Published hard on the heels of the Second World War was one of the most influential books of the post-war period. Titled “The Authoritarian Personality,” it was co-authored by a group of social scientists, led by the preeminent Theodor Adorno, intent on exploring and explaining how Hitler had happened.
The book essentially concluded that there were certain personality characteristics that comprised authoritarian types. It further concluded that these types had long been prevalent in Germany, even in the Germany family, which had made the German people especially vulnerable to an authoritarian, even tyrannical, leader such as Hitler.
While Germany’s political culture now is of course entirely different from Germany’s political culture then, the image of the German leader or even patriarch as authoritarian has never gone fully out of fashion. Last week, however, it was dealt what finally might be a fatal blow.
The chairman of Volkswagen, Ferdinant Piech, was ousted in what amounted to a palace coup. Why? Because in spite of his impeccable lineage (he is a descendent of Ferdinand Porsche), and in spite of his earlier excellence as head of the car company, and in spite of his long history of winning power struggles, this time, at age 78, Piech was hoisted by his own petard. He was ousted by members of his board who finally were fed up – fed up with his high-handed and arrogant ways, fed up with having to put up with his aloofness and ruthlessness, and fed up with standing by and saying nothing while he did what he wanted to do how he wanted to do it. When Piech tried unilaterally to dump CEO Martin Winterkorn, the board rallied to the latter and ditched the former.
As soon as key shareholders and stakeholders confronted Piech to say that they had lost confidence in him, he, apparently as stunned as he was infuriated and humiliated, promptly resigned. He was, of course, not literally the last authoritarian German – but among leaders he was one of the most prominent. With Piech out of the picture the species – the German leader as authoritarian leader – is further along the way to becoming entirely extinct.
This response is likely too late to be seen much but I just saw this post. The ousting of the Chair of the Board of VW, is a reflection of the change in German culture not a transformation. The authoritarian personality is highly related to child rearing practices, which have significantly changed in Germany and many western cultures. It is important to keep in mind authoritarian parenting widely remains but is no longer the majority cultural norm. In the United States about 30% of the population is estimated to have a significant level of authoritarian characteristics. The popularity of Trump is therefore no surprise.
An aside, Barbara’a comment about Adorno leading the group that studied the Authoritarian Personality is a common misconception. The chief Investigator of the research was Nevitt Sanford. He was specifically chosen by the American Jewish Society because he was a young brilliant, Harvard Graduate who was a protestant. The society wanted to reduce bias in the research as much as possible and he was true to this calling. The myth of Adorno being seen as the lead investigator only occurred because Nevitt in publishing the book wanted to make all authors equal so the names are not arranged by who contributed the most, but alphabetically.