Mein Kampf Study

[jet57]

I used to have a copy many years ago and I only got through the first few pages, then put it down in disgust.
I should have read it cover to cover, but I was seventeen at the time, and of course interested in much more contemporary things. In the intervening years I've managed to read a few segments published online.

Tell me, are there or are there not numerous references to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in that book?
It seems that the Protocols influenced him heavily, just as they did Henry Ford, just as they influence the countless modern day Trumpers who screech incessantly about "George Soros!!1!!!!11!!!!".

As for protocols, I don;t know yet; I haven't gotten that far.

 

[calamity]

In the book Hitler blamed Germany's chief woes on the parliament of the Weimar Republic, the Jews, and Social Democrats, as well as Marxists, though he believed that Marxists, Social Democrats, and the parliament were all working for Jewish interests.[10] He announced that he wanted to completely destroy the parliamentary system, believing it to be corrupt in principle, as those who reach power are inherent opportunists.

Let's just say, if we replace "Weimar Republic" with RINO, we can easily recognize that argument being used today.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Having availed myself of a PDF of the book I am shocked to discover a warning for Der Trumpenfuehrer and his admirers in the first few pages. The warning is about the "dazzling riches and loathsome destitution [which] were intermingled in violent contrast in the Vienna of Hitler's youth. Young Adolf almost sounds egalitarian as he says that "hardly any other German city in which the social problem could be studied better than in Vienna."

"But here I must utter a warning against the illusion that this
problem can be 'studied' from above downwards.
The man who has never been in the clutches of that crushing viper can never know what its poison is.
An attempt to study it in any other way will result only in superficial talk and sentimental delusions.
Both are harmful.
The first because it can never go to the root of the question, the second
because it evades the question entirely. I do not know which is the more nefarious: to
ignore social distress, as do the majority of those who have been favoured by fortune
and those who have risen in the social scale through their own routine labour, or the
equally supercilious and often tactless but always genteel condescension displayed by
people who make a fad of being charitable and who plume themselves on
'sympathising with the people.' Of course such persons sin more than they can imagine
from lack of instinctive understanding. And thus they are astonished to find that the
'social conscience' on which they pride themselves never produces any results, but often
causes their good intentions to be resented; and then they talk of the ingratitude of the
people."

Ahh, so young Adolf appears sympathetic to the plight of the working poor, the working class and the destitute.
It is here that his ultra-nationalism is headed on a collision course with even a moderate lefty approach to solutions however.
You'd think that the nationalists on this forum would recognize this contradiction but alas they are also caught up in contempt for any nationality or ethnicity other than their own.
And thus the seeds for Hitler's own contempt for anything outside the German sphere begins to sprout.

Yes, I should have read this cover to cover early on, but in a way I am actually glad that I waited until my sixties.

 

[TypicalRussian]

Yeah, okay. But this thread is not about tying Hitler to today or any current political view: I avoided that because I don't want people fighting. What is it about part 1 that grabs your attention? Is there something you want to expand on?

dont worry, im fairly convinced he just uses the word fascit or nazi for fun and merits zero proof of anything about it

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

I've never gotten through more than a smattering of it, and don't intend to alter that condition. As friend Nate observes, I too dither between wanting it known and having it burned. Hitler was most assuredly a sociopath, but my fascination with abnormal psychology is shallow. What I do find interesting is not his garbled political thoughts, cribbed poorly from Nietzsche, but his appeal to a wide following. There lessons for the protection of human kind can be gleaned. And, yes, they have contemporary application, because that mindset obtains within a swath of our own population.

The entire volume is written in the form of a "pain letter".

In her original article, Ryan explains that simply put, a pain letter addresses a specific problem (or pain) the hiring manager is experiencing and how you can resolve it. There’s a little more to it structurally, but content-wise, this is the primary differentiator. It’s not so much about you, it’s about them—what they need and how your experience perfectly enables you to meet that need.

Adolf Hitler appears to almost wax poetic about the plight of the hardworking German people, a true original volkischer beobachter, both as antecedent and archetype. I am sure that in the next couple of chapters he will present his unique qualities that form the bulk of his confidence as the volksavior or volkmessiah.

 

[Jonsa]

I read Mein Kampf years ago, and I have read from it since. Hitler initially felt sympathetic toward Jews. It was only when he failed in his efforts to become an artist and an architect that he began to hate them. He was in the market for someone to hate. In Vienna he frequently saw Jews who were successful artists and architects. He chose to hate Jews. Antisemitism has been called "the socialism of fools." It combines the left wing politics of envy with right wing racial and ethnic bigotry.

When I read Mein Kampf the first time it was easy for me to feel condescending about Hitler's hatred of the Jews. No one seemed to think that way any more. Now I am alarmed to find Hitler's arguments on the internet. Many white men blame "the Jews" for what has gone wrong in their lives, and for trends in the United States that they do not like.

White men who are angry about their lack of financial success are often reluctant to direct that anger to those of their ethnicity who are successful. They think that sort of hate would mark them as resentful losers. They find it easy to hate rich Jews. Their hatred of rich Jews segues to hatred of all Jews, some of which are poor. A stagnant economy breeds Antisemitism the way raw sewage breeds bacteria.Hitler rose to power when the German economy was stagnant. For white blue collar workers in the United States the economy has been stagnant since the inflationary recession of 1974. That is why Antisemitism resonates.

Hitler wrote Volume I of Mein Kampf in 1924. From passages in the book it is clear that he intended to conquer Russia when he came to power, to displace the Slavs, and to replace them with German settlers. That is the only justification I can think of for the Bolshevik takeover and for the tyranny of Joseph Stalin. It is not clear to me that a less tyrannical government than the Soviet government under a less tyrannical leader than Stalin could have defeated the German invasion. Stalin make mistake. Nevertheless, he succeeded where Czar Nicholas II failed.

My impression of the little man when reading it, is that he was offering up excuses to justify his deep bigotries and deep seated feelings of inadequacy. I offer up his racial hierarchy, his belief in the manifest destiny of the "aryan" race (despite being short dark and ugly) as evidence. This is not just an intellectually driven ideology he espouses, it is also the result of deep seated emotional and psychological issues.

He knew how to appeal to German nationalism because he harbored the same humiliation and hardship imposed by the allies and the massive economic clustermuck it created. He was a genius at it. And for a while it worked. But eventually the power corrupted and the drugs drove him nuts.


BTW, the bolshevik take over came long before hitler wrote mein kampf. They took over because Czarist Russia's wealth gap was astronomical not to mention corrupt as hell. Almost as great as the US's these days.

 

[Court Jester]

You know exactly and we're not allowed to say here, so your trolling will now just be ignored.

:2wave:

No I don't know. So either you are lying or are just misinformed.

Here is a clue: My political views aren't exactly rare. Maybe you just need to get outside your own small circles more.

 

[Jean-s]

The book is one painful brick of one wall of text after another, I will surely agree on that, and teenagers are not the best audiences unless they're writing papers. I have presupposed that people have their own copies, but for those who do, they read my synopses and refer to their copies for a fuller understanding. I'm keeping the parts short by hitting the highlights, for instance Hitler's struggles in Vienna for jobs and food and that sort of brooding is just not important to the point so I don't include it. I don't want to replace on e wall of text with another... I never said btw that Hitler was educated; I said he sounded educated and lucid which is quite probably why the book did so well upon its release to the German/Austrian people, and it was treated quite seriously when it was released here which was long before anybody really knew what was going on in Europe.

You may be right that nobody would have missed it, but I would argue that nobody would have been able to watch out for it either.

At about 1,000 pages, I recall Mein Kampf as long-winded and repetitious, quite impossible in an English translation and even nonsensical because of clunky renditions of the original German. There are paragraphs which are positively incoherent. Again, you repeat that Hitler writes like an educated person but this is not so. One translator explains, "Mein Kampf is written in the style of a self-educated modern South German with a gift for oratory. ... Beginning in his Vienna period, Hitler was a voracious newspaper reader. The style of the Austrian press, as Karl Kraus never wearied of pointing out, was slovenly, illogical, pretentious. Even the grammar, doubtless because of the large numbers of Czechs, Hungarians, and other foreigners in the trade, was uncommonly bad. Hitler inveighed against the Viennese melting pot, but was unconsciously influenced by its literary style." (Konrad Heiden. Translator's note. 1943. Mein Kampf. xv. The Riverside Press: Cambridge, MA. This is another way of saying that the book sounds like someone who is a school dropout who writes like a tabloid newspaper with a hectoring tone and bad grammar into the bargain. The most popular 'newspaper' in England is a tabloid called The Sun which would give you an idea of Hitler's writing as if he were a headline writer for a popular newspaper. Now try translating these 1,000 pages into English.

Do not image teenagers in Europe cannot make as much sense out of Mein Kampf as adults. In a survey of schoolchildren in Italy a few years back, the kids in a bunch of schools put Mein Kampf as their most favorite book.
Kids say top book is Hitler's Mein Kampf in Italian national survey | Metro News

 

[calamity]

I haven't read anything from the book since I was in high school as part of logic/critical thinking 101 course. What I mostly remember was that Hitler's arguments about his personal struggle and the path for Germany was basically one long boring argument reducing everything to the absurd meanderings of his twisted mind. To me he came off sounding like a victim--- basically like a modern liberal progressive democrat today.

You misspelled Right Wing Republican

 

[Quag]

I think you mean FDR, not Theodore. Yes smart people wanted that book published so that everybody could get an understanding of what was going on. Let's not forget that Adolph made Time's "man of the Year" cover... Hitler's works programs almost modeled FDR's New Dealism. I hope you do take up reading it again; the more educated people we have the better off we'll all be.

Nope Theodore Roosevelt (jr)
Times man of the year is based not on who they consider the best person but who makes the most news. It is in no way an endorsement of him or his ideology. So it was entirely appropriate for him to be named.
Busy with a biography on the Duke of Wellington ATM (vol2 his political career after Waterloo) Perhaps after that ill try again

 

[bomberfox]

Its good to study one’s enemies which is why i do research on what nazis think and what fascists think. Admittedly ive lost my cool because the subject is very...... sociopathic in nature

 

[calamity]

Its good to study one’s enemies which is why i do research on what nazis think and what fascists think. Admittedly ive lost my cool because the subject is very...... sociopathic in nature

It's pretty simple really.

Question: Does the person/ideology dislike diversity; do their leaders sell hate of ethnic, racial, sexual, gender and other differences?

If yes, then they are Nazis.

 

[Jredbaron96]

The book was actually written by Rudolph Hess:

Physically written by, by dictated by Hitler. There are spots where Hess did indeed write in his own words, and those are obvious because they actually string together pretty well. To be expected, as Hess was college educated, while Hitler was not.

 

[bomberfox]

It's pretty simple really.

Question: Does the person/ideology dislike diversity; do their leaders sell hate of ethnic, racial, sexual, gender and other differences?

If yes, then they are Nazis.

Given that there are other groups that do that, if you want to know about their specific propaganda by which they sold said ideology in order to not be fooled by their newer followers, specifics are important.

 

[calamity]

Given that there are other groups that do that, if you want to know about their specific propaganda by which they sold said ideology in order to not be fooled by their newer followers, specifics are important.

Not really. Sure there are various types of Nazis. But, the core beliefs are white supremacist, nationalist and anti-diversity. Let's not muddy the waters.

Seriously, I see too much of it. "Hey, we aren't throwing Jews into ovens! So, we can't be Nazis."

Let's be real. We all know that the oven part comes later. The core is the belief in a white utopia, where gays remain in the closet, women bow and blacks, immigrants and people of "lesser" religions all take a back seat.

 

[bomberfox]

Satanism is alive and well, and those who are going to believe it will believe it - full stop. Shoving things underground will only drive mystique and attraction. Keeping it above ground and available is the only way to get people to understand it and watch for it: freedom isn't free; you have to work for it.

Satanism isnt all that popular, for some its mostly a show. Lots of satanists dont even believe satan exists but find things interesting in Anton LeVay’s take.

 

[bomberfox]

And yet, it's also a powerful tool of propaganda and and a muse for authors of human tragedy and human suffering. It's also an important historical reference. I get why some folks want it banned, while others want it preserved and taught. It posses power that few other books, outside of religious texts, ever achieve, with pretty devastating results. To be honest, I'm conflicted as to whether I personally believe it should be banned or taught, and I'm not big on censorship at all.

Depends on mindset. The turner diaries is a convoluted bore mixed with dull instruction manuals and a very hypocritical and psychotic protagonist who leads a literal death cult who even bash the skulls of young white girls. Propaganda of the deed mixed with the demand for unforgiving loyalty and old paranoias. One would have to already be enamored or susceptible to it in order to be that much changed by it.

 

[btthegreat]

Introduction

I wanted to create a thread for the purposes of some study and discussion of Hitler’s Mein Kampf; “My Struggle”. I enjoy collecting old books and great finds, and I came across an American published translation by Houghton Mifflin Compay, Boston, 1940, hardbound. The very first American release when Hitler was at the height of his power. The book includes footnotes of analysis and historical information that aid the reader in interpretation.

What so fascinates me about Mein Kampf, is it is Hitler’s actual thinking, not drawn from a film of a speech or someone else’s analysis of him, but drawn directly from his actual mind. Understanding that the reader can actually see how he did it, what his thinking was on a variety of subjects, particularly Germany, royalty, religion, socialism, Marxism and their part in politics and leadership and of course the Jewish question: Hitler actually does a flip on that subject that rockets to the right and his hatred and how he comes about it and then blames the same sources for the ruin of Germany and Austria. Mein Kampf is truly a relic and I think that anybody who is interested in politics and governance, and how things can happen should read it.



This thread will be in sections; the book is 993 pages with a conclusion, so this will be part one. I’d like part one to go on until it fizzles out and then ahead with part two etc. I’m keeping the book sections small to avoid overloading prompts.
The subject will begin with the next post.

I won't be able to add a lot but an anecdote because I don't remember much about what I read. I was about 16 or 17 years old when I picked out my Dad's copy in the 'political discourse' section of his library sitting on the same self as a book of Churchill's speeches and Barry Goldwater's The conscience of a Conservative". ( that library was pretty amazing to find in any small or medium sized town) I brought it up deliberately to shock Dad and pretended to want to study it. He was all encouraging and pointed out particular ( brief sections he wanted me to read and asked me to sit down with him next week at breakfast to discuss it. This was NOT what I anticipated or wanted. I remember him asking me about what might be the difference between the idea of racial superiority/ inferiority ( the Jewish dilemma) and ideological inferiority/ superiority with regard to the Bolsheviks over poached eggs and tea And what I thought about his calling out the German parliament as inherently corrupt and democracy as bankrupt( I am paraphrasing from memory) and how the German Parliament was an obstacle to reform.

I learned the importance of connecting the dots between what reforms a man said he wanted, and how he wanted to get them done, and just what important stuff would be missing in the end.

I had a great Dad, and a phenomenal teacher just living in the room down the hall all of my life. You cannot get luckier.

 

[calamity]

Mein Kampf comes down to this: Germany is a mess because [insert scapegoat here].

IMO, MAGA comes down to this: The US is a mess because [insert scapegoat here].

Now, why the op refuses to discuss this aspect of the subject is a bit baffling.

 

[bomberfox]

Not really. Sure there are various types of Nazis. But, the core beliefs are white supremacist, nationalist and anti-diversity. Let's not muddy the waters.

Seriously, I see too much of it. "Hey, we aren't throwing Jews into ovens! So, we can't be Nazis."

Let's be real. We all know that the oven part comes later. The core is the belief in a white utopia, where gays remain in the closet, women bow and blacks, immigrants and people of "lesser" religions all take a back seat.

Yes this is where they all lead to. I don’t dispute that.

 

[jet57]

Nope Theodore Roosevelt (jr)
Times man of the year is based not on who they consider the best person but who makes the most news. It is in no way an endorsement of him or his ideology. So it was entirely appropriate for him to be named.
Busy with a biography on the Duke of Wellington ATM (vol2 his political career after Waterloo) Perhaps after that ill try again

Jr. You should have included that... You are right about man of the year, but none the less he did make it in 1938. The point was, nobody knew what he was up to. Good luck with your new read: have fun.

 

[jet57]

Mein Kampf comes down to this: Germany is a mess because [insert scapegoat here].

IMO, MAGA comes down to this: The US is a mess because [insert scapegoat here].

Now, why the op refuses to discuss this aspect of the subject is a bit baffling.

Hi; I explained that earlier. What you CAN do is open a thread on that subject: it would be interesting, and don't just apply it to Trump or MAGA. Borrow from this thread to get started. I would enjoy that and I'm sure others would as well.

 

[jet57]

I won't be able to add a lot but an anecdote because I don't remember much about what I read. I was about 16 or 17 years old when I picked out my Dad's copy in the 'political discourse' section of his library sitting on the same self as a book of Churchill's speeches and Barry Goldwater's The conscience of a Conservative". ( that library was pretty amazing to find in any small or medium sized town) I brought it up deliberately to shock Dad and pretended to want to study it. He was all encouraging and pointed out particular ( brief sections he wanted me to read and asked me to sit down with him next week at breakfast to discuss it. This was NOT what I anticipated or wanted. I remember him asking me about what might be the difference between the idea of racial superiority/ inferiority ( the Jewish dilemma) and ideological inferiority/ superiority with regard to the Bolsheviks over poached eggs and tea And what I thought about his calling out the German parliament as inherently corrupt and democracy as bankrupt( I am paraphrasing from memory) and how the German Parliament was an obstacle to reform.

I learned the importance of connecting the dots between what reforms a man said he wanted, and how he wanted to get them done, and just what important stuff would be missing in the end.

I had a great Dad, and a phenomenal teacher just living in the room down the hall all of my life. You cannot get luckier.

Yeah, good for you. A dad who is interested ion you that much is gold. He exercised your mind on the subject and was probably very impressed with your seeking knowledge on it.

 

[jet57]

Physically written by, by dictated by Hitler. There are spots where Hess did indeed write in his own words, and those are obvious because they actually string together pretty well. To be expected, as Hess was college educated, while Hitler was not.

It's obvious that Hitler wasn't well educated, but I was surprised at how well, so far anyway he could articulate his thoughts. As an orator such articulation is an important talent. Ernst Rohm discovered him and knew exactly where to place him.

 

[Quag]

Jr. You should have included that... You are right about man of the year, but none the less he did make it in 1938. The point was, nobody knew what he was up to. Good luck with your new read: have fun.

Yeah sorry about the Jr was going from memory not looking at the actual book. And yeah soe4m people did know what he was up to or at least strongly suspected it but they were not the majority. From my past attempts I doubt it will be fun but it may be interesting