Victim and Perpetrator

It’s convenient to blame a war on one man. When discussing World War II, most of the world points the finger at Adolf Hitler. The truth is that we behave the way others let us behave. The world stood aside and let Hitler behave the way he behaved. The heavy emotional energies of fear, oppression, guilt, revenge, and sorrow were overwhelming following the horror of World War I. A massive global system created World War II.

It’s time to look at the energy of the victim, the perpetrator, and the bystander to understand the energy held in the world today. We generally remain stuck in that place of blame. If we remain stuck we don’t have to look at our own issues or the issues of our ancestral family system. This post is not about giving greater airtime to a man who may not deserve it; it’s about opening the discussion about systemic healing at a global level. It’s about opening the discussion about victims and perpetrators and how it impacts most of our lives. What was going on for your family system before, during, and following World War II? Do you understand the impact of your nation on creating the war? Do you still point the finger of blame at Hitler? Was there a soldier who fought in World War I or II still carrying survivor guilt or PTSD? Did family members carry the trauma of war? Did family members die tragically leaving the heavy energy of grief flowing down through the family system? I will also look at the family system of Adolf Hitler to understand what emotionally created the emotional dynamic of the man. The world seeks understanding, acceptance, and healing. We begin one person at a time and one family system at a time.

This is my last post in a series of four, addressing issues of controversy and criticism with the work of Bert Hellinger, the founder of Family Constellations. The prior three topics included Patriarchy and Systemic Constellations; Incest and Systemic Constellations; and Sexuality, Sex Identity, and Gender Identity and Systemic Constellations. I find it makes sense to address controversial topics up front rather than let them fester under the surface. Really, it is the whole point of systemic constellations and systemic healing. We look at the silenced, the secret, the mysterious, the painful, the unknown, the shunned, the excluded, the missing, the open wound, and the traumatized. When you are triggered emotionally, there tends to be some original hidden dynamic maintaining the energy behind the reaction. What is missing or what wants to be addressed by the family system. The reason systemic constellation work can be so profound is that everyone has a right to belong regardless of what they may have done or not done. This runs counter to the general blame and judgement dynamics used by many individuals, family systems, and societies in the world today. It’s much easier to blame Hitler for World War II. In systemic healing we are required to look back without the crutch of blame or judgement. This action opens us to vulnerability and the potential for systemic healing.

We have a choice in life. We can live through fear or we can live through love. Fear and love don’t exist in the same space. If you live through fear, leaving your ancestral family wounds unhealed, you will find plenty to fear in the world. The media and the Internet will help you find things to fear. The sensationalized and the exceptions become normalized. We become de-sensitized to global traumatic issues and to feeling our own emotions. Each of us has a choice to make. We can continue to be a part of the problem or we can become a part of the solution. The world seeks healing from a couple centuries or more of deep woundedness. Healing is found one person at a time.

I was asked the following question:

Is it true that Hellinger showed adoration of Hitler and proclaimed understanding of Hitler’s fate? To write Hitler a letter to convey a commonality of humanity is shocking. Adolf Hitler believed in eugenics and the abolishment of an entire race of human beings. How can one compare themselves in any sort of compassionate faith?

My Response:

Victim and Perpetrator Energy

This question brings up the issue of victim and perpetrator energy. When the world is viewed through the lens of the victim, the perpetrator is shunned and de-humanized. When the world is viewed through the lens of the perpetrator, the victim is shunned and de-humanized. The process of de-humanization begins when we seek to find difference. We grasp onto difference through ethnicity, religion, spiritual belief, race, occupation, ageism, language, different physical or mental ability, sexual or gender identification, skin colour – anything that affirms difference. Finding difference is an extension of perceived separation. Fear of separation flows through our relationship with mother, father, and our ancestors. The fear of separation develops in the womb, at birth, and during early childhood. Fear of separation underlies the formation of relationships and also underlies our actions when a relationship breaks down.

De-Humanization

It is a common human practice to de-humanize the other.  We learn this skill at an early age. We de-humanize those we fear, those we don’t understand, those we reject, the stranger, and those who are foreign or different. We de-humanize those we fight or kill in war or conflict, we de-humanize terrorists, we de-humanize prison inmates, and we de-humanize gang members. We have a long history of de-humanizing indigenous populations through colonization. We may even de-humanize the neighbour living four houses down if he is different in some way. We find fault with the other and put them down, finding ways to separate or distance ourselves from them and to identify ourselves as different than they are. When we don’t feel like enough ourselves, when we don’t feel worthy or deserving, we de-humanize others in an attempt to bring ourselves up a notch. Gossip is a good example of this practice of fault finding. However, this practice doesn’t energetically work. We bring ourselves down even further because of the unconscious energetic guilt created. At the deepest levels of the soul we seek unity not separation.

Humanization

As I learned while working toward my MA in Conflict Analysis and Management, with a focus on systemic approaches to political, ethnic, and security issues, one of the first steps toward resolution of any conflict is to halt this process of de-humanization.  To find resolution, or to even get dialogue started, one has to look the other in the eye (physically or figuratively) and see them as a human being.  When we humanize, we seek to find similarity rather than difference. Finding commonality is how we begin the process of humanization. In his writing, Hellinger was seeking to find commonality with Hitler. There is a big difference between finding understanding and commonality and being in a state of adoration. Healing begins when we widen our narrow perspective on life developed in childhood to gain the big picture that holds both the energy of the victim and perpetrator. When I use the terms victim and perpetrator, there may be one individual or millions. There may be one perpetrator or millions. Healing begins with the humanization of the other.

The Energetic Entanglement

Each time a victim and perpetrator interact with one another, they create an energetic bond. They create an energetic entanglement that seeks to be healed. With any situation that occurs, if an individual or group of people are deeply wounded by another, they become part of the family system of the other. As with any family system, everyone has a right to belong regardless of what they may have done or not gone. To exclude, shun, dismiss, caste out, forget, excommunicate, or ignore any family member has the potential to create a wound or imbalance in the family system. A piece of the puzzle is missing. The vast majority of perpetrators shun the victim out of guilt, shame, or regret. The vast majority of victims shun the perpetrator out of fear and grief. The guilt, shame, regret, anger, fear, and grief are energetically carried within the cellular memory of the body. It may impact the cellular expression of the genes. It may pass transgenerationally down through each family system to the descendants.

When we shun or exclude the other, we shun or exclude a part of who we are at a deep core level. We may be shunning a part of our own family system. Each of us carries the energy of victim and perpetrator. In many family systems, the voices of both the victim and perpetrator are attempting to be heard. This creates inner chaos within the body of the descendant being impacted. It is possible that conditions such as schizophrenia and psychosis may have some of this old transgenerational unconscious underlying energy holding both the victim and perpetrator in place within the descendant.

Immigration History

Immigration history tends to reveal oppression, persecution, or lack of opportunity in the homeland. People didn’t tend to leave their homeland “just because.” They didn’t tend to leave if things were going well unless they were offered a position of power. The individual or family members moved to a new land to begin anew. They often attempted to leave the past behind. Those that were oppressed showed up in the new land and participated in the oppression of the first peoples or indigenous peoples of the new land in the process. The victim became the perpetrator. This process continues today all over the world with migration on the rise.

Energetically, this dynamic plays out in family systems in an interesting way. An individual may find themselves stuck in life or carrying some symptom or condition today. They fail to acknowledge or hear the voices coming at them from both the victim and perpetrator sides of history. Sometimes the family or family members were the victim(s) and sometimes the family or family members were the perpetrator(s) depending on the situation. Steal or starve, kill or be killed, control or be controlled, manipulate or be manipulated, and/or oppress or be oppressed. Many individuals see themselves as victims of history and they ignore the times they may have been ancestrally the perpetrator. If you cling to the victim energy and deny the perpetrator energy within your family system, you may struggle in life in some way. An inability to look at any perpetrator with humaneness may reveal an inability to look at the perpetrator energy within yourself and your own family system. Denial does not make the heavy energy go away. Denial lets the heavy energy travel down to your children, your grandchildren, and to all future generations. This heavy energy in the body may create unwellness physically, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, financially, and relationally.

Hellinger, the Facilitator

Did Hellinger adore Hitler? I believe that this is far from the truth. My understanding is that Hellinger refused to become a Hitler youth in Nazi Germany.  However, Hellinger did have to fight in World War II for Nazi Germany. Hellinger, as a systemic family constellation facilitator, would have taught himself to hold the energy of the victim and their family system and the perpetrator and their family system evenly in his heart. Many individuals in the world working as healer/helpers, counselors, therapists, or energy practitioners have a blind spot in their work. Many leaders and politicians in the world have a blind spot in their work. The inability to hold both the family systems of the victim and perpetrator in the heart creates an energy block to the flow of love and to the creation of peace. The individual is working through fear rather than love. That fear comes from someplace in their own family system. The way we address those who commit crimes today shows the inability to hold both the victim and perpetrator evenly in the heart. Restorative justice is making some inroads to change this exclusionist position.

I sense that Hellinger works hard to be in the energy of love, rather than fear. Working in the field of Germany, including the land and the country, which are different energetic entities, where there are millions dead from many wars and many battles over the centuries, it was imperative that Hellinger heal this wound within himself and within his family system. In some situations throughout history, his family may have been the victim and sometimes they may have been the perpetrator to survive. We are required to accept the energy of the victim and perpetrator within us. We are asked to explore the full spectrums of victim and perpetrator, good and evil, and love and hate. We all carry the propensity to commit acts of evil if we are pushed to our limits. We tend to call these actions self-defense.

The World Wars

Hitler was involved in both World War I and World War II. The World Wars were much greater than the individuals fighting the battles. They were much greater than Hitler. There is a much greater energy system at work around us. I’m discovering that many family systems have individuals coming together in relationship through marriage or partnership, bringing together family systems that fought on opposite sides of the wars. Some individuals describe their marriage or intimate relationship as World War II. The partners reflect their family system wounds back and forth to one another. The global wounds are seeking to be healed. Quite frequently this energy dynamic is not consciously recognized in the family system. Countries at war have the energy of siblings that squabble and fight. These wounds seek to be healed at the global level.

In World War II, Nazi Germany de-humanized the Jewish people, the Roma or Gypsies, homosexuals, the physically and mentally challenged, and other ethnic groups deemed inferior. To work with individuals traumatized by World War I and World War II, both participants and their descendants, victims and perpetrators, Hellinger had to work to minimize this blind spot within himself. Also, let’s not forget the bystander. The bystander consciously thinks they didn’t get involved, however, the bystander takes purposeful energetic action. The bystander chooses to stand still. There were millions of bystanders in World War II within Europe and around the globe. The bystander intentionally decides to do nothing to help others that are in need. The bystander is caught in fear. The family system of the bystander tends to carry a sense of innocence when there is often the guilt of doing nothing felt in the body. How much harm is done when you do nothing? It can be considerable. World War II was the result of too many bystanders.

If you live in North America, this bystander energy is immense within many traumatic historical situations. I’m not sure how it played out in the rest of the world, but during World War II, those in North American joined Nazi Germany in de-humanizing these groups of people when they refused to provide safety, refuge, and asylum. During World War II we turned our backs to the shiploads of Jewish people and others being persecuted. We feared them. We refused to let them come ashore. We de-humanized them. Many also carry long-term perpetrator and bystander guilt around slavery. Many carry the perpetrator and bystander guilt of the treatment of indigenous peoples living first upon our lands. The bystander is not energetically innocent. The bystander is complicit in harming others along with the perpetrator. Everyone has a place in the family system including the victim, the perpetrator, and the bystander.

Systemic Constellation Facilitation

How do I hold the energy of the victim’s family system and the perpetrator’s family system evenly in my heart as I facilitate a family constellation? In my own world, I continue the difficult process of holding Adolph Hitler in my heart. It isn’t an easy journey. This begins with the process of humanization. Humanization means looking the other in the eye and seeing your common humanity. You may be energetically reconciling with those labeled by others in society as monsters, terrorists, enemies, non-human, thugs, or those undeserving of life itself. I have likely worked through a similar process to the one faced by Hellinger. In his writing, Hellinger looked at Hitler to humanize the man, and in so doing he was able to find commonality. They are both human beings and they both belong to a family system. That reveals commonality. This process involves a shift from living through fear to living through love. The world is a very different place when you choose to live through love rather than fear.  Hellinger chose to live through love.

I imagine Hellinger had his own healing process to go through following World War II. I imagine he had to work through some heavy emotional burdens at that time. He was fortunate to be amongst the Zulu in Africa for about sixteen years following the war, learning a new way of being. He experienced a different way to heal the wounds within society. Everyone was included regardless of what they may have done or not done. The tribal group found healing ways to include the perpetrator. Children respected parents and grandparents and there was no separation between the living and the dead. Hellinger brought these concepts into his Family Constellation work.

To stand strong as a systemic constellation facilitator and to be a loving human being, a humane person, one has to be able to hold the victim and perpetrator equally in their heart. Both the victim and perpetrator come from family systems and we honour and respect every family system. There are no exceptions. Each family system does the best that it can for its family members given the emotional inheritance the members acquired from their parents and ancestors. To shun a family system is to shun your brother or sister within the global family.

Shared Family Systems

Through the interaction of a victim and perpetrator, creating emotional trauma, they become part of the family system of the other. Everyone has a right to belong in the family system regardless of what they may have done or not done. Hellinger took the time to acknowledge and understand the fate of Hitler, an adopted countryman. He allowed himself to humanize Hitler regardless of what Hitler may have done or not done. This process has nothing to do with adoration. Adoration often arises out of deep core inner fears, and that is what happened to many supporters of Nazi Germany. Many supporters adored Adolf Hitler. They feared the alternative of starvation and privation. They feared further oppression. They were seeking a better life for their family members. I don’t believe Bert Hellinger adored Hitler, however, he did humanize the man as a member of his extended family system. Hellinger included Hitler, rather than demonizing and excluding him. That new energetic stance allows healing to occur.

Germany was heavily punished economically and politically after World War I and many Germans saw themselves as victims of the powerful Allies. There was great hardship in the nation. A new generation was born and the oppressed will rise up to be the oppressor. Those who are bullied become the bully. Whenever we want to address an issue in life, we look back into the family system to acknowledge what is or was and to gain understanding and compassion. I imagine that Hellinger looked at Hitler’s family system to gain compassion. We look back without blame or judgement. We look back to see what was. I will do the same for the Hitler family.

Unresolved transgenerational ancestral emotional wounds are immediately found in the family system of Adolf Hitler. His parents came from the same family line just one generation apart. Alois and Klara may have been first cousins once removed if the paternity assumptions are correct. This would be considered genealogical incest in systemic healing work. The relationship is generally considered too close together for marriage. The paternity of Adolf’s father is controversial. There is a family pattern of marrying and having children later in life, and of having multiple intimate partners simultaneously. Most of Adolf’s siblings died in childhood. He had a huge age gap and disconnection with his father. Both his parent’s died when he was reasonably young as did his father’s parents.

Paternal Family Line of Adolf Hitler (Same Maternal Family Line)

Georg Hiedler, Paternal GGGGG Grandfather married Maria, Maternal GGGGG Grandmother

Johannes Huettler, Paternal GGGG Grandfather married Elizabeth, Maternal GGGG Grandmother

Stephan Hiedler, (1672 Austria), Paternal GGG Grandfather married Agnes Capeller, (1674 Austria), Paternal GGG Grandmother

Johannes Hiedler, (1725 Austria), Paternal GG Grandfather married Maria Anna Neugschwandtner (1727 Austria), Paternal GG Grandmother, Birth: father 53, mother 51

Martin Hiedler, (1762-1829 Austria), Paternal Great Grandfather married Anna Maria Göschl, (1760-1854), Paternal Great Grandmother, Birth: father 37, mother 35

3 Children:

1. Johann Georg Hiedler, Paternal Line, (1792-1857 Austria), Birth: father 30/mother 32
2. Lorenz Hiedler, birth order controversial and no dates, may have died young
3. Johann von Nepomuk Hüttler/Hiedler/Huetler, Maternal Line, (1807-1888), Birth: father 50/mother 47

Paternal Grandfather: Johann Georg Hiedler, (1792-1857), Birth: father 30, mother 32

The brothers Johann Georg and Johann von Nepomuk are 15 years apart in age. (Were there other children miscarried between the two brothers?) The father of Alois Hitler is not known for certain.

First Partner: Married 1824, this woman died in childbirth, the child died too

Second Partner: Paternal Grandmother, Maria Anna Schicklgruber, (1795-1847),

Adolf Hitler’s father Alois Schicklgruber was born out of wedlock (1837-1903 Austria) when Maria Anna was 42 years old. There was a blank on his birth certificate where the father’s name is usually written and the priest wrote illegitimate. He appears to be an only child. Maria Anna lived in the home of her father and sometime later Johann Georg Hiedler moved into the home with them. She never revealed the true paternity of Alois, however, Alois claimed Johann Georg Hiedler was his father and his birth certificate was officially changed when he was 39 years old from Alois Schicklgruber to Alois Hitler. The source of this new spelling of the family name is unknown. This allowed Alois to be a legitimate heir to share the estate of his uncle Johann von Nepomuk Hüttler. His uncle had two daughters to inherit his estate and this is why many suspect that Johann von Nepomuk is the actual father of Alois.

Maria Anna married Johann Georg Hiedler in 1842 (she was 47 and he was 50). Alois was 5 years old at the time. Johann Georg is the stepfather of Alois and may have been his father. If Johann Georg is the father of Alois, the relationship between Alois and Klara Hitler is 1^st cousins once removed. At the age of 10, Alois was sent to live with his uncle Johann von Nepomuk Hüttler in a nearby town where he went to school and learned to be a cobbler. Alois spent much of his childhood (1842-1850) in the home of Johann von Nepomuk Hüttler/Hiedler/Huetler, younger brother of Johann Georg Hiedler. If the actual father of Alois is Johann von Nepomuk, the relationship between Alois and Klara is even more controversial (uncle and niece).

Child: Alois Schicklgruber (1837-1903 Austria)

Maria Anna died when Alois was 10 years old. Johann Georg died when Alois was 20 years old.

Father: Alois Schicklgruber (1837-1903)

First Partner: Anna Glasl-Hoerer (1823-1883) Married in 1873. Alois was 36 years old and Anna was 50 years old, a wealthy woman. Anna was sick when Alois married her and was an invalid thereafter. Alois had many affairs in the 1870s. He had an affair with Franziska Matzelsberger, who was 19 years old at the time and he was 43. In 1876 he hired 16-year-old Klara Pölzl, his uncle’s granddaugher, to be a household servant in his home with Anna. Franziska wanted Klara removed from the household and she was sent away. Anna died in 1883.

Second Partner: Franziska Matzelsberger (1861-1884) Franziska and Alois had a son, Alois Matzelsberger, born in 1882 when Alois was still married to Anna. Alois was born out of wedlock and his first-born son is also born out of wedlock. Anna died in 1883 and he legitimized his son as Alois Hitler, Jr. and a daughter Angela was born in 1883 after he married Franziska in 1883. When she was 23 years old she developed a lung condition and became very ill. In the last months of her life, Klara Pölzl was again moved into the household of Alois to care for another wife that was unwell and the two children. Matzelsberger was moved to a new location out of the home near the end of her life and she died in 1884. Klara remained on as the housekeeper.

Children of Alois and Franziska:

1. Alois (Matzelsberger) Hitler Jr. (1882-1956), half sibling to Adolf. Alois Jr. lived in Ireland and married a woman there. Moved to Germany and married another woman there. He had two women like his father. He was charged with bigamy in Germany. Alois married twice. From his first marriage he had one son William Patrick Hitler and 4 grandsons, the oldest named Alexander Adolf Hitler. From his second marriage he had one son Heinrich. All the descendants lived under assumed names to distance themselves from Adolf Hitler.
2. Angela Franziska Johanna Hitler (1883-1949), half sibling to Adolf. Angela married and had one son and two daughters.

Third Partner: Mother of Adolf Hitler: Klara Pölzl (1860-1907), married in 1885, Alois was 48 years old and Klara was 25. Alois and Anna hired Klara as a household servant at age 16. She cared for the unwell Anna, the first partner of Alois. She was let go and rehired in 1883 to care for his second partner Franziska, who was also unwell. She stayed on to care for Alois, Jr. and Angela after Franziska died. Klara was soon pregnant out of wedlock by Alois. Alois would have married Klara immediately but he had to address the issue of his paternity, which he had sworn by affidavit at age 39. This made them first cousins once removed. Klara is the granddaughter of Johann von Nepomuk Hüttler, the uncle of Alois. They were too closely related to marry. Alois appealed to the church for a humanitarian waiver and it was granted early in 1885. Klara continued to call Alois “uncle” after the marriage. Five months later the first child was born. Alois and Klara had 6 children together. See details within the maternal family line.

Children of Alois and Klara:

3. Gustav (1885)
4. Ida (1886)
5. Otto (1887)
6. Adolf (1889)
7. Edmund (1894)
8. Paula (1896)

Maternal Family Line of Adolf Hitler

Maternal Great Grandfather: Johann von Nepomuk Hüttler (1807-1888) married Eva Maria Decker (1702-1873), this is the uncle of Alois Hitler, Adolf’s father.

Children:

1. Walburga Hüttler
2. Johanna Hüttler (1830-1902)

Maternal Grandmother: Johanna Hüttler, married Johann Baptist Pölzl (1828-1902)

Children:

1. Klara Pölzl (1860-1907), Roman Catholic, described as very quiet, sweet, and affectionate by the family physician.
2. Johanna Pölzl (1863-1911) Johanna has 11 children and only 3 survived.

Mother: Klara Pölzl (1860-1907) married Alois Hitler in 1885. He was 48 and she was 25.

Children of Alois and Klara Hitler:

1. Gustav (1885-1887) Died age 2 of diphtheria after the death of brother Otto. Gustav is conceived out of wedlock, like his father and grandfather before him.
2. Ida (1886-1888) Died age 2 of diphtheria after the death of brother Otto
3. Otto (1887-1887) Died shortly after birth

All the children of Alois and Klara were dead. Klara had the two children of Alois and Franziska to raise.

4. Adolf (born April 20, 1889 in Braunau am Inn, Austria – died April 30, 1945 by suicide), he was a sickly child and Klara fretted over him. Alois was 52 years old when Adolf was born. Alois was not interested in childrearing. Alois was a customs civil servant and a beekeeper. The family moved in 1892 when Adolf was 3 years old from Braunau to Passau.
5. Edmund (1894-1900) The family was again transferred in 1894 when Adolf was 5 years old to Linz. Klara stayed behind with the children because she had just given birth to Edmund and had another child on the way. Died age 6 of measles.
6. Paula (1896-1960) Only full sibling to survive childhood. Klara and the children moved after Paula was born. Alois retired when Adolf was 6 years old so he was home a great deal with his family of 5 children.

Adolf Hitler details:

• 1895: Age 6: His father Alois retired from civil service. Alois is described as strict, unsympathetic, short-tempered, and hard. Adolf felt superior to his father, resenting his father’s work as a civil servant. Alois tried to browbeat his son into obedience and Adolf did the opposite to whatever his father wanted. Alois was supposedly rough on Klara and the children and rarely spoke to Klara. He would pester Klara in front of the children. Other family members suggest Alois beat his children. Supposedly, Alois thought himself to be superior to his neighbours. After retirement, he bought a farm and lost money.
• 1902: Age 13: Father Alois died. His mother was known to be indulgent.
• 1905: Age 16: Dropped out of high school – spent time brooding, refused to work under the authority of others, dreamed of being an artist, had a talent for architectural drawing
• 1906: Age 17: Went to Vienna for the first time, wandered through museums and went to the opera, using his inheritance from his father.
• Adolf had one friend who was a musician. Much of his private life was built around fantasy.
• Adolf could not stand to be corrected.
• 1907: Age 18: Mother diagnosed with breast cancer, Adolf grew depressed as his mother’s condition worsened. He had the doctor use experimental treatments on his mother in an attempt to save her life. They were extremely painful and deadly in the end. Dec 21, 1907: Adolf’s mother Klara died at home. Adolf was devastated by his mother’s death.
• 1907/1908: Age 17/18: He was denied his passion in life. He applied twice to the Vienna Academy of Art dreaming of becoming an artist and was denied entrance twice. One of these exams required him to leave his mother’s bedside when she was gravely ill, demonstrating how badly he wanted to follow his dream of being an artist.
• 1908: Moved to Vienna after his mother died: Lived in the streets, homeless, eating at charity kitchens. He began to sell some of his artwork to earn some money. Many of his political and race beliefs were formulated while living in misery in Vienna. He learned to be hard in Vienna, just like his father.
• 1913: Age 24: Moved to Munich, worked as a painter and technical draftsman, barely earning enough to sustain himself.
• 1914: Age 25: Embraced World War I, volunteering eagerly. Corporal Hitler was a dispatch runner. Thousands died around him and he survived each encounter of war without an injury until Oct 1916, he was wounded in the leg by shrapnel during the Battle of the Somme. He was sent to a hospital in Germany. When he recovered, he toured Berlin and Munich and blamed the Jewish people for the apathy and anti-war sentiment amongst German civilians.   He requested to be sent back immediately into action and returned March 1917.   As the war turned against the Germans, Hitler became depressed, blaming the Marxists and Jews and other invisible foes of the Germans.
• 1918, October: Age 29: he was temporarily blinded by a British chlorine gas attack near Ypres. He was sent to German for hospitalization. Germany was filled with a sense of impending disaster, unrest, weariness, and starvation.
• 1918, November 10: Germany was now a republic and the war was over. Germany had lost. Hatred grew within Hitler for all those seen as responsible. He blamed the German politicians and the Jewish people.
• He returned to Munich determined to enter politics.
• 1919: He joined the anti-Semitic German Worker’s Party and soon became the leader. The party name changed to the National Socialist German Worker’s Party – the Nazi Party – in 1920. He gained a following over the next few years.
• 1923: He staged a coup, which failed. Hitler was sentenced to 5 years in prison. He wrote the book Mein Kampf (My Struggle) in prison. He was released after only 9 months served. He resolved to build up the Nazi Party.
• 1932: Granted German citizenship.
• 1932, July: The Nazi Party won over 37% of the vote in the national election and became the controlling political party in Germany.
• During World War II, Hitler’s extended family went into hiding for five decades. None of the men had any children, ending the family line. There has been a controversy for decades over the claim that Hitler fathered a son with a young French girl while stationed there in 1917. Hitler had numerous affairs in adulthood with women usually much younger than himself. Two of these affairs supposedly ended in suicide with one of these being his half-niece Angelika.
• Pedigree became all-important to Hitler during his rule, a man who couldn’t prove his own pedigree on his father’s side of the family.
• The world blames Hitler for the deaths of over 46 million Europeans as a result of World War II. World totals place the death count of World War II and subsequent disease and famine between 60-85 million.

Systemic Family Dynamics

This is the family system that emotionally and energetically created Adolf Hitler. We look back to see what was there just as we would for any other family system. We do not excuse inappropriate behaviours. We do not excuse gross misconduct. We understand that Hitler could only be emotionally and energetically what was passed down to him through his family system, unless he addressed his systemic healing work. Hitler didn’t do his systemic healing work, but rather, allowed the heavy suppressed emotions to fester inside. Hitler lived through his core fears passed down through his family system.

What are some of the systemic dynamics at work? Adolf feels inferior, so he acts superior. His father Alois is born out of wedlock. Alois is the outcast. He is the one shunned. He is rejected by society as illegitimate. Adolf is disconnected from his father through the deaths of all the children that came before him, there is a great age difference between father and son, and his father dies when Adolf is six years old. The importance of family names is emphasized when Alois changes his surname at age 39. The juggling of family surnames is also significant – Schicklgruber, Hiedler, Huetler, Hüttler, Hitler. Who is attempting to hide what? Who is attempting to create distance from what? Alois was hiding the circumstances of his birth. He wanted to be accepted. Alois relinquished his surname at 39 years old and Adolf relinquished his nation state at age 43 to join the Fatherland, to distance himself from his father and his motherland. Alois died at 58 years old and Adolf died at 56 years old committing suicide with his partner Eva Anna Paula Braun (1912-1945), a woman 23 years his junior, a day after getting married to one another. Like his father, Adolf married a woman 23 years younger than himself. Hitler was surrounded by death as a young toddler; however, he made sure he was not alone at the end.

Disconnected from his father, Hitler lived within his mother’s energy boundary for life. She was everything to him. Adolf was emotionally drawn to the dead. His three older siblings all die in childhood. He is 11 years old when his brother Edmund dies. In order to be given life, his father’s prior two partners have to die young so that his mother Klara can give birth to him. He lived with a lack of energetic safety in his life and again on the streets of Vienna as a young man. Adolf was rejected like his father when he was judged as not good enough through his artwork. He hated authority because his father was strict, yet responded to authority in war. He found his family in war. He showed love and loyalty to his father by bending to the demands of his superiors in war, something he couldn’t do for his father in life. Being too close to his mother energetically, he is not connected to his paternal family line. His beloved mother died. He was helpless to save her life. He refused to be helpless again. The world was out to get him. He blamed and he judged everyone around him. Death surrounded him as a child and he ensured that he was surrounded with death as an adult through World War I and World War II. There are many patterns of unwellness found in the family system of Adolf Hitler. We gain an understanding of what was energetically and emotionally in the past of Adolf Hitler.

Greater Systems

World War II was much greater than Hitler. The world explored the duality spectrums of Love and Hate and Good and Evil. The war revealed much inhumanness and also much deep beauty in the humanity of those who helped others and risked their lives or gave their lives for the wellbeing of others. The war shifted many old archaic political institutions in the world. The war led to the creation of the United Nations, officially signed into being by 50 nations in 1945 and shortly thereafter another nation made 51. Nations around the world, brothers and sisters of the global village, began to work together for the first time for the greatest good of all. The journey still has a long way to go, but global cooperation on issues besides war arose from the ashes of World War II. To understand the events of World War II systemically, you look at the big picture, rather than the individual experience. The individual experience makes it feel personal. The war wasn’t personal – it was systemic. The energy of the cellular memory carried within the body is systemic. The energy carried within the body is collective.

In my own work as a systemic constellation facilitator, I work with clients that seek systemic healing. Unless I go badly astray, my clients will not find me criticizing the perpetrator any more than I would find fault with or blame the victim.  Systemic healing work has no place for blame or judgement.  I am discovering through my work with clients one-to-one or in workshops that Germany shows up in many family systems in some way. I believe that the energy that contributes to the woundedness has to be part of the resolution. Coming from a very wide perspective through my world travel and cultural, religious, political, ethnic, economic, and psychosocial studies, I choice to look upon Hitler as representing the perpetrator energy I had to address within my family system and myself.  I had to learn to hold the family system of Hitler in my heart equally with the family systems of the victims of the Holocaust, including the Jewish community, Roma, homosexuals, those with physical challenges and disabilities, and other ethnic groups singled out as inferior to the creation of a perfect Aryan race.  Having family members that fall into these persecuted groups creates a greater challenge. When one looks from the perspective of the big picture – systemically – the challenge was no longer so great.  I don’t believe the hatred was personal. The hatred was systemic.

This victim and perpetrator energy carries into each of our relationships in life. When you cling to the energy of the victim, the other becomes your perpetrator. This might be your intimate partner, your parent, your friend, your sibling, your co-worker, or your child. To shun the one who did you harm brings you into a deeper entanglement. Systemic healing work does not mean you have to forget what happened. Actually the opposite is true, when you remember and heal your victim energy, you are less likely to rebound back as the perpetrator. When you remember and do the energetic and emotional healing work for your family system, you stop the cycles and patterns from continuing down to the next generation. The greater family system seeks balance and seeks to be healed. The greater societal collective seeks balance and seeks to be healed. It is up to you to make a difference in the world one step and one person at a time. You have a choice to remain a victim, or to find systemic healing and wellbeing. Consider whether there is anyone you de-humanize in your daily life and wonder why and where it comes from in your family system?

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