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(1 of 78)
Summer reading suggestion - Mein Kampf
Jun 6, 2009 4:43 AM
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Just for fun. What did Hitler really think?
I recently came across a link to a section of Mein Kampf where Hitler discusses his anti-semitism, and, I gotta say, it was interesting. The link is
http://www.h-net.org/~german/gtext/kaiserreich/hitler1.html
So, now I'm wondering, what else did he have to say.
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Posts:
84
From:
Harbor Springs, Michigan
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4/15/09
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(2 of 78)
Re: Summer reading suggestion - Mein Kampf
Jun 6, 2009 4:53 AM
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Here's Mein Kampf online in its entirety. http://www.crusader.net/texts/mk/index.html
Disclaimer: I think the website this is on is some sort of neo-nazi site, views which I do not espouse.
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3,025
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(3 of 78)
Re: Summer reading suggestion - Mein Kampf
Jun 6, 2009 6:13 AM
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Does this mean you have not read the book? Hard to believe you have not tried to do so, although it is really rather hard to get through.
To be honest, the majority is ill-written, a mixture of wandering thoughts - some have said the lunatic ravings of a psychopath - that show no great insight or talent other than maybe a peculiarly twisted logic. If people do read the book it is not easy to say that Hitler did not intend being rather unpleasant to the Jews, or that he did not intend to invade Russia.
Before people ask, no this isnt a modern copy, its printing from 1933 and has been in the family since that time.
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Posts:
6,921
From:
Billings MT.
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2/11/03
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(4 of 78)
Re: Summer reading suggestion - Mein Kampf
Jun 6, 2009 7:10 AM
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my own is the second edition, but that said it is the 1943 Houghton Mifflin publication known as a "Sentry Edition". This means it was made as a college text, wrapped in durable cloth (not hardcover or paperback).
This edition has all the sections where it varies from the first edition footnoted on the page where it does so. It also has full translations of signifigant word changes between the two editions.
Mine was found in the local Goodwill store's library by myself back in the eighties. I saw it, looked at the asking price, and bought it. I figured I paid what it was worth; 50 cents. However, that said I did read it from cover to cover the first time, then went back and found sections I found especially revealing, and marked them with paperclips for fast reference. Have the words straight from this vile human beings mouth is occassionally quite "handy". I will warn anyone who finds an "online editiion" that they are not always true copies. I found that most of them on neo-Nazi sites to be slightly altered so that the context seems just slightly less repulsive.
--
Happy Trails,
Clint
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Re: Summer reading suggestion - Mein Kampf
Jun 6, 2009 7:33 AM
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I haven't read it. I just read the foreword and first chapter on the online edition.
I don't understand the significance of the foreword.
The first chapter, In the House of my Parents, is well written and interesting. Even here, I don't know any of the context, but infer that the House of Hapsburg ruled in Austria and it was not to young Adolf's liking. His description of his father is good. He retired at 56 ! Bonus. Hitler as an artist is hard to imagine, but he was apparently determined. I sympathize with his desire to avoid cubicles. Losing both parents at an early age must have been tough.
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1,507
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southern bc
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11/12/07
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(6 of 78)
Re: Summer reading suggestion - Mein Kampf
Jun 6, 2009 9:30 AM
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I've never read it, but if Saggy is suggesting it then I'll pass thank you.
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Re: Summer reading suggestion - Mein Kampf
Jun 7, 2009 6:02 AM
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On to chapter two "Years of Study and Suffering in Vienna". This is an extraordinary chapter, Hitler describes his years in Vienna as an unskilled laborer, and the hardships associated with this life, and his conclusions about society and his fellow man. The position of a laborer in turn of the century Vienna was tough indeed.
Hitler encounters Social Democracy, the unions, and socialism. Here he is prescient, writing "Consequently, this activity of the Social Democracy was not displeasing to me. And the fact that it strove to improve the living conditions of the worker, as, in my innocence, I was still stupid enough to believe,..."
He is quickly in conflict with Social Democracy and, even as a worker, with the unions. There is a huge struggle beween the bourgeois and the unions, and Hitler is highly critical of both. He comes to see the goal of the SDs as not improving the lot of the laborer, but the destruction of society (he is probably right).
Then he discovers Marxism and the Jews behind SD and the unions - "The erroneous conceptions of the aim and meaning of this party fall from our eyes like veils, once we come to know this people, and from the fog and mist of social phrases rises the leering grimace of Marxism."
Is Hitler's judgment of Marxism overblown or accurate? Count the victims of communist Russia.
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(8 of 78)
Re: Summer reading suggestion - Mein Kampf
Jun 7, 2009 6:45 AM
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Hitler describes his years in Vienna as an unskilled laborer, and the hardships associated with this life, and his conclusions about society and his fellow man. The position of a laborer in turn of the century Vienna was tough indeed.
Rather a shame this part is total fabrication, as far as anyone has been able to find out, Hitler never worked as an unskilled labourer, but the claim is a later invention to appeal to the German electorate.
Hitlers thoughts on Marxism are probably less interesting than his thoughts on the future of the entire Slav race, unless we are to believe the entire USSR was peopled by only Jews and Communists.
Perhaps you would enjoy the works of Alfred Rosenburg too, although most senior Nazi's apparently did not!
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Re: Summer reading suggestion - Mein Kampf
Jun 7, 2009 7:40 AM
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Rather a shame this part is total fabrication,
As someone who has been a day laborer, I thought it rang true. I don't imagine a day laborer would leave much of a paper trail, so, unless there is direct evidence to the contrary, I'll take Hitler at face value here.
Hitlers thoughts on Marxism are probably less interesting than his thoughts on the future of the entire Slav race
Please note that I am not a neo-nazi, but rather, I am a Russophile. Don't like Beethoven, love Tchaikovsky, ditto Goethe/Dostoyevsky. I love Russia, don't know why, maybe Tchaikovsky, Dostoyevsky, fairy tales, etc. Thus far I haven't seen Hitler come down on the Slavs, except to bemoan their presence in Austria.
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(10 of 78)
Re: Summer reading suggestion - Mein Kampf
Jun 7, 2009 10:24 AM
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As someone who has been a day laborer, I thought it rang true. I don't imagine a day laborer would leave much of a paper trail, so, unless there is direct evidence to the contrary, I'll take Hitler at face value here.
Thats your choice, but I believe there are fairly comprehensive Austrian records for the period for Hitler which include the 'missing year' and period where he was supposed to be a labourer.
Please note that I am not a neo-nazi, but rather, I am a Russophile.
Regardless of politics, it is almost impossible to read Mein Kamph and come away with the idea that the author would not wish to conquer large tracts of the USSR, or take action against the Jews. The claims of so many Germans to have never known what the Nazi's would do stand at odds when this book and Hitler's speaches are considered.
The views of the Jews being behind a Marxist conspiricy, not to mention the capitalist conspiricy too, show a degree of paranoia.
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171
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(11 of 78)
Re: Summer reading suggestion - Mein Kampf
Jun 7, 2009 1:38 PM
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Thanks ! Great info.
Just wondering. As a "starving artist"..,did he ever do any Elvis on black velvet ?
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Posts:
2,522
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6/12/06
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(12 of 78)
Re: Summer reading suggestion - Mein Kampf
Jun 7, 2009 1:53 PM
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>So, now I'm wondering, what else did he have to say.
Read his unpublished (in his lifetime) sequel to Mein Kampf.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hitlers-Second-Book-Unpublished-Sequel/dp/1929631162
The sequel focuses on foreign policy and for this reason was never published during his lifetime (Gerhard Weinberg, the German-American historian found the manuscript after the war and it was published in Germany in the 1960's, it wasn't published in English until this decade).
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(13 of 78)
Re: Summer reading suggestion - Mein Kampf
Jun 7, 2009 3:54 PM
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Rather a shame this part is total fabrication, as far as anyone has been able to find out, Hitler never worked as an unskilled labourer, but the claim is a later invention to appeal to the German electorate.
I don't know Hitler's work history, obviously, but the claim that this chapter was written to 'appeal to the German electorate' seems absurd. His judgments on his fellow workers are scathing, e.g. "I do not know what horrified me most at that time: the economic misery of my companions, their moral and ethical coarseness, or the low level of their intellectual development."
It appears that a post is missing ? ... claiming Hitler's days in Vienna were characterized by laziness and high living ..... this is absurd on its face. Anyone reading the first two chapters will realize that Hitler did not have a lazy bone in his body. His account of these years seems consistent with what was to follow - Hitler was not George Bush II.
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(14 of 78)
Hitler was never a starving artist,...
Jun 7, 2009 4:11 PM
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nor a day laborer, nor a draftsman. Read my post before it gets "poofed" by "Saggy".
--
Happy Trails,
Clint
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Posts:
84
From:
Harbor Springs, Michigan
Registered:
4/15/09
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(15 of 78)
Re: Summer reading suggestion - Mein Kampf
Jun 7, 2009 6:45 PM
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. My bigggest
> suprise after reading the book was that many Germans
> owned it and still voted for the author!
While the plurality that placed Hitler in office was less than impressive, I agree that it is amazing anybody voted for him/his party.
Having just read Mein Kampf a few months ago, I couldn't agree more that it is generally a boring piece of crap with some clear statements of intent.
I echo my father's feelings about the book. He had read it before the US entered WWII. He had been in the National Guard since 1936, before entering Federal service in April, 1941, so I'm not sure at what point he read it. Regardless, he could never understand how anyone was surprised about what Hitler did. Hitler pretty clearly stated his intentions toward Jews, Slavs and Russia, with Poland merely being a land bridge to his route there. And anybody was surprised?
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