a psychological approach, it is a losing battle for control and power
over the inescapable reality of existential anxiety.
Hitler had existential anxiety as a child because there was nothing he could do
about the whipping he received from his father now and then. Moreover, as Dr.
Murray mentioned, Hitler was a frail and sickly child, something that made him feel
even weaker and meaningless. Existential anxiety is that which develops form
inevitable situations and events in life that we lack control over as human beings.
Besides having chronic anxiety problems, Hitler also had insomnia. Once he rose to
power, he tried as much to maintain a very close relationship with his physician
Because he often suffered at the hands of his father, it was only natural that
Hitler developed a more intimate relationship with his mother. It is possible that
he developed feminine rather than masculine aggression associated with his father.
By doing this, he became highly susceptible to being ‘possessed’ by the anger,
rage, and resentment that he had initially disowned. Ignoring feelings of rage
especially at the beginning of initial stages cause severe damage. These feelings
of bitterness and resentment pile up forcing people to seek other parties to let
out their anger on like Hitler did on Jews.
Traumatic events such as wars may also cause an individual to embrace a destructive
personality. It is also possible that Hitler exhibited signs neurosis after serving
in the military during World War I. He developed hysterical blindness and mutism
which were as a result of PTSD. Besides his service in the military, Hitler is
believed to have developed syphilophobia during his adolescence. According to some
of his acquaintances, Hitler developed sexual impotence because he dreaded
contamination that would come from sexual contact with women. His neurosis worsened
and he would have violent episodes of crying and screaming. Hitler had misogynistic
attitudes towards women which would make us understand why he never felt guilty of
killing women or even children.
Besides his father, Hitler could have harbored some resentment and rage towards his
mother. Although from what we know, Hitler had a close relationship with his
mother. Nevertheless, he could have been angry towards her because he felt that she
did not do much to protect him and his brother from their abusive and tyrannical
father. Because he was her husband, Hitler believed that his mother had the power
to regulate the actions of her sadistic husband on their children something she
failed to do. When such emotions are repressed, they become doubly dangerous making
an individual prone to pathological narcissism. The person becomes manifested with
psychopathic tendencies accompanied with evil, destructiveness, and perversity.
Everyone living in this world has their own different and unique character and
personality. These unique individual aspects are what enable us to differentiate
one person from another. Some people are pessimistic while others are optimistic,
others are rude while others are kind and gentle. For over many years,
psychologists and scientists have studied and analyzed the personalities of human
beings to explain why we behave the way we do. Besides the fact that he was a
psychopath, Adolf Hitler did have a notably unique personality. Being a politician
and leader of the Nazi party, Hitler was cruel and inhumane.
A loss also plays an important role shaping a destructive pattern in a person’s
behavior. When Hitler lost his brother to measles in 1900, he was deeply affected.
To deal with the loss of a brother, Hitler became detached from the social world
around him; he was no longer confident and outgoing, and his fights with his father
grew more intense. This loss supports the psychoanalytic perspective that Hitler’s
personality was shaped during his childhood days.
In reference to Freud’s notion of childhood psychological development, a person can
only attain a healthy person when these stages have been completed successfully. If
it happens that one of the scenes is interrupted and if a person doesn’t finish the
set of steps, fixation may occur. When he lost his brother, Hitler’s personality
was altered. Ideally, Hitler might have developed a sexual attraction towards his
mother (Oedipus complex) as a child because he hated his father and continuously
felt threatened by him. These unresolved tensions between father and son were
contributed to who Hitler came to be in the very end.
People who are confronted with feelings of inferiority and insecurity tend to work
too hard while striving for success in their life. To many of this kind of people,
superiority is the driving force behind their behavior. They also tend to be
extraordinarily ambitious. For example, from a young age, Hitler had longed to be
an artist, and he devoted most of his time to learning how to paint. He even leaves
his mother in his efforts to come close to his dream of being an artist. During
World War I, he was determined to serve and never gave up even when Germany
retreated. This kind of ambitious spirit and determination brought him to be a
dictator of Nazi Germany.
Even when Hitler hated/ despised his father and everything he stood for, he
eventually developed a similar character only that he became worse than his father.
They were both very stubborn, hostile, grumpy and rigid people. From the emotions
described above that Hitler developed such as anxiety, anger, and irritability, we
can’t help but notice that he was a neurotic person with emotional instability
often fueled by negative emotions. Hitler became anti- Semitism because he was
overly paranoid; Conversely biased and could not make moral judgments on
determining what is right or what is wrong. In the course of struggling to be
successful, Hitler also had a habit of blaming another party for his failures. It
is almost like he never believed he could ever go wrong at any one point in life,
not even in his childhood something that can be attributed to the early
developments of his chronic anxiety.
The fact that Hitler killed Jews because he was not on good terms with his father
is irrational. No one has rights whatsoever to kill so many people. Adolph Hitler
was indisputably evil and wicked. Nobody deserves to be treated the way he handled
and persecuted other people by murdering and hurting them. Even though his father
was hostile, at least he did not kill him. Many believe that if he had had a
healthy childhood, maybe he would have turned out different and the massacres would
have never happened. From his growth, he was psychologically unstable.
In the twenty-first century, we have had people who have personalities close to
that of Hitler such as the late Osama bin Laden, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un,
and ISIS chief Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. It is now more critical than ever to
understand the underlying psychological issues of such individuals because they
have proven to have considerable influence over masses. Different factors shape the
character of an individual. It seems that a healthy childhood leads to a sturdy
character.