Mein Kampf

Vlad Piranha · Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2013 8:01 pm Post subject: Mein Kampf

I'm not one to shy away from controversy and, as vile as this book is, it contributed to the most important world event since the Renaissance. That was reason enough to will myself through it. On the other hand, like so many people, I always wondered what went on in Adolf Hitler's head to make him such a sociopath. The scale of destruction he advocated is usually casually explained as mental illness. I approached this book with the most simple question, whether or not he was truly mad. What frightens me is that he seems, by all accounts, to have been completely in charge of his faculties and, while irrational, he had a system of beliefs that he worked out.

Unfortunately, Mein Kampf is nothing more than poorly written propaganda and you'll gain very little education from it directly. Most of the book involves little more than ranting about how the 'Jewry' has sabotaged Germany's supposed illustrious legacy through its thievery and trickery (he even blames Jews for Syphilis). This much of the book's synopsis is common knowledge to virtually anyone. What is interesting is how, if you read between the lines, you can gather quite a bit of wisdom from this book in every way it did not intend. If you examine it line by line with no purpose but to root out evil and compare Hitler's perspective to rational truths, you find out just how exquisitely stupid he truly was. He wasn't crazy, he was a psychopath whose ignorance was a point of pride for him. Conviction is about the only thing that kept him going. As the old saying suggested, he wasn't the correct person in an argument, just the loudest one. With his complete lack of any real skill, he was lucky to have survived as long as he did and Germany's downfall was all an eventuality.

Rather than give you a synopsis of this puddle of filth, which is nothing more than a 687 page racist rant, I'll provide you with the most interesting points that can be learned from this book. I went to the incredible trouble of cataloging each and every interesting point I could find. The following is most of what I found useful or interesting. I marked several quotations as extremely relevant to the war and any darkness that it spawned.

Notes

- Hitler always intended for war. There was no other goal. His narrow mind saw that as the only means to his end. The very first page of Mein Kampf mentions taking Austria by force to give birth to a new Reich. This is also the first thing he did with his Wehrmacht and historians know it as the Anschluss.

- Due to his inability to win arguments against his opponents in the early days (presumably because he mocked objectivity itself and had no real evidence to back up anything he believed in), he came to believe that force was necessary to accomplish anything. Two quotes stand out to support this.
"If Social Democracy is opposed by a doctrine of greater truth, but of equal brutality of methods, the latter will conquer".
"Terror at the place of employment, in the factory, in the meeting hall, and on the occasion of mass demonstrations will always be successful unless opposed by equal terror". (p43,44)

-The murder of undesirables was always part of Hitler's plan to make the world a better place. In 1925, Hitler was already encouraging the 'extermination' of the enemies of the nation.

-Hitler actually admired the United Kingdom quite a bit. He believed it to be dignified in how its peoples were ruled and how it preserved it's power. More than anything, he admired the Empire itself. This is why he had such an obsession with taking territory by force, he believed that Germany could build it's own empire in the image of the British Empire. The country whose land he coveted most was Russia. Mein Kampf was blatant in its goals and Stalin's Non-Aggression Pact was hilarious in its ignorance. This is not hindsight being 20/20, it's a homicidal regime not doing its homework.

-He also believed that England would do nothing in response to the assault on France due to England's historical rivalry with the nation. He was so politically, economically, and sociologically ignorant that he honestly thought England would be pleased and see it as a favor.

-Hitler sought nothing short of world domination. (p.396)

-"The future of a movement is conditioned by the fanaticism , yes, the intolerance, with which its adherents uphold it as the sole correct movement, and push it past other formations of a similar sort". (p349)

-"If we pass all the causes of the German collapse in review, the ultimate and most decisive remains the failure to recognize the racial problem and especially the Jewish menace". (p327)

-"for the great master of lies understands as always how to make himself appear to be the pure one and to load the blame on others. Since he has the gall to lead the masses, it never even enters their heads that this might be the most infamous betrayal of our times." Irony, anyone? (p318)

-Totalitarian control was always the goal. The very thought process behind this next passage should scare the shit out of every American.
"The state, therefore, has the duty of watching over their education and preventing any mischief. It must particularly exercise strict control over the press; for its influence on these people is by far the strongest and most penetrating, since it is applied, not once in a while, but over and over again." (p242)

-Firearms aficionados have long documented Hitler's belief that long range, high power, bolt action rifles would win the war over automatic assault styled weapons due to their longer effective range. Even German officers documented that this was a faulty strategy due to tactical concepts such as suppressive fire and the simple fact that accurate fire with iron sights has its range greatly reduced regardless. Hitler rebuffed these studies and ignored his own advisers until 1944, when it was far too late to logistically supply soldiers with what would become the Stg44 rifle. His stubborn ignorance was pervasive it would seem.

"A ship of smaller and weaker armament will as a rule be sent to the bottom by a speedier and more heavily armed enemy at the firing distance favorable for the latter." (p274)
(The exact opposite of this 'rule' is why the German Tiger tanks got their asses kicked by the cheaper, faster, weaker, less armored, and more plentiful M1 Sherman tanks. Hitler didn't concern himself with things like logistics or economics, which he had a small child's understanding of.)

-It's hard to understand the pretentious, pseudo-science that had Hitler so convinced of his beliefs, but race and eugenics factored into absolutely everything he ever hoped to achieve. Absolutely everything. I cannot stress this enough. Every social problem, every political inconvenience, every military defeat, every possible daily irritant was attributed to bad breeding and a lack of faith in the German ideal. His own words lay things out pretty plainly.

"The folkish state must make up for what everyone else today has neglected in this field. It must set race in the center of all life. It must take care to keep it pure. It must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. It must see to it that only the healthy beget children; that there is only one disgrace: despite one's own sickness and deficiencies, to bring children into the world, and one highest honor: to renounce doing so. And conversely it must be considered reprehensible: to withhold healthy children from the nation." (p403,404)

-There is a pervasive, false belief among the most opinionated atheists (especially internet trolls) that Christian doctrine in some way inspired Hitler. He did his best to gain the support of religious conservatives for political gain, only to betray them later, and had no place for any religion in his Reich. The only thing he liked about Christians was the worst parts of the Catholic church's history that involved abuses of power (much like his admiration for England's colonial abuses). Once in a while, he did let his real opinions slip out and paint a different picture. These next passages illuminate his anti-Christian sentiments and his overarching belief that all religion needed to be violently (emphasis on 'violently') destroyed. The third one is a piece of irony I enjoy. Those same condescending critics of the religious who think they're above Hitler actually share many of his opinions on this matter. It just goes to show that the internet is not a good place to discover self-awareness or wisdom.

"The individual may establish with pain today that with the appearance of Christianity the first spiritual terror entered into the far freer ancient world, but he will not be able to contest the fact that since then the world has been afflicted and dominated by this coercion, and that coercion is broken only by coercion, and terror only by terror." (p454)

"Thus, it may be that centuries, dissatisfied with the form of their religious life, yearn for a renewal, and that from this psychic urge dozens and more men arise who on the basis of their insight and their knowledge believe themselves chosen to solve this religious distress, to manifest themselves as prophets of a new doctrine, or at least as warriors against an existing one." (p510)

"Especially with a people like the Germans, who have so often demonstrated in their history that they were capable of waging wars down to the last drop of blood for phantoms, any such battle cry will be mortally dangerous." (p565)

If you insist on reading this book for World War II history value only, start at Volume Two, Chapter Seven. From there on, you'll find the most relevant chapters. The following are a few passages that illustrate this.

"I myself, meanwhile, after innumerable attempts, had laid down a final form; a flag with a red background, a white disk, and a black swastika in the middle." (p496)

Hitler describes the birth of the Sturm-Abteilung, his most fanatically loyal followers, who started off merely as his trusted guards. He recalls their first bloody battle in (supposedly) breaking up a violent protest of a National Socialist meeting.

"The dance had not yet begun when my storm troopers - for so they were called from this day on - attacked. Like wolves they flung themselves in packs of eight or ten again and again on their enemies, and little by little actually began to thrash them out of the hall. After only five minutes I hardly saw a one of them who was not covered with blood". (p505)
(In a show of either lies or delusions, this is all a fabrication. Witnesses to the violence that night say that the riot was stopped by the same police Hitler constantly berated in Mein Kampf as cowards and tools of the Jewry and never assisted him in any way while protecting the Marxists.)

Conclusion

If my review here seems disheveled, it's because I went through my notes completely in order. Even with page numbers and notes scribbled on a piece of paper acting as my bookmark and two months to consider how to approach this thread, I had no idea of how to craft a synopsis of this book that even approached coherence. Mein Kampf is truly that much of a shabby, amateurish rant with no true structure. If you've ever had the displeasure of listening to a redneck go on an angry, racist rant in a grocery store (as I have), then you can understand the structure of this book. Chapters seem linked together only by a common target of rage and they drip with redundancy.

One of the common things I heard in schools growing up was how intelligent Hitler was. He was pure evil, but smart and capable, or so goes the theory. Mein Kampf is evidence of exactly the contrary. Adolf Hitler, as I said, was exquisitely stupid. His reasoning skills were so flawed that nothing he ever used as evidence for his claims ever even approached fact. His opinions were backed by opinions. In the opening chapters, he describes his encounters with (so-called) Marxists and other leftists and how it was impossible to reason with them and how, after they refused to argue with him any more (because of their presumed stupidity) they'd become violent. I think it's obvious what this truly was: Hitler argued against more progressive and objective people than himself, couldn't understand what their logical reasoning and fact had to do with his angry rants with no basis in reality and, after they got sick of listening to him scream for a while, threatened to beat the shit out of him if he didn't shut the hell up and leave (as we all would have). This is how it works arguing with people who pick their facts to supports their ideas instead of vice-versa. They become increasingly angry and violent the more trapped they feel and perceive your logic, which they don't understand, as insanity. Ironic, eh? Yeah, that sums up Adolf Hitler in a nutshell.

My conclusion is that Hitler was not insane. If anything, he was merely a psychopath whose passion was foolishly mistaken as competence and was given complete dominance of Germany in an effort to eliminate infighting and produce results (it must suck for your entire generation to serve as a teaching tool and a warning to the rest of the world about stupidity in elections). In fact, his psychological symptoms are consistent with Antisocial Personality Disorder or other forms of psychopathy. In the end, like most psychopaths, Hitler didn't fit into the world and didn't understand it. His bizarre life's goal was to remake the world in a form that he agreed with. He was capable of doing this thanks to a superficial charm or charisma which is, again, in keeping with such a personality disorder.

Should you guys read this book? I really, really do not recommend it. Yes, it's historically relevant, but anything useful is hidden in nearly seven hundred pages of almost mindless anger, arrogance and idiocy. Every page is like a bruise upon your soul. I took an inordinate amount of time to finish this piece of shit because I could only stand about twenty pages at a time some days. If you're having a bad, frustrating day, Mein Kampf is not a good choice for light reading. I read it just to say that I did and for the reasons I stated above. The most useful thing I got out of this book was my ability to logically battle zealots who liken anything they disagree with to Hitler. In the internet age, this kind of information and education is a deadly weapon and it is, admittedly, pretty badass to wield. It certainly gives you ammunition to make griefers on YouTube look like idiot children.

If anyone is really interested in what went on in Adolf Hitler's twisted mind, feel free to ask questions. I read this book so none of you ever have to. Fire away with comments and discussion. We're already discussing Nazis, so it's not like the elevator goes down any further.

Reasons I'd recommend this book:
Extremely high historical importance
Useful to understand for the sake of argument

(If you want my page numbers to be useful to you, you'll want the Houghton Mifflin copy. I think they're the only ones who still publish this book, so that may not matter.)

The really strange thing is that, due to its sense of purpose, this book is still not the worst thing I've ever read....

Last edited by Vlad Piranha on Thu May 16, 2013 11:43 pm; edited 1 time in total

Eugene · Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2013 8:23 pm Post subject:

Hitler has been romanticised as this great diabolic mastermind who took over Germany overnight. In reality he had Charisma going for him, so he was chosen as the leader of the Nazi Party instead of some of the higher ups. It is how Politics works, the more charismatic candidate often wins especially in that age. I have always been curious to read this book and I still might just due to my fascination with the WWII Soviet era.

You mentioned that he coveted the Russian land, can you give some insight as to why?

Stealth · Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2013 10:02 pm Post subject:

I read the first chapter in German. Laughing

_________________
Motherfucking Triangles! Being all three sided n' shit, who do they think they are?!

Vlad Piranha · Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2013 10:54 pm Post subject:

Eugene wrote:

Hitler has been romanticised as this great diabolic mastermind who took over Germany overnight. In reality he had Charisma going for him, so he was chosen as the leader of the Nazi Party instead of some of the higher ups. It is how Politics works, the more charismatic candidate often wins especially in that age. I have always been curious to read this book and I still might just due to my fascination with the WWII Soviet era.

You mentioned that he coveted the Russian land, can you give some insight as to why?

Yeah, Hitler actually had some of his predecessors killed.

In regards to the Russia thing, he believed that for Germany to be a superpower and for his eugenics experiment to work, he needed as much land as possible to provide for the German people. He was a crazy right-winger in only some of his policies. Contrary to popular belief, he also had many beliefs and policies that could be described as radical liberal as well, making him a bizarre sort of political anomaly. He planned to distribute conquered lands to people as his wars went on, making Germany a bigger and more powerful economic force, which was essentially the sort of parasitic economy that kept such a small country propped up for so longer during such a huge war.

Historically, Germany and Russia had a rivalry in Eastern Europe dating back well over a century by my knowledge alone. In classical fiction that I'll be reviewing later, I'll be sure to point out examples from Russian literature. What Russian culture I've been exposed to portrays Germans as stupid with a baseless arrogance. During the Napoleonic Wars, Russia was one of the only countries that mounted a real challenge to Napoleon as he steamrolled the rest of Europe. German troops barely fought back by their estimates. There's no way that this kind of animosity couldn't factor into an entire war deeply rooted in revenge.

One final point that I find really humorous is Hitler's views on a national defense. He calculated, correctly for once, that the greater its land mass, the harder a nation is to invade and hold. By conquering Europe, he believed he could strengthen German borders and make his countrymen invincible. The humorous aspect to this that you can all see coming is that he planned on invading Russia to get this land, completely disregarding his own supposed strategic philosophy.

Also, if anyone is wondering where the phrase 'Nazi' came from, it originates from the German pronunciation of the party's name; National Socialist German Worker's Party. The German phrase for this is Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei. The 'National' portion of that phrase is pronounced 'knot-see-oh-nal', the first two syllables being what would become 'Nazi'.