Mien Kampf

[gooddoggy]

This book is startling and shocking. Has anyone in the BW forum read it? I plan to read Das Kapitol next.

[Knowle of 4U]

My daughter chose to read it for a report or something in high school a while back. We discussed it, so I'm mildly informed; but no, I have not personally read it. Her indication was that it was surprisingly NOT terribly controversial. So I'm shocked that you're suggesting it is startling and shocking. How so?

[gooddoggy]

Well, I'm startled because actually there are many ideas in this book that I would agree with. Some of it is simply right. It goes without saying that I would not agree with all of it.

It's characterization of the nature of Marxism/Communism, the nature of the press, the hypocrisy of the Western democracies as to territorial expansion and imperialism, the causes of national decline, etc.--these concepts are well presented and I have read them elsewhere by other writers like Theodore Roosevelt.

Historically its very informative because I had no idea about common German sentiment about Austria and the Hapsburg monarcy--even in college history they made it sound as if the German people wished to support Austria. Its also informative as to the Marxist movement in Germany during this period.

The naked anti-semitism is what seemed shocking to me. Even more surprising were Hitler's statements that he once disdained anti-semitism and took a more cosmopolitan view, and that in the course of forming his anti-semitic beliefs, he had several spiritual wrestling matches with himself and I think with God.

The Jewish question is also one of great importance, no matter what one believes about this, and while one may not accept Hitler's demonism of the Jews he nevertheless made many true and accurate observations about the relationship of Jewish people to the states they enter. Coming from a church background with definite theology on the Chosen People, I have long considered the same observations but these brought me to quite different conclusions than Hitler reached.

But yes, it is highly controversial because Hitler claimed that Marxism/Communism was completely of Jewish origin, a mechanism designed to conquer nations and create a worldwide Jewish power. He disavowed that any Jew conscious of his or her Jewishness could be patriotic or loyal to any people but the Jewish people and that statements to the contrary by Jews are lies meant to mislead the nation hosting them. He claimed that Zionism was an expression of this aim , and that Israel as a homeland was less important to international Jewry as an actual place to live than as a central headquarters of what he called their "international swindle".

I have long looked at the Jewish relationship to Marxism and Communism and pondered what it meant. Even today and in the 20th century, Jewish leadership in social democracy movements is unmistakable. Many of these social democracy movements, however right the cause they espouse, have a Marxist ideology underneath that is openly admitted to by their proponents. Israel's socialistic tendencies and the role of Marxism in the kibbutz are well established.

Millions believed Mein Kampf and millions believe it today, so it is highly relevant since this was the first publicized and clear presentation of this idea and the means of its dissimination into the modern world.

Of course I have not even mentioned the racial doctrine it containes. It suggests that all true human culture is the result of one original race, the Aryan people. The degree to wich non Aryan races possess any form of culture is, according to Hitler,tied drectly to the degree that they have intermarried with or been exposed to Aryans. Hitler claimed that interracial mixture was the real cause of the fall of world empires and that cultural and technological genius as well as the will to fight and win lay solely within pure Aryan blood. Although Hitler mentioned God and seemed to be a theist of some sort, its clear that he embraced Darwinism and believed that Natural Selection had favored the Aryan.

"All who are not of good race in this world are chaff."

That is quite controversial!