Treaty of Locarno – katana17

Rethinking Mein Kampf — by Thomas Dalton

admin — Mon, 29 Feb 2016 08:18:13 +0000

[In this very good essay Thomas Dalton outlines the case for his forthcoming translation of Mein Kampf. He also gives a concise summary of Hitler’s position on the major topics of Racial Theory, Religion and jews. Lastly, Hitler’s legacy is discussed.

— KATANA]

Rethinking Mein Kampf

Thomas Dalton

http://www.inconvenienthistory.com/archive/2016/volume_8/number_1/rethinking_mein_kampf.php

Preface

A Most Consequential Work

Origins and Context

November Revolution, and a New Movement

Chapter Synopses

Previous English Translations

Why a New Translation?

Some Contentious Topics

25 Points of the NSDAP Program

Notes

Preface

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On 1 January 2016, Mein Kampf came out of copyright. It has now been 70 years since the author’s death, and by international copyright law, legal protection for the book has expired. Thus it is perhaps a good time to reconsider and reexamine this most notorious work—and perhaps to banish some of the many myths surrounding it to history.

In fact, we are long overdue for a revisionist treatment of this work. In my experience, very few people really understand what’s in it. The common man, even the well-educated one, likely knows little more than the title and the author. Revisionists who work on the Holocaust or either of the world wars often bypass the book completely, as if it had no relevance at all; most likely, they have never read it. Traditional journalists, academics, and alleged experts frequently display their ignorance by taking passages out of context, overlooking key facts, or simply failing to cite the author appropriately. More generally, the mainstream approach to Mein Kampf seems be rather similar to its tactics with regard to Holocaust revisionism: ignore, censor, or disparage. It is simply too problematic to discuss this work in a fashion that might lead readers to ask tough questions, or to seek out the book itself.

A large part of the reason for the book’s obscurity is the sorry state of its many English translations. These will be discussed and critiqued below. This is also one of the reasons that I am currently working on a new, parallel German-English translation—the first ever, in fact. I will attempt to remedy many of the shortcomings in current versions, and provide something of a revisionist perspective on the entire work. In the present essay, I examine the translations, discuss some main themes of the book, and argue for its relevance in the present day.

A Most Consequential Work

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Mein Kampf is the autobiography and articulated worldview of one of the most consequential and visionary leaders in world history. It is also one of the most maligned and misrepresented texts of the 20th century. There have been so many obfuscations, deceptions, and outright falsehoods circulated about this work that one scarcely knows where to begin. Nonetheless, the time has come to set the story straight.

That Adolf Hitler would even have undertaken such a work is most fortunate. Being neither a formal academic nor a natural writer, and being fully preoccupied with pragmatic matters of party-building, he might never have begun such a major task—were it not for the luxury of a year-long jail term. In one of the many ironies of Hitler’s life, it took just such an adverse event to prompt him to dictate his party’s early history and his own life story. This would become Volume One of his two-part, 700-page magnum opus. It would have a dramatic effect on world history, and initiate a chain of events that has yet to fully play out. In this sense, Mein Kampf is as relevant today as when it was first written.

[Image] Display of Copies of Hitlers Mein Kampf – Documentation Center in Congress Hall – Nuremberg-Nurnberg – Germany
By Adam Jones, Ph.D.

Perhaps the place to begin is with the rationale for the book. Why did Hitler write it at all? Clearly it was not a requirement; many major politicians in history have come and gone without leaving a personal written record. Even his time in prison could have been spent communicating with party leaders, building support, soliciting allies, and so on. But he chose to spend much of his stay documenting the origins and growth of his new movement. And this was a boon to history as well as to understanding of the human spirit.

The work at hand seems to have served at least four purposes for its author. First, it is autobiographical. This aspect consumes most of the first two chapters, and is repeatedly woven into the remainder of Volume One. For those curious about the first 35 years of Hitler’s life, this aspect is invaluable. It gives an accurate and relevant account of his upbringing, his education, and the early development of his worldview. Like any good autobiography, it provides an irreplaceable first-hand description of a life. But as well, it offers the usual temptation to cast events in a flattering light, to downplay shortcomings, or to bypass inconvenient episodes. On this count, Hitler fares well; he provides an honest and open life story, devoid of known fabrications or omissions—one that is essential for understanding his thinking and attitudes on social, economic, and political matters.

Second, Mein Kampf is a kind of history lesson on Europe around the turn of the 20th century. Hitler was a proximate observer—and often first-hand witness—to many of the major events of the time. He served in the trenches of World War One for more than four years, which was virtually the entire duration of the war. Serving on the ‘losing’ side, he naturally gives a different interpretation of events than is commonly portrayed by historians of the victorious nations. But this fact should be welcomed by any impartial observer, and in itself makes the book worth reading. With rare exceptions — such as Jünger’s Storm of Steel — no other non-fiction contemporary German source of this time is readily available in English. For those interested in the Great War and its immediate aftermath, this book is irreplaceable.

[Image] Ernst Jünger (1895 – 1998), author of Storm of Steel. In 1929, a young Joseph Goebbels called Storm of Steel “a brilliant book, a great book. Horrifying in its realistic greatness. Power, nationalistic passion, verve — the German book on the War.”

In its third aspect, the book serves to document the origins and basic features of Hitler’s worldview. This, unsurprisingly, is the most distorted part of the book, in standard Western versions. Here we find the insights and trigger events that led a young man without formal higher education to develop a strikingly visionary, expansive, and forward-looking ideology. Hitler’s primary concern, as we read, was the future and well-being of the German people—all Germans, regardless of the political unit in which they lived. The German people, or Volk, were, he believed, a single ethnicity with unique and singular self-interests. They were—indisputably—responsible for many of the greatest achievements in Western history. They were among the leading lights in music, literature, architecture, science, and technology. They were great warriors, and great nation-builders. They were, in large part, the driving force behind Western civilization itself. Hitler was justly proud of his heritage. Equally is he outraged at the indignities suffered by this great people in then-recent decades—culminating in the disastrous humiliation of World War I and the Treaty of Versailles. He seeks, above all, to remedy these injustices and restore the mantle of greatness to the German people. To do this, he needs to identify both their primary opponents and the defective political ideologies and structures that bind them. Then he undertakes to outline a new socio-political system that can carry them forward to a higher and rightful destiny.

Finally, in its fourth aspect, Mein Kampf is a kind of blueprint for action. It describes the evolution and aims of National Socialism and the NSDAP, or Nazi Party, in compelling detail. Hitler naturally wants his new movement to succeed in assuming power in Germany and in a future German Reich. But this is no theoretical analysis. Hitler is nothing if not pragmatic. He has concrete goals and specific means of achieving them. He has nothing but disdain for the geistige Waffen, the intellectual weapons, of the impotent intelligentsia. He demands results, and success.

Importantly, his analysis is, in large part, independent of context. It does not pertain only to Germans, or only to the circumstances of the mid-1920s. It is a broadly universal approach based on the conditions of the modern world, and on human nature. As such, Hitler’s analysis of action is relevant and useful for many people today—for all those who might strive for national greatness in body and spirit.

This complex textual structure of Mein Kampf explains some of the complaints of modern-day critics who decry Hitler’s lack of ‘coherence’ or ‘narrative flow.’ He has many objectives here, and in their implementation, many points overlap. Perhaps he should have written four books, not one. Perhaps. But Hitler was a doer, not a writer. We must accept this fact, take what we have, and do our best to understand it in an open and objective fashion. He was not striving for a best-selling novel. He wanted to document history and advance a movement, and to these ends he succeeded most admirably.

Origins and Context

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Born on 20 April 1889 in present-day Austria, Hitler grew up as a citizen of the multi-ethnic state known as the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This disparate amalgamation was formed in 1867, with the union of the Austrian and Hungarian monarchies; thus does Hitler refer to the state as the “Dual Monarchy.” Throughout its 50-year history, it was always a loose conjunction of many ethnicities, and never a truly unified state. The ethnic Germans in it were a minority, and had to struggle to promote their own interests. This fact caused Hitler no end of distress; he explicitly felt more attachment to the broader German Volk than to the multi-ethnic state into which he was born.

As a youth, his interests tended toward the arts, painting, and history. This led to conflict with his obstinate father, who envisioned a safe, comfortable bureaucratic career for his son. But his father’s death on 3 January 1903, when Adolf was 13, allowed the young man to determine his own future. Two years later he moved to Vienna, scraping by with menial jobs to survive. In late 1907, his mother died. At the age of 18, he then applied to enter the Viennese Arts Academy in painting, but was diverted to architecture. He worked and studied for two more years, eventually becoming skilled enough to work full-time as a draftsman and painter of watercolors.

All the while, he studied the mass of humanity around him. He read the various writings and publications of the political parties. He observed the workings of the press. He watched how unions functioned. He sat in on Parliament. He followed events in neighboring Germany. And he became intrigued by the comings and goings of one particular minority in Vienna: the Jews.

[Image] Orthodox Jews at the Karmelitermarkt (de) in Leopoldstadt, Vienna during the Austro-Hungarian Empire, 1915.

Gradually he became convinced that the two dominant threats to German well-being were Marxism—a Jewish form of communism—and the international-capitalist Jews. The problems were compounded by the fundamentally inept workings of a representative democracy that tried to serve diverse ethnicities. In the end, the fine and noble concept of democracy became nothing other than a “Jewish democracy,” working for the best interests of Jews instead of Austrians or Germans.

Upon turning 23 in 1912, Hitler went to Munich. It was his first extended contact with German culture, and he found it invigorating. He lived there for two years, until the outbreak of World War I in July 1914. Thrilled at the opportunity to defend the German homeland, he enlisted, serving on the Western front in Belgium. After more than 2 years of service, he was slightly wounded in October 1916 and sent back to Germany, spending some time in a reserve battalion in Munich. Appalled at both the role of Jews there and the negative public attitude, he returned to the front in March 1917.

By this time, the war had been dragging on for some two and a half years. It had effectively become a stalemate. Even the looming entrance of the Americans into the war—President Wilson would call for war the next month, and US troops would soon follow—would have little near-term effect. As Hitler explains, however, the Germans actually had reasons for optimism by late 1917. The Central Powers (primarily Germany and Austria-Hungary) had inflicted a decisive defeat on Italy in the Battle of Caporetto, and the Russians had pulled out of the war after the Bolshevik Revolution, thus freeing up German troops for the Western front. Hitler recalls that his compatriots, “looked forward with confidence” to the spring of 1918, when they anticipated final victory.

November Revolution, and a New Movement

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But things would turn out differently. Germans’ dissatisfaction with the prolonged war effort was being fanned by Jewish activists calling for mass demonstrations, strikes, and even revolution against the Kaiser. In late January 1918 there was a large munitions strike. Various workers’ actions and riots followed for months afterward. The Western front held, but Germany was weakening internally.

In mid-October of 1918, the German front near Ypres, Belgium was hit with mustard gas. Hitler’s eyes were badly affected, and he was sent to a military hospital in Pasewalk, north of Berlin. In late October, a minor naval revolt in Kiel began to spread to the wider population. Two major Jewish-led parties, the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD), agitated for the Kaiser to abdicate—which he did, on November 9. Jewish activists in Berlin and Munich then declared independent “soviet” states; for a detailed discussion of these events, see Dalton (2014). Germany formally capitulated on November 11. After the dust had settled, a new ‘Weimar’ government was formed, one that was notably susceptible to Jewish influence.

Hearing about the revolution from his hospital bed, Hitler was devastated. All the effort and sacrifices made at the front had proven worthless. Jewish agitators in the homeland had succeeded in whipping up local dissatisfaction to the point that the Kaiser was driven from power. The revolutionaries then assumed power and immediately surrendered to the enemy. This was the infamous “stab in the back” that would haunt German nationalists for years to come. And it was the triggering event that caused Hitler to enter politics.

In September 1919, working for the government, he was assigned to follow and report on a little-known group called the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, or German Workers’ Party (DAP). He ended up joining the group, and quickly assumed a leadership role. By early 1920, Hitler’s speeches were drawing hundreds or thousands of people. On February 24, he announced that the party would henceforth be known as the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, or NSDAP—‘Nazi,’ in the parlance of its detractors. It is with this “first great mass meeting” that Hitler closes Volume One of his book.

The new movement grew rapidly. Hitler formalized his leadership in July 1921. A series of stormy and occasionally violent public events occurred in the following months. In November 1922, ideological compatriot Mussolini took power in Italy, which served to bolster both National Socialist efforts domestically and their international reputation. It was on November 21 that the New York Times printed its first major article on Hitler: “New Popular Idol Rises in Bavaria.” Calling the National Socialists “violently anti-Semitic” and “reactionary” but “well disciplined,” the NYT viewed them as “potentially dangerous, though not for the immediate future.” Indeed—it would not be for another 10 years that they would assume power in Germany.

Soon thereafter, other events would favor the National Socialists. France had occupied the Ruhr Valley in January 1923, claiming a violation of Versailles; this was taken as a grave insult to German sovereignty. It was also at this time that the infamous German hyperinflation took hold, wiping out the savings of ordinary Germans and forcing them to haul around bushels of cash for even the smallest purchases. By the end of the year, Germany was in a full-blown financial crisis. This led Hitler and the NSDAP leadership to plan for a revolutionary take-over of Munich on 9 November 1923.

This attempted Putsch, or coup, would fail. In a brief shoot-out, 16 Nazis and four policemen were killed. Hitler and the other leaders were arrested within days, put on trial in February 1924, and sentenced to light prison terms. In all, Hitler spent some 13 months in confinement, obtaining release in December of that year. It was during this time that he dictated what would become Volume One of his book.

Hitler reportedly wanted to call his new book, “Four and a Half Years of Struggle against Lies, Stupidity, and Cowardice.” The publisher adroitly suggested a shorter title: “My Struggle,” or Mein Kampf. It would initially be published in July of 1925.

Hitler then began a second, shorter volume to complete his program. This appeared in December of 1926. The next year, the two volumes were slightly revised and combined into one work. This so-called ‘second edition’ of Mein Kampf was published when Hitler was 38 years old.

Hitler und Schwarz bei der Einweihung des Umbaus des Palais Barlow in der Brienner Straße zum “Braunen Haus”, 1930

[Image] Adolf Hitler and Nazi Reich treasurer Franz Xaver Schwarz at the inauguration of the renovation of the Palais Barlow in Briennerstrasse the “Brown House“, Munich 1930.

Hitler und Schwarz bei der Einweihung des Umbaus des Palais Barlow in der Brienner Straße zum “Braunen Haus“, 1930

Chapter Synopses

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It will be useful to provide a very brief summary of the main themes of each of the 27 chapters.

Volume 1

Chapter 1:

Hitler’s early life.

Relationship with parents.

Early education.

Interest in history and art.

Budding nationalism.

Covers birth in 1889 to mother’s death in late 1907, when Hitler was 18 years old.

Chapter 2:

Time alone in Vienna.

Marxism and international Jewry as main threats.

Assessment and critique of Viennese government.

Life of the working class. Study of the Social Democratic party, and its Jewish influence.

Role of unions.

Burgeoning anti-Semitism.

Study of the destructive role of Marxism.

Chapter 3:

General reflections on Austrian politics, and representative democracy.

Failings of multi-ethnic states.

Critique of Western democracy.

Failings of ‘majority rule.’

Demise of the pan-German movement.

Unfortunate conflict with the Catholic Church.

Anti-Semitism and religion.

Covers period up to age 23 (1912).

Chapter 4:

Moves to Munich.

Critique of German alliances.

Four possible paths of German policy.

Population growth, and the need for land.

Need for alliance with England. Initial discussion of the role of Aryans.

Marxism as mortal foe.

Covers up to mid-1914.

Chapter 5:

Outbreak of World War One.

Hitler enlists, at age 25.

“Baptism by fire.”

Chapter 6:

Role and need for propaganda.

Effective use by England; failure by Germany.

Chapter 7:

Course of the Great War.

Wounded in late 1916.

Jews and negative attitudes rampant in Munich.

Munitions strike in early 1918. Poisoned by mustard gas in October 1918, at age 29.

November Revolution.

Chapter 8:

Postwar time in Munich.

Need for a new party.

Negative role of global capitalism.

Chapter 9:

Encounters German Workers’ Party (DAP).

Early meetings.

Joins DAP, as member #7, at age 30.

Chapter 10:

Analysis of the collapse of the German Empire in 1918.

Dominance of international capitalism.

Effect of the press on the masses.

Jewish control of press.

Combating the syphilis epidemic.

Cultural decay in modern art.

Ineffective parliament.

The army as a source of discipline.

Chapter 11:

Detailed racial theory.

Nature strives to improve species.

Racial mixing between ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ types yields physical, moral, and cultural decay.

Aryans as true founders of civilization.

Aryan tendency for self-sacrifice.

Aryan versus Jew. Jews as parasites.

Fake Jewish ‘religion.’

Extended examination of “the way of Jewry”—historical, sociological, political.

Marxist worldview.

Jewish subversion of democracy.

Ill effects of racial impurity.

Chapter 12:

Evolution of DAP.

Extended discussion of the need to nationalize the masses.

How to organize a party.

Gaining publicity.

Second major meeting in October 1919.

Growing success.

Rejection of ‘intellectual’ weapons.

First true mass meeting in February 1920.

Transition to NSDAP.

Volume 2

Chapter 1:

Corruption of democracy.

Concept of ‘folkish.’

Transforming ideals into practice.

Marxism pushes race equality.

State must serve racial function: to promote the best.

Chapter 2:

Three conventional concepts of state.

State as means to end: advancing human race.

Must maintain racial integrity.

Strong minorities end up ruling.

Racial mixing leads to decay.

State must promote healthy children.

Basic eugenic theory.

Folkish education, for physical, mental, and moral strength.

Promote willpower, determination, responsibility.

Meritocracy.

Chapter 3:

Citizenship based on race.

Three classes: citizen, subject, foreigner.

Chapter 4:

Aristocratic principle.

Value of the individual.

Marxism promotes mass thinking.

Government rule by the best individuals, not majority.

Chapter 5:

Need for an uncompromising worldview.

Need for decisive leadership.

25-point NSDAP program is unshakable.

Only NSDAP is truly folkish.

Chapter 6:

Resumes autobiography.

NSDAP must dominate mass opinion.

Must fight against common views.

Brest-Litovsk and Versailles.

Importance of spoken word.

Marxism flourished with speeches.

Need for mass meetings.

Chapter 7:

Lame bourgeois mass meetings.

Need for publicity.

Control of mass meetings.

Violent protests.

Party flag and symbol: swastika.

First use in summer 1920.

Party strength by early 1921.

Mass meeting 3 Feb at Circus Krone.

Attempted disruption.

Chapter 8:

Right of priority.

Many folkish movements.

Futility of compromise and coalition.

Chapter 9:

Three pillars of authority.

In warfare, survival of the inferior.

Deserters and Jewish revolutionaries in November 1918.

Bourgeois capitulation.

Need for a great ideal.

Creation of the SA (storm troops).

NSDAP is neither secret nor illegal.

SA as trained fighters.

March to Coburg in Oct 1922.

French occupation of the Ruhr.

Chapter 10:

War industries in World War I.

Bavaria versus Prussia as diversion.

Kurt Eisner, Jewish revolutionary.

Growth of anti-Semitism from 1918.

Catholic versus Protestant as diversion.

Federation versus unification.

Opposition to Jewish Weimar.

Chapter 11:

Role of propaganda.

Supporters and members.

Need for restricted growth.

Leadership principle versus majority rule.

Acquisition of Völkischer Beobachter.

Building the party.

Dissolution on 9 Nov 1923.

Chapter 12:

Question of trade unions.

Necessity of unions.

NSDAP must form a union.

Union in service to the people.

Priority of worldview.

Chapter 13:

Foreign policy as means for promoting national interest.

Unification of German people.

England against Germany.

France against England.

Need for alliance with England and Italy.

Jews seek world conquest, racial contamination.

Question of South Tyrol.

Jews oppose German-Italian alliance.

Only fascist Italy is opposing Jews.

Jews gain power in America.

Chapter 14:

Russia policy is foremost.

Top priority: need for land, living space.

Victory goes to the strong.

No colonies, but only an expanded Reich.

Look to the East.

Russia is ruled by Jews, cannot be an ally.

Only possible alliances: England and Italy.

Chapter 15:

German submission.

Locarno Treaty as further submission.

France seeks to dismember Germany.

War with France is inevitable.

France occupies Ruhr, opposes England.

Must confront and destroy Marxism.

Failure of Cuno’s passive resistance.

Even this concise summary demonstrates the controversial nature of the text.

Previous English Translations

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For the first several years of its existence, there was no real need for English publishers to produce a translation of Mein Kampf. The Nazi movement was small, limited more or less to Bavaria. It had little prospect for growth or real power. There was simply not much interest in an obscure Bavarian politician.

All this changed when Hitler took power in 1933. Suddenly there was a need to understand this man who had risen to power at only 44 years of age. A British translator, Edgar Dugdale, undertook the initial effort to produce an English version. It was a highly abridged edition, covering only some 45 percent of the full text. It was published in England by Hurst & Blackett, and in the US by Houghton-Mifflin, in late 1933.

[Image] A Hurst & Blackett edition.

[Image] James Vincent Murphy (7 July 1880 – 5 July 1945) was an Irish translator, writer, and journalist, who published one of the first complete English translations of Mein Kampf in 1939.

In 1936, the German government decided that they would sponsor their own, complete, English translation. They hired a British writer and journalist, James Murphy. There not yet having been a second world war, and the worst excesses of Nazism still in the future, Murphy was inclined to produce a favorable and sympathetic translation. Unfortunately, there was a falling out with National Socialist officials and Murphy was ‘fired’ sometime in 1938, his project incomplete. Through some obscure process, the Germans completed Murphy’s draft version on their own, and published it in the late 1930s. Today this is known as the Stalag edition, and is currently available in print in two forms: one by Ostara Publications, and one by Elite Minds (the “official Nazi English translation”). To call this version ‘unpolished’ is an understatement; more below.

[Image] A signed, by Adolf Hitler, edition of an English translation of Mein Kampf.

By 1939, four new versions had appeared. After his dismissal, Murphy returned to England and revised and completed his translation, which was published by Hurst & Blackett in 1939. This is ‘the’ Murphy translation; it is widely available on the Internet, and through various reprints. Under the Hutchinson imprint, the Murphy translation was republished in 1969 with a lengthy and hostile introduction by British historian D. C. Watt.

Secondly, the British firm Reynal & Hitchcock enlisted a team of people, headed by Alvin Johnson, to do their own translation. It was notably hostile to the content of the book and the National Socialist movement generally.

Third, an American publisher, Stackpole and Sons, produced a version under the direction of a Jewish editor, William Soskin. They hired a Jewish socialist, Ludwig Lore, to write the preface. Unsurprisingly, this too was a hostile effort. Soskin was successfully sued by Houghton-Mifflin for copyright infringement, and production was halted after only a few months.

The final work of 1939 was a second abridgment, produced by American journalist—and future senator—Alan Cranston. Cranston was also sued; he too lost, but not before allegedly selling several hundred thousand copies.

Dissatisfied with the abridged Dugdale translation, Houghton-Mifflin embarked on a new, full translation, by Jewish-German writer Ralph Manheim. They also solicited a short introduction by a Jewish-German journalist, Konrad Heiden. As expected, it was another blatantly hostile production. The book appeared in 1943, and has been continuously in print since then. To the present day, the Manheim version functions as the ‘official’ translation of Mein Kampf; it is the one quoted by nearly all academics and journalists. The latest Houghton edition, issued in 1998, includes an introduction by notorious Jewish Zionist Abraham Foxman. Clearly, little has changed in the intervening years.

For several decades, these were the extant English translations. Then in 2009, a little-known writer, Michael Ford, published his own translation through Elite Minds. This edition has several shortcomings, as explained below.

Something of the flavor of these efforts can be seen in the very first words of the book. In my forthcoming translation, Chapter 1 is titled “In My Parents’ House.” (Original: Im Elternhaus.) The first sentence: “I consider it most fortunate today that destiny selected Braunau-on-the-Inn to be my birthplace” (Als glückliche Bestimmung gilt es mir heute, dass das Schicksal mir zum Geburtsort gerade Braunau am Inn zuwies.) The table below gives the chapter title and the first few words, in the various translations.

Translation	Chapter 1	Initial words
Dugdale	My Home	It stands me in good stead today that Fate…

Johnson	At Home	Today I consider it my good fortune that Fate…

Murphy (Stalag)	My Home	To-day I consider it a good omen that destiny…

Murphy (‘standard’)	In the Home of my Parents	It has turned out fortunate for me to-day that destiny…

Manheim	In the House of my Parents	Today it seems to me providential that Fate…

Soskin	Childhood Home	Today I regard it as a happy change that Fate…

Ford	Childhood Home	Today, I am pleased that Fate chose the city…

The variability of even this simple leading sentence is striking. One can imagine the issues involved with the many more-complicated thoughts that follow.

Why a New Translation?

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As it happens, every one of the previous translations has major problems and disadvantages, for a modern English reader.

The two primary versions—Murphy and Manheim—are written in the style of early-20th-century British writers. They use a wide array of archaic ‘British-isms’ and British spellings that make reading awkward, particularly for Americans in the present day. Worse, they attempt to follow too closely Hitler’s original style. Like most Germans of the time, Hitler wrote long sentences, fashioned into long, complex paragraphs. Manheim follows this style scrupulously, to the detriment of the reader; Murphy at least occasionally breaks up long sentences into more readable segments.

[Image] A serialized English edition of Mein Kampf was also produced and sold to the general public.

Worst of all, both major translations are simply poor efforts. They do not read well. One repeatedly encounters passages that are awkward, incoherent, or incomprehensible. There is little of the fluidity and lyrical power of the German original. For his part, Murphy takes a considerable amount of ‘translator’s license,’ interjecting unwarranted terminology and wording, or simply leaving things out. Manheim is more literal, but in the end is scarcely more readable. The reader simply needs to scan a sampling of either text to understand the situation.

This is unfortunate, to say the least. It is almost as if the publishers intended, or at least preferred, that the translations be difficult to read. Certainly this limits the circulation of Hitler’s ideas, and makes it easier to dismiss them—a convenient situation for the many critics of the book’s import.

With the exception of Murphy, all of the standard editions betray their intentions with aggressive, hostile, and slanderous comments in their introductions. Consider this selection of remarks:

Johnson: Hitler is “no artist in literary expression,” and “often indifferent to grammar and syntax.” The book is “a propagandistic essay by a violent partisan” that “warps historical truth” or “ignores it completely.” Hitler’s discussions on race can be safely dismissed, because “the greatest anthropologists of the 20th century are agreed that ‘race’ is a practically meaningless word.”

Lore: “I cannot conceive of any book of which I more positively disapprove.” The book has an “atrocious style” and “countless contradictions.” In essence, the book is “an outpouring of willful perversion, clumsy forgery, vitriolic hatred, and violent denunciation.”

Manheim: Hitler is a “paranoiac” who offers us “disjointed facts” and “largely unintelligible flights of Wagnerian fantasy.” He creates “a dream-world,” one “without color and movement.”

Heiden: Mein Kampf was written “in white-hot hatred.” It is “ill-founded, undocumented, and badly written.” “The book may well be called a kind of satanic Bible.”

Watt: The book is “lengthy, dull, bombastic, repetitious and extremely badly written.” “Most of its statements of fact…are demonstrably untrue.” It yields “an intolerably prolix German style and a total lack of any intellectual precision.” As a work of political philosophy, “it has no claims whatever to be taken seriously.” Hitler’s racial theory—a “mystical racist mumbo-jumbo of Aryanism”—is a “revolting mixture of pseudo-science and bogus historicism.” The work is self-consistent, but this only betrays “the terrible consistency of the insane.” In the end, Hitler is nothing more than a “master of the inept, the undigested, the half-baked and the untrue.”

Foxman: Hitler’s “theories have long since been discredited.” The book is “a work of ugliness and depravity.” It is “unreliable as a source of historical data,” full of “lies, omissions, and half-truths.” The book’s “atrocious style, puerile digressions, and narcissistic self-absorption” are obvious. Its theories are “extremist, immoral, and seem to promise war.” Hitler’s “lunatic plan” is “absurd” and even “comical.” All in all, “a ridiculous tract.”

Any translator, editor, or publisher who would include such words can hardly be trusted to do an honest job. The intent to bias the reader is plain. Certainly there is no concern here for the author to obtain a fair and objective reading. In fact, precisely the opposite.

The recent Ford translation, while not overtly hostile, has several other major flaws. Ford has no discernible credentials, no publishing record, nor any documented history with such academic works. His ‘in text’ notes are awkward and distracting. The book includes many amateurish and cartoonish ‘photos.’ There is no index. And his so-called publishing house, Elite Minds, appears to be some kind of environmental group that focuses on the ecology of sharks, of all things. This is unfortunate; the last thing the public needs is another misleading, ill-conceived, and unqualified version of Mein Kampf.

The ‘Nazi’ or ‘Stalag’ edition of Murphy has its own problems. The version published by Elite Minds claims to be authentic, which means that they retained all the original flaws of grammar, punctuation, and spelling. The result is nearly unreadable. The edition published by Ostara fixes many of these problems, but still reads poorly. It does break up the long paragraphs, but to an extreme degree; one typically finds single-sentence paragraphs, as in a newspaper. This move destroys all flow and connection of ideas. And neither version has an index or explanatory footnotes.

My forthcoming translation addresses and resolves many of these unfortunate drawbacks. First, by including the full and original German text, in a parallel translation, the English wording can be easily verified. This technique has often been used with classic Greek and Latin authors, but never before with Mein Kampf. Section headings have been added, in text, in bold. The German original employed such headings, but only at the top of each page; the reader thus never knew where a new section actually began. These headings have been translated and inserted at the appropriate points, in my estimation, and directly in the text. My translation also has helpful and relevant footnotes, a useful index, and a bibliography of relevant secondary source material. Most important of all, though, is the fact that the English reads smoothly and naturally.

Some Contentious Topics

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It goes without saying that this book is controversial. In fact, it may well be named as the single most controversial book in history. As such, the typical reader is more or less guaranteed to get a slanted and biased account of it. Of Hitler’s many controversial statements and topics, four subjects warrant a brief mention here: National Socialism, race theory, religion, and the Jews.

Of the many simplistic and overused hyperboles in modern usage, the use of ‘Nazi’ surely ranks among the worst. It’s a crude and almost comical synonym for evil, hateful, cruel, tyrannical, and so on. This is consistent with the general demonization of everything Hitler.

‘Nazi’ is, of course, an abbreviation for National Socialist (Nationalsozialist). It was prompted by an earlier term, ‘Sozi,’ which was short for Sozialdemokrat, referring to the Social Democrat party that had been in existence since the mid-1800s. Hitler and colleagues rarely used ‘Nazi,’ generally viewing it as derogatory—although Goebbels did write an essay and short book titled The Nazi-Sozi.

As an ideology, National Socialism is utterly misunderstood. In fact, surprisingly, many people around the world today implicitly endorse some form of it. Most European countries, and many others globally, are some form of socialist. Socialism—loosely defined as government control and oversight of at least certain key portions of the economic sector—stands in contrast to free-market capitalism, in which for-profit corporations control such things. Suffice it to say that socialism is a respected political and economic system around the globe.

Nationalism places high priority on the well-being of the nation-state and its traditional residents. It is inward-looking, rather than outward. It tends toward economic independence and autonomy rather than globalization and inter-connectedness. It typically supports and strengthens the dominant ethnicity and culture, and largely ignores that of minorities. This, too, is hardly unknown; there are strong nationalist movements in many countries around the world today.

As it happens, the United States is neither nationalist nor socialist. Thus, its media and its economic and political elite tend to dismiss or abuse both of these concepts. Americans are functionally brainwashed to believe that socialism is evil—witness the pejorative application of the label to President Obama in recent years—and that nationalism is the hallmark of crude and primitive autocrats, and racist as well. This fact is revealing; the American power elite wants no one to get the idea that anything like nationalism or socialism—or, God forbid, national socialism—should become a credible ideology.

Now, it is true that Hitler’s form of national socialism went further than these basic concepts. It explicitly targeted Marxists, Jews, and global capitalists as enemies of the German people. It also sought to replace representative democracy with a more efficient and accountable centralized governance. Hitler had rational arguments for all these issues, as he explains in his book.

In fact, the formal declaration of the National Socialist system—as stated in Hitler’s “25 Points”—is remarkably progressive and, dare we say, tame. They call for equal rights (Points 2 and 9). They give citizens the right to select the laws and governmental structure (6). They abolish war-profiteering (12). They call for corporate profit-sharing with employees (14). They support retirement pensions, a strong middle class, free higher education, public health, maternity welfare, and religious freedom, including explicit support for “a positive Christianity” (15, 16, 20, 21, 24).*

* [See complete list of the 25 Points of the NSDAP Program at the end of this document]

On the ‘down’ side, only a relative few points appear threatening or aggressive. They grant citizenship only to ethnic Germans, explicitly denying it to Jews (4). They block further immigration, and compel recent immigrants to leave (8). They seek to prohibit all financial speculation in land (17). They call for a death penalty against “traitors, usurers, and profiteers” (18). They demand that the German-language press be controlled only by ethnic Germans—but they don’t restrict press in other languages (23). And they call for “a strong central authority in the State” (25).

As anti-Semitic as Hitler was, it is surprising how lightly the Jews get off. They are banned from citizenship, and therefore from any role in government or the press. Recent (since August 1914) Jewish immigrants, like all immigrants, must leave. And the National Socialist view of religious freedom “fights against the Jewish materialist spirit” (24). But no threats to imprison or kill Jews. Longtime Jewish residents can stay in the country. No confiscation of wealth, with the stated exceptions. And certainly nothing that sounds like a looming ‘Holocaust.’

In sum, Hitler’s National Socialism is essentially the product of German nationalism and progressive socialism, combined with a mild form of anti-Semitism. Hardly the embodiment of evil.

Racial Theory

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Mein Kampf contains numerous references to ‘blood’ (Blut) and ‘race’ (Rasse). This is always portrayed in the worst possible terms, as some kind of demonic, hate-filled, blind racism. But we must first realize that such talk was commonplace in the early 20th Century; Hitler’s terminology, though shocking today, was actually quite conventional at the time. Not being a scientist, and few having much understanding of genetics at the time, it is understandable that he would use such terms.

[Image – click link below to open in new window]

Mein Kampf: Chapter XI — Race and People

Therefore, a literal interpretation of such words is misleading. In modern terminology, Hitler’s ‘race’ is better viewed as ‘ethnicity.’ He was more an ethnicist than a racist. His call for justice for the “German race” is really on behalf of ethnic Germans—the Volk. Thus understood, his view is much less threatening than commonly portrayed. Yes, he viewed ethnic Germans as superior. Yes, he wanted the best for his people. Yes, he was not much interested in the welfare of minorities or other nationalities. This is hardly a sin. Many people around the world today fight for precisely such things, for their own ethnicities. And they are right to do so.

Even today, it is reasonable and appropriate to discuss issues of race. It is a relevant term in biological taxonomy, indicating the highest-level sub-grouping within the species Homo sapiens. By some accounts, there are three races: White/Caucasian, Black/Negroid, and Mongoloid/Asian. Within each race, we have the various ethnicities—of which there are some 5,000 worldwide.

By this measure, Hitler cared little about race. He made a few dismissive comments about Blacks, but nothing that wasn’t standard at the time. He actually admired certain people of the Asian race, especially the Japanese. But his primary concern was among the various White ethnicities. He sought a position of strength and influence for ethnic Germans; he sought alliances with ethnic Britons; and he sought to oppose ethnic Jews.

Then there is Hitler’s infamous talk of ‘Aryan.’ Apart from passing mention elsewhere in the book, it is discussed in detail only in Chapter 11 of Volume 1. While there is no talk of any ‘superman’—no reference to Nietzsche’s Übermensch, for example—it is clear that Hitler views the Aryan as the highest human type, the greatest ethnicity, mover and creator of civilization. Notably, he never defines Aryan. Rather, we learn only what the Aryan is not: he is not Black, not Oriental, and certainly not Jewish. The Jew is the anti-Aryan, his dark and corrupting opposite. The Aryan builds, the Jew destroys. The Aryan produces, the Jew consumes. The Aryan is idealistic, the Jew materialistic.

In the end, the Aryan is distinguished not by his superior intelligence, nor his great creativity, but mainly by his altruism: the Aryan is a self-sacrificing person, more willing than any others to work on behalf of society. Thus he builds civilization and culture, and spreads it to the world. Non-Aryans, to the extent that they have a culture, get it from the Aryans, even as they customize it to their own needs. But the original source and sustainer is the self-sacrificing Aryan.

The word ‘Aryan’ has an interesting origin, and it has nothing to do with the Germans. It comes from the Sanskrit arya, meaning ‘noble.’ It originally referred to the people and language that moved into India from the north around 1500 BC. In the Indian caste system, the Aryans became the Brahmans—the highest and noblest caste. It was they who cultivated the Sanskrit language, and ultimately developed Indian culture. And a final point of interest: Those immigrants from the north came from the region that is known today as the Iranian plateau. In fact, the word ‘Iran’ derives directly from ‘Aryan’; the Iranians were the original Aryans.

Not being a scholar of ancient history, and having no Internet at hand, Hitler knew little of all this. He simply picked up on prior German and European usage. In fact, talk of Aryans as a superior race predated Hitler by several decades. It was a main theme of Frenchman Arthur de Gobineau’s book Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races, of 1855. And it was prominent in Briton-turned-German author Houston Stewart Chamberlain’s book Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, published in 1899. By the time Hitler picked up on the term, it was old hat.

On Religion

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Among other calumnies, Hitler is often portrayed as a godless atheist, a devil worshipper, the antichrist, or some kind of maniacal pagan. In fact he was none of these.

Rather, Hitler was broadly supportive of Christianity. He called it “the Religion of Love,” and referred to Jesus, indirectly, as its “sublime founder.” He argued that the masses are not and cannot be philosophical; their ethics must come from traditional religious sources. And he believed in separation of church and state: “political parties have no right to meddle in religious questions.” He condemned the Jews because they mock religion, and portray ethics and morality as “antiquated sentiment.”

His view on God is quite intriguing. Frequently he refers to a kind of cosmic deity or divine power, but in a variety of unconventional terms. We find many references, for example, to Schicksal—fate or destiny. We read of the “Goddess of Destiny” (Schicksalgöttin). He writes of “Providence” (Vorsehung), “Doom” or “Fate” (Verhängnis), and “the Lord” (Herr). Elsewhere we find reference to “Chance” (Zufall) and “the eternal Creator” (ewige Schöpfer). Volume 1 closes with a reference to “the Goddess of Inexorable Vengeance” (die Göttin der unerbittlichen Rache). These are not mere metaphors. It seems to be a kind of recognition of higher powers in the cosmos, but not those of traditional religions.

In the end, Hitler was most offended by crude materialism: the quest for money and material power. This view has no concept of idealism, no notion of spirituality, no vision of higher powers in the universe. Materialism was the essence of both Marxism and capitalism—and both were embodied in the Jew. That’s why these things were, according to Hitler, the mortal enemy of anyone seeking higher aims in life.

Hitler himself was no fan of religious dogma, but seems to have envisioned a future that moved toward a new kind of spirituality, one aligned with the workings of nature. We may perhaps best view him as a ‘spiritual but not religious’ sort of person—a view that is notably widespread today.

On the Jews

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If nothing else, Hitler is inevitably depicted as a confirmed anti-Semite and Jew-hater. We should be clear: this is absolutely true. There are many lies spread about Hitler, but this is not one of them. The key is understanding why he held this view.

In the second half of Chapter 2 (Volume 1), he describes in striking detail his gradual discovery of the role and effects of Jews in society. He recalls that, as a youth, he had only known one Jewish boy, but had no particular feelings toward him one way or the other. He hadn’t even heard them discussed much until his mid-teens, and then only in a vaguely negative political context. When he moved to Vienna at age 15 [this should read as 18, as it was then Feb, 1908], he encountered a city of 2 million that was 10 percent Jewish. At first, he barely noticed them. When he did, he viewed them as representatives of a rather strange religion, but since he was generally tolerant of religious diversity, he gave them little thought. He was put off by the “anti-Semitic” press. As he says:

“On grounds of human tolerance, I opposed the idea that [the Jew] should be attacked because he had a different faith.”

But then Hitler began to pay attention to the mainstream press. They were informative and liberal, but yet often flamboyant and garish. They seemed anxious to curry favor with the corrupt monarchy. And they were uniformly critical of the German Kaiser and his people. He noticed that some of the anti-Semitic papers were actually more skeptical of Viennese authority, and more open-minded regarding the Germans. At the same time, he realized that the Jews were more numerous than he previously believed. In fact, certain districts of Vienna were 50 percent Jewish, or more. And they all seemed to endorse a strange ideology: Zionism.

Furthermore, they were visually and physically repellent. Their black caftans and braided hair locks looked comical. They had their own odd concept of ‘cleanliness’:

“That they were not water-lovers was obvious upon first glance.”

They smelled bad:

“The odor of those people in caftans often made me sick to my stomach.”

This was topped off by:

“The unkempt clothes and the generally ignoble appearance.”

All in all, a sorry sight.

Worst of all, hidden away inside, was their “moral rot.” Jews seemed to be involved in all manner of shady, unethical, and illegal activities. Hitler began to study the situation in more detail.

“The fact was that 90 percent of all the filthy literature, artistic trash, and theatrical idiocy had to be charged to the account of a people who formed scarcely one percent of the nation. This fact could not be denied.”

Pornography, lewd art and theater, prostitution, human trafficking … all could be tied to the Jews.

The famed mainstream Viennese press, Hitler discovered, was almost completely a Jewish enterprise. Jewish writers repeatedly praised Jewish actors, authors, and businessmen. People, events, and policies favorable to Jews were lauded, and those that were disadvantageous were condemned. Even the dominant political party, the Social Democrats, was found to be led by Jews. Upon this realization, says Hitler:

“The scales fell from my eyes.”

The whole pattern came together: a Jewish press supporting a Jewish political system, even as other Jews profited from the moral corruption of the people. Profit and power at all cost; lies and deceit without compunction; and an utter lack of concern for fairness, democracy, human welfare or even human decency.

“I gradually came to hate them,” he said.

Considered globally, the situation was even worse. Marxism—the product of a Jew, Karl Marx—was promulgated by Jews in Europe and around the world. It sought to dominate and control nature. It sought to level all social differences, thereby subverting the natural order in which the truly best people rightly flourish. In essence, it was a teaching and a means by which Jews could ruthlessly assume control of entire nations. Once that happened, thousands or even millions of natives would die. The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia was proof enough.

In other parts of Europe, the dominant ideology was capitalism. Here, money ruled. Here, the bankers and corporate moguls dictated even to kings. Markets must be opened, international trade promoted, and loans used to extract wealth from the masses. And when these titans of capital were investigated, they were found to be, more often than not, Jews.

For Hitler, these realizations were devastating. The recognition of the insidious role of the Jews was:

“The greatest inner revolution that I had yet experienced.”

Indeed:

“From being a soft-hearted cosmopolitan, I became an out-and-out anti-Semite.”

No hidden views here.

Hitler’s conversion to anti-Semitism was remarkable. In contrast to the common view, it was neither arbitrary nor irrational. He was not a born Jew-hater. It was a step-by-step process, taken over a long period of time, and based on his data and observations about the real world. His was a “rational” anti-Semitism. As he saw it, any person of dignity and self-respect, anyone with a concern for human life, anyone committed to the integrity of the natural world, would of necessity be an anti-Semite. In their ruthless pursuit of their own self-interest, Jews, said Hitler, become the enemy of all mankind. Anyone not recognizing this fact—and acting accordingly—he thought a fool.

The modern person today winces at such talk.

“A monster!” we say. “Hate speech!” “The devil!”

And yet, these are not rational responses. The modern man is conditioned to say such things. We must be objective here. Hitler was not inventing facts. His observations were largely true, even if he had no access to formal data or statistics. Jews did dominate in Vienna, and even more so in Germany. Consider the following numbers, cited by Gordon (1984: 8-15):

The reader may be surprised to learn that Jews were never a large percentage of the total German population; at no time did they exceed 1.09 percent of the population during the years 1871 to 1933… [In spite of this, Jews] were overrepresented in business, commerce, and public and private service… Within the fields of business and commerce, Jews… represented 25 percent of all individuals employed in retail business and handled 25 percent of total sales…; they owned 41 percent of iron and scrap iron firms and 57 percent of other metal businesses.… Jews were [also] prominent in private banking under both Jewish and non-Jewish ownership or control. They were especially visible in private banking in Berlin, which in 1923 had 150 private (versus state) Jewish banks, as opposed to only 11 private non-Jewish banks.…

This trend held true in the academic and cultural spheres as well:

“Jews were overrepresented among university professors and students between 1870 and 1933.… [A]lmost 19 percent of the instructors in Germany were of Jewish origin.… Jews were also highly active in the theater, the arts, film, and journalism. For example, in 1931, 50 percent of the 234 theater directors in Germany were Jewish, and in Berlin the number was 80 percent…”

Hitler was not imaging things.

Furthermore, Jews did in fact curry favor with the monarchy when it was in their interest, but they were quick to revolt if that could yield a greater gain. Jewish Marxists had succeeded in Russia, and were prominent in the November Revolution in Germany, making them responsible, in part, for Germany’s defeat in World War I. Jews were eager to profit by any means possible: war, corruption, immorality, exploitation, deception. And many were Zionists: committed to creating a Jewish state in Palestine, and willing to do whatever it took to achieve this.

What to do? For Hitler, there was only one logical conclusion: Drive them out. This meant pushing them out of society, out of the economy, and restoring control of the media and government to non-Jews. It meant creating a Judenrein, or Jew-free, society, one that was free from internal and external manipulation by Jewish interests. This, in fact, was Hitler’s conclusion years before he began Mein Kampf. In late 1919, as he was just becoming acquainted with the DAP, he wrote a letter to one of his officers regarding how to respond to the Jewish question. This striking early letter concludes as follows:

Rational anti-Semitism…must lead to a systematic and legal struggle against, and eradication of, the privileges the Jews enjoy over the other foreigners living among us (Alien Laws). Its final objective, however, must be the total removal of all Jews (die Entfernung der Juden überhaupt) from our midst. Both objectives can only be achieved by a government of national strength, never by a government of national impotence. (in Maser 1974: 215)

His view did not change in Mein Kampf, nor evidently anytime later in his life. His solution was always the same: drive them out. Total removal. Ruthlessly if necessary, but out they must go.

Here is one striking point, however: With one minor exception, Hitler never called for killing the Jews. Though his terminology shifted over time, his words always referred to some form of removal: Jews should be “deported,” “expelled,” “rooted out.” Their role and their power in the German Reich must be “destroyed” or “liquidated.” But explicit words like ‘killing,’ ‘shooting,’ ‘murder,’ ‘gassing,’ virtually never appear in his speeches, writings, or even private conversations.

The one exception is at the very end of Mein Kampf. There were about 600,000 Jews in Germany at the start of World War I, a war that ended in the deaths of over 2 million Germans. Hitler argues that killing “12 or 15 thousand Hebrew corrupters” at the start of the war, by a poison gas such as fell on the German troops in the battlefield, would have spared a million lives and led to German victory. Not all the Jews, or even most of them; just one or two percent would have sufficed, to derail their pernicious aims. But this seems to be the last such reference by Hitler, in any documented writing or speech.

English sources always translate Hitler’s wording as wanting to “exterminate,” “destroy,” or “annihilate” the Jews; but this is another deception. None of his actual words demands mass killing—or even any killing at all. If the Jews have been driven out of Germany, they have indeed been ‘exterminated’ (lit. ‘driven beyond the border’). If their control over the economy has been terminated, their power has indeed been ‘annihilated,’ or ‘reduced to nothing.’ If Jewish society has been removed, it may rightly be said to have been ‘destroyed’ (lit. ‘un-built’ or ‘deconstructed’). Hitler’s tough talk was never any different than that of any world leader when confronting a mortal enemy. President Obama often speaks of “destroying” the “cancer” of the Islamic State, but no one accuses him of attempted genocide.

Thus we find no talk of mass murder (with the lone exception), extermination camps, genocide, or anything like this in Mein Kampf. Hitler’s opponents search in vain for signs of an impending ‘Holocaust’ in which the mass of German Jewry would be murdered. The reader is invited to do the same. It is simply not there—much to the chagrin of his critics.

From all this, it should be clear that Hitler had only one real enemy in the Jews. He was not some all-purpose hater of humanity. He disliked the French, respected the British and Americans, and sympathized with the Russians, but didn’t hate them. Even the “lesser” races were never a target of contempt, but rather, if anything, pity. Today we are under the impression that, in 1940, the entire world quivered at the thought of a Nazi takeover. But this was never more than trumped-up propaganda. Hitler wanted to be a world power—like all major nations—but never a world ruler.

In short, unless you were a Jew, you had nothing to fear. Whites had nothing to fear—unless they allowed themselves to be ruled by Jewish Marxists or Jewish capitalists. Hispanics, Blacks, and Orientals, though of lower status, had nothing to fear. France and England had nothing to fear—until they declared war on Germany. America never had anything to fear—until Roosevelt made the unwise decision to harass Germany and Japan into conflict. It was always and only the Jews who were his enemy.

From the Jewish perspective, of course, this is the ultimate evil: a man who seeks to destroy Jewish power, confiscate their obscene wealth, and create a Jew-free society. Should he succeed, and should his new society flourish, it would mean catastrophe for Jews worldwide. People everywhere might begin to perceive treachery in Jewish influence.

This is why Mein Kampf is so dangerous.

Hitler’s Legacy

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Hitler had a great and noble vision for his people. He desperately wanted Germany to assume its rightful place in the world, and to set an example for all those who aspired to something better than a crude material existence. By contrast, the social vision of virtually every other world leader of the 20th Century—or the 21st—pales.

Hitler had concrete goals in mind for his nation, and concrete plans to get there. He faced three fundamental challenges:

(1) to restore the economy,

(2) to achieve security and independence by becoming a world power, and

(3) to create an idealistic, uplifting, and sustainable German society.

He put his plan into action as soon as he came to power in 1933. And it worked. It worked so well that a beleaguered, beaten-down, hyper-inflated, emasculated German nation rose up to become a world power with astonishing speed. Consider: After just three years, Hitler’s Germany had conquered inflation, driven down unemployment, and put industry back to work—all in the midst of a global depression. After six years, it was a world power. After eight years, his nation was so powerful that it took the combined effort of virtually the entire rest of the world to defeat it.

The first two aspects of his plan were attained. But the rest of the world, driven in part by Jewish hatred, jealousy, and spite, could not bear this, and so they sought to crush him and his German nation—which they did. The real tragedy of Hitler’s story is that he never had time to tackle his third great challenge: to create a flourishing German society. Sadly, we will never know the long-term potential consequences of National Socialism, or whether a truly great society could have been constructed.

But what about the Holocaust? What about the death camps and gas chambers? Isn’t this the terrible, inevitable outcome of Hitler’s warped vision?

Here we have perhaps the greatest deception of all. In order to show the world the horrible outcome of a potent anti-Semitism, a tale of monumental human disaster had to be constructed, promoted, and sustained. The undeniable and tragic death of several hundred thousand Jews—which included many deaths by old age, disease, injury, suicide, and in combat situations—would have to become “6 million.” Tough talk against Jews, aimed at driving them out of Germany, would have to become “euphemisms for mass murder.” Rooms designed to disinfest clothing and bedding against disease-carrying lice would have to become “homicidal gas chambers.” Hundreds of thousands of Jewish bodies would have to be burned down to ash, and then made to completely vanish. Transit camps constructed to move Jews out of the Reich—Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor—would have to become “extermination camps” designed for mass-murder; and with diesel-engine exhaust, no less. And a forced-labor camp in which thousands of Jews died from typhus—Auschwitz—would have to become:

“The greatest death camp of all time.”

Clearly there is much more to be said here. For those interested readers, sources such as Dalton (2014b, 2015) or Rudolf (2011) are recommended.

Suffice it to say that the Holocaust, as commonly portrayed, is an unsubstantiated, unwarranted, and unjustified exaggeration of epic proportions. Nearly every aspect of the story crumbles as soon as it is put to the test. The alleged horror of the Holocaust becomes, in the end, a story of the dispossession and expulsion of one particular minority community that held disproportionate power in a nation that did not want them, and that bore disproportionate guilt for that nation’s misfortunes. That they themselves should have suffered as a result is unsurprising.

Mein Kampf is one man’s assessment of history and vision for the future. It is blunt; it is harsh; it is unapologetic. It does not comply with contemporary expectations of politeness, objectivity, and political correctness. It sounds offensive to sensitive modern ears. But the book is undeniably important. It is more consequential than perhaps any other political work in history. It deserves to be read. And each reader will then be free to determine its ultimate value and meaning for themselves.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Barnes, J. 1980. Hitler’s Mein Kampf in Britain and America. Cambridge University Press.

Dalton, T. 2014. “The Jewish Hand in the World Wars” (Part 2). Online: www.inconvenienthistory.com

Dalton, T. 2014b. “The Great Holocaust Mystery.” Online: www.inconvenienthistory.com

Dalton, T. 2015. Debating the Holocaust (2nd ed). Castle Hill.

Gordon, S. 1984. Hitler, Germans, and the ‘Jewish Question.’ Princeton University Press.

Hitler, A. 1927/1933. Mein Kampf (E. Dugdale, trans.) Houghton Mifflin.

Hitler, A. 1927/1939. Mein Kampf (J. Murphy, trans.) Hurst & Blackett.

Hitler, A. 1927/1939. Mein Kampf (A. Johnson et al, trans.) Reynal & Hitchcock.

Hitler, A. 1927/1939. Mein Kampf (W. Soskin, trans.) Stackpole Sons.

Hitler, A. 1927/1943. Mein Kampf (R. Manheim, trans.) Houghton Mifflin.

Hitler, A. 1927/1999. Mein Kampf (R. Manheim, trans.; A. Foxman, intro.) Houghton Mifflin.

Hitler, A. 2009. Mein Kampf (M. Ford, trans.) Elite Minds.

Hitler, A. 2009. Mein Kampf Official Nazi English Translation. Elite Minds.

Maser, W. 1974. Hitler’s Letters and Notes. Harper and Row.

Rudolf, G. 2011. Lectures on the Holocaust (2nd ed). Barnes Review.

__________________

25 Points of the NSDAP Program

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24 February 1920

The 25 points of the NSDAP Program were composed by Adolf Hitler and Anton Drexler. They were publicly presented on 24 February 1920;

“to a crowd of almost two thousand and every single point was accepted amid jubilant approval.”

Mein Kampf, Volume II, Chapter I

Hitler explained their purpose in Volume II, Chapter V of Mein Kampf:

[T]he program of the new movement was summed up in a few guiding principles, twenty-five in all. They were devised to give, primarily to the man of the people, a rough picture of the movement’s aims. They are in a sense a political creed, which on the one hand recruits for the movement and on the other is suited to unite and weld together by a commonly recognized obligation those who have been recruited.

Hitler was intent on having a community of mutual interest that desired mutual success instead of one that was divided over the control of money or differing values.

THE COMMON INTEREST BEFORE SELF-INTEREST — THAT IS THE SPIRIT OF THE PROGRAM. BREAKING OF THE THRALLDOM OF INTEREST — THAT IS THE KERNEL OF NATIONAL SOCIALISM.

In these straightforward statements of intent, Hitler translated his ideology into a plan of action which would prove its popularity with the German people throughout the coming years. For many, the abruptness of its departure from the tradition of politics as practiced in the western world was as much of a shock as its liberal nature and foresight of the emerging problems of western democracy.

The Program of the German Workers’ Party is designed to be of limited duration. The leaders have no intention, once the aims announced in it have been achieved, of establishing fresh ones, merely in order to increase, artificially, the discontent of the masses and so ensure the continued existence of the Party.

1. We demand the union of all Germany in a Greater Germany on the basis of the right of national self-determination.

2. We demand equality of rights for the German people in its dealings with other nations, and the revocation of the peace treaties of Versailles and Saint-Germain.

3. We demand land and territory (colonies) to feed our people and to settle our surplus population.

4. Only members of the nation may be citizens of the State. Only those of German blood, whatever be their creed, may be members of the nation. Accordingly, no Jew may be a member of the nation.

5. Non-citizens may live in Germany only as guests and must be subject to laws for aliens.

6. The right to vote on the State’s government and legislation shall be enjoyed by the citizens of the State alone. We demand therefore that all official appointments, of whatever kind, whether in the Reich, in the states or in the smaller localities, shall be held by none but citizens.

We oppose the corrupting parliamentary custom of filling posts merely in accordance with party considerations, and without reference to character or abilities.

7. We demand that the State shall make it its primary duty to provide a livelihood for its citizens. If it should prove impossible to feed the entire population, foreign nationals (non-citizens) must be deported from the Reich.

8. All non-German immigration must be prevented. We demand that all non-Germans who entered Germany after 2 August 1914 shall be required to leave the Reich forthwith.

9. All citizens shall have equal rights and duties.

10. It must be the first duty of every citizen to perform physical or mental work. The activities of the individual must not clash with the general interest, but must proceed within the framework of the community and be for the general good.

We demand therefore:

11. The abolition of incomes unearned by work.

The breaking of the slavery of interest

12. In view of the enormous sacrifices of life and property demanded of a nation by any war, personal enrichment from war must be regarded as a crime against the nation. We demand therefore the ruthless confiscation of all war profits.

13. We demand the nationalization of all businesses which have been formed into corporations (trusts).

14. We demand profit-sharing in large industrial enterprises.

15. We demand the extensive development of insurance for old age.

16. We demand the creation and maintenance of a healthy middle class, the immediate communalizing of big department stores, and their lease at a cheap rate to small traders, and that the utmost consideration shall be shown to all small traders in the placing of State and municiple orders.

17. We demand a land reform suitable to our national requirements, the passing of a law for the expropriation of land for communal purposes without compensation; the abolition of ground rent, and the prohibition of all speculation in land. *

18. We demand the ruthless prosecution of those whose activities are injurious to the common interest. Common criminals, usurers, profiteers, etc., must be punished with death, whatever their creed or race.

19. We demand that Roman Law, which serves a materialistic world order, be replaced by a German common law.

20. The State must consider a thorough reconstruction of our national system of education (with the aim of opening up to every able and hard-working German the possibility of higher education and of thus obtaining advancement). The curricula of all educational establishments must be brought into line with the requirements of practical life.

The aim of the school must be to give the pupil, beginning with the first sign of intelligence, a grasp of the nation of the State (through the study of civic affairs). We demand the education of gifted children of poor parents, whatever their class or occupation, at the expense of the State.

21. The State must ensure that the nation’s health standards are raised by protecting mothers and infants, by prohibiting child labor, by promoting physical strength through legislation providing for compulsory gymnastics and sports, and by the extensive support of clubs engaged in the physical training of youth.

22. We demand the abolition of the mercenary army and the foundation of a people’s army.

23. We demand legal warfare on deliberate political mendacity and its dissemination in the press. To facilitate the creation of a German national press we demand:

(a) that all editors of, and contributors to newspapers appearing in the German language must be members of the nation;

(b) that no non-German newspapers may appear without the express permission of the State. They must not be printed in the German language;

(c) that non-Germans shall be prohibited by law from participating financially in or influencing German newspapers, and that the penalty for contravening such a law shall be the suppression of any such newspaper, and the immediate deportation of the non-Germans involved.

The publishing of papers which are not conducive to the national welfare must be forbidden. We demand the legal prosecution of all those tendencies in art and literature which corrupt our national life, and the suppression of cultural events which violate this demand.

24. We demand freedom for all religious denominations in the State, provided they do not threaten its existence not offend the moral feelings of the German race.

The Party, as such, stands for positive Christianity, but does not commit itself to any particular denomination. It combats the Jewish-materialistic spirit within and without us, and is convinced that our nation can achieve permanent health only from within on the basis of the principle:

The common interest before self-interest.

25. To put the whole of this program into effect, we demand the creation of a strong central state power for the Reich; the unconditional authority of the political central Parliament over the entire Reich and its organizations; and the formation of Corporations based on estate and occupation for the purpose of carrying out the general legislation passed by the Reich in the various German states.

The leaders of the Party promise to work ruthlessly — if need be to sacrifice their very lives — to translate this program into action.

* On April 13, 1928, Adolf Hitler clarified section seventeen in the program in order to stop political mischaracterizations:

“Because of the mendacious interpretations on the part of our opponents of Point 17 of the program of the NSDAP, the following explanation is necessary.: Since the NSDAP is fundamentally based on the principle of private property, it is obvious that the expression “confiscation without compensation” refers merely to the creation of possible legal means of confiscating when necessary, land illegally acquired, or not administered in accordance with the national welfare. It is therefore directed in the first instance against the Jewish companies which speculate in land.”

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Source: http://www.hitler.org/writings/programme/

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Rethinking Mein Kampf – Ver 2

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The Case for Germany – Part 5 – Union of the German People; Acts of “Aggression” by Germany

admin — Wed, 24 Sep 2014 01:11:42 +0000

[Part 5]

“I am deeply stirred by the word which Ulrich Hutten wrote the last time he seized his pen: — Germany.”

ADOLF HITLER

January 30th, 1937

The Case for Germany

A Study of Modern Germany

by

A. P. Laurie

M. A. Cantab., D. Sc., LL. D. Edin., F. C. S., F. R. S. E.

With a Preface by Admiral Sir Barry Domvile

K. B. E., C. B., C. M. G.

Berlin W 15

Internationaler Verlag

1939

FIRST EDITION ………… JUNE 1939

SECOND EDITION ……. JULY 1939

PRINTED IN GERMANY

DEDICATION

It is with admiration and gratitude for the great work he has done for the German people that I dedicate this book to the Fuhrer.

A. P. L.

TO THE READER

There are two sides to every question. You have read one side in our Press for six years.

This book gives the other side.

A. P. L.

PREFACE

It is a great pleasure to me to introduce the public to Dr. Laurie’s valuable book on modern Germany. He is best known to the world as a brilliant scientist, but he has found time in the intervals of his work to pursue with ardour the task upon which every sensible member of the British and German races should be engaged — namely the establishment of good relations and a better understanding between these two great nations.

Dr Laurie knows full well that this friendship is the keystone to peace in Europe — nay, in the whole world.

He is one of the small group who founded the Association known as “The Link”, whose sole aim is to get Britons and Germans to know and understand one another better. He is one of the most zealous workers in this good cause in the country.

He writes of the National Socialist movement with knowledge and great sympathy.

The particular value of this book lies in the fact that it is written by a foreigner, who cannot be accused of patriotic excess in his interpretation of the great work done by Herr Hitler and his associates. I recommend this volume with confidence to all people who are genuinely impressed with the desire to understand one of the greatest — and most bloodless — revolutions in history.

BARRY DOMVILE

Robin’s Tree

8th May 1939.

“As we advance in our social knowledge, we shall endeavour to make our governments paternal as well as judicial; that is, to establish such laws and authorities as may at once direct us in our occupations, protect us against our follies, and visit us in our distresses; a government which shall repress dishonesty, as now it punishes theft; which shall show how the discipline of the masses may be brought to aid the toils of peace, as the discipline of the masses has hitherto knit the sinews of battle; a government which shall have its soldiers of the ploughshare as well as its soldiers of the sword, and which shall distribute more proudly its golden crosses of industry — golden as the glow of the harvest — than it now grants its bronze crosses of honour — bronzed with the crimson of blood.”

RUSKIN. Political Economy of Art.

“All front fighters fought side by side and went through an inferno. They are all comparable to the heroes of the ancient world. It was the manhood of the nations in their prime who fought and experienced the horrors of modern war.

In another war the flower of the nations’ men and women will have to fight. Europe will be destroyed if the best in all of the nations are wiped out. A new conflict will exceed even the ghastly tragedies of the Great War.

I believe that those who rattle the sabres have not participated in war. I know that war veterans speak and think differently.

They energetically desire to prevent another conflict. I hope that the men who are standing before me can contribute to preserve the peace of the world — a peace of honour and equality for all.

Let us not talk of prestige as between the victors and the defeated. This is my one request: Forget what has divided the nations before and remember that history has advanced.”

Field Marshal GOERING addressing the British

and German war veterans.

CHAPTER ……………………………………………………………. PAGE

Dedication

To the Reader

Preface

Field Marshall Goering’s Address

I. DER FUHRER ……………………………………………………….. 11

II. THE BELEAGUERED CITY ……………………………………. 21

III. NATIONAL SOCIALISM ……………………………………… 25

IV. THE NAZI RALLYS AT NUREMBERG ……………………. 34

V. THE FOREIGN POLICY OF GERMANY ……………………. 41

VI. ENGLAND AND GERMANY ………………………………….. 49

VII. MARCH 7th, A MOST IMPORTANT DATE …………… 54

VIII. THE REAL ENEMY OF EUROPE ……………………….. 58

IX. COMMUNISM VERSUS NATIONAL SOCIALISM …… 62

X. THE UNION OF THE GERMAN PEOPLE …………………. 68

XI. ACTS OF “AGGRESSION” BY GERMANY ……………… 79

XII. THE DANCE OF DEATH ……………………………………… 85

XIII. OUR FUTURE POLICY TOWARDS GERMANY ……. 93

XIV. THE HITLER YOUTH MOVEMENT ……………………… 100

XV. THE WINTER HELP ORGANIZATION ………………….. 104

XVI. NATIONAL SOCIALISM AND THE PROTESTANT

CHURCH ……………………………………………………………………… 109

XVII. ECONOMICS …………………………………………………….. 118

XVIII. THE FOUR YEARS PLAN …………………………………… 138

XIX. THE GERMAN COLONIES …………………………………. 141

XX. THE LABOUR FRONT ………………………………………….. 146

XXI. AGRICULTURE …………………………………………………. 155

XXII. MUNICH AND AFTER ………………………………………… 167

Chapter Ten

THE UNION OF THE GERMAN PEOPLE

OF AUSTRIA AND THE SUDETEN

GERMANS WITH THE GERMAN

PEOPLE OF THE REICH

Further, it has become self-evident to me that those frontier districts between Czechoslovakia and Germany where the Sudeten population is in an important majority should be given full right of self-determination at once. If some cession is inevitable, as I believe it to be, it is as well that it should be done promptly and without procrastination. There is real danger, even a danger of civil war, in the continuance of a state of uncertainty. Consequently there are very real reasons for a policy of immediate and drastic action. Any kind of plebiscite or referendum would, I believe, be a sheer formality in respect of these predominantly German areas. A very large majority of their inhabitants desire amalgamation with Germany. The inevitable delay involved in taking a plebiscite vote would only serve to excite popular feelings, with perhaps most dangerous results. I consider, therefore, that these frontier districts should at once be transferred from Czechoslovakia to Germany, and, further, that measures for their peaceful transfer, including the provision of safeguards for the population during the transfer period, should be arranged forthwith by agreement between the two Governments.

(Vide: Runciman Report No. 7, 1938)

The rise of the Austrian people in rebellion against Schuschnigg in a few hours, the fall of Schuschnigg from power, the telegram from Dr. Seyss-Inquart, the head of the new government, to Hitler to send troops to preserve order, the triumphant march of the soldiers of the Reich into Austria, received with acclamations of joy by the Austrian people, and the progress of Hitler through the country received with such scenes of enthusiastic welcome as are unparalleled in history, took the people of this country completely by surprise. They had been carefully educated in the belief that the “independence” of Austria, that is their separation from Germany, was the wish of the Austrian people.

[Page 69]

The facts that the Austrian Parliament in 1918-19 passed a unanimous vote in favour of union with the Reich, and that Dollfuss finding that if he held an election the vote would be in favour of the Anschluss, had abolished parliament and made himself a dictator, that Schuschnigg his successor had never dared to hold an election, that 40,000 Austrians were in exile across the frontier and thousands in prison without trial, and that Schuschnigg only held power by an armed police with the forces of the allies behind him, made no impression on the people of this country, deceived by a skillful propaganda. Many still believe that Hitler has seized Austria by force of arms against the wishes of the Austrian people. It is a new feature in the history of invasions, for the guns of the invaders to be decorated with wreaths of flowers by the invaded.

In order to get a correct understanding of the real attitude of the great mass of Austrian people, it is necessary to go back to what happened when the war was ended. The quarrel between Austria and Germany which ended in the battle of Sadowa in 1866, was really a quarrel between the two dynasties, the Hohenzollerns and the Habsburgs for supreme power over the German speaking peoples. By the defeat of Austria the Hohenzollerns became supreme, and in 1879 an alliance was formed between the two countries by Bismarck, which led to Germany supporting Austria in her quarrel with Serbia in 1914. During four years Germans of the Reich and Austrian Germans had fought side by side. The long struggle against almost the world whole and the humiliation of defeat which they both suffered welded them together into one people.

On the fall of the Habsburg dynasty, the German Austrians formed a Council of State, and on the 9th of November 1918, this Council of State sent a message to Chancellor Max von Baden of the German Reich:

“In this hour of great historical crisis the German-Austrian Council of State sends to the German people its fraternal greetings and the warmest wishes for its future. The German-Austrian Council of State expresses the hope that the German people in Austria will have a part in the election of representatives of the Constitutive National Assembly which is to decide the future political order of the German nation.”

[Page 70]

On November 12th 1918, the Provisional Assembly for German Austria passed the following law:

“German Austria is a part of the German Republic. Special laws are to regulate the participation of German Austria in the legislation and administration of the German Republic, as well as the extent of the validity of laws and institutions of the German Republic as applied to German Austria.”

On November 30th 1918, the Reich government passed the following decree:

“If the German National Assembly resolves that Austria in accordance with her wish is to be admitted to the German Reich, then the German-Austrian deputies shall join the Assembly as members with equal rights.”

On February 4th 1919, President Dr. Dinghofer addressed the German-Austrian National Assembly as follows:

“Most honourable National Assembly. The day after tomorrow on February 6th, the newly elected Constitutive National Assembly of the German Republic in Weimar meets for the first time. The conditions whereby we participate in the same as rightful members have not yet been reached and indeed not yet created. Nevertheless we cannot ignore this great and significant event. The idea of Greater Germany is not dead for us Germans in these provinces, and never, never was it dead.

Like a star glowing out of the darkness the joyous hope of the realization of our longing dream beckons us: in all the sorrow and all the care that now surround us there glows the hope of lasting reunion with our old Motherland. With the greatest enthusiasm we therefore greet our brothers yonder in the Reich.

We acclaim them with joy. The German people inseparably united in its entirety, no longer separated by boundary-posts, no longer separated by the jealousy of rulers, shall and must become our homeland again.”

[Page 71]

In his opening speech at the first session of the German National Assembly at Weimar on February 6th 1919, the people’s deputy, Friedrich Ebert spoke as follows:

“… We also cannot forego the union of the whole German nation in one Reich. Our German Austrian brothers have already declared themselves part of the Greater-German Republic at their National Assembly on November 12th. Now the German Austrian National Assembly has once again amid the greatest enthusiasm sent its greetings and expressed the hope that our National Assembly and theirs will succeed in re-establishing the link that was broken by force in 1866. German Austria must, they say, be united with the motherland for all time.”

At Weimar on 21st February 1919, the following motion was made by the deputies Lobe, Grober, Haase (Berlin), Von Payer, Dr. Count von Posadowsky-Wehner and Dr. Stresemann:

“May the National Assembly resolve: The National Assembly notes with lively satisfaction the resolutions by which the representatives of German Austria have declared their membership of the German people as a whole. It affirms to its German Austrian brothers that the Germans of the Reich and of Austria constitute an indivisible unit, transcending former state boundaries, and expresses the confident hope that through the negotiations to be entered upon by the governments this inner unity will soon find in settled political forms an expression that will be recognized by all the Powers of the World.”

This motion was supported by all parties in the Assembly.

This movement for union between the Germans of Austria and the Germans of the Reich put the three democracies of Great Britain, France and the United States in a somewhat embarrassing position. They had promised self determination to the peoples of Europe, and both Germany and Austria had elected democratic governments and these democratic governments had unanimously decided to unite. On the other hand, the allies had decided that for strategic reasons this union between Germany and Austria must be prevented, and an “Independent” Austria created. Accordingly on the 29th of December 1918, the French foreign minister M. Pichon made the following statement:

[Page 72]

“There remains the question of German-Austria. It is serious but is should not alarm us. We have means of solving it so that it will not bring our enemies the compensations and resources that they hope from it. In settling the new status of Germany and of the ruins of Austria it will be contingent on the Allied Powers to take measures which will decisively reduce the power of Germany to fit proportions and thus deprive her of the chance of indemnifying herself with the Austrian races remaining outside Czecho-Slovakia, Poland and Yugo-Slavia, for what she will irrevocably have lost in any case by sanctioning our victory. This victory must therefore in the first place be transformed into all its just consequences and into the application of the rights which it gives us over the vanquished, to remove the possibility of these again endangering the security and freedom of the world.”

Article 80 of the Treaty of Versailles was as follows:

“Germany acknowledges and will respect strictly the independence of Austria, within the frontiers which may be fixed in a treaty between that State and the Principal Allied and Associated Powers; she agrees that this independence shall be inalienable, except with the consent of the Council of the League of Nations”, which meant referring it to the Greek Kalends.

The German delegates signed this clause, but made the following protest:

“In Article 80 is demanded the permanent recognition of Austrian independence within the boundaries laid down by the Peace Treaty of the Allied and Associated Governments with Germany. Germany never has had, and never will have the intention of altering the German-Austrian frontier by force.

But should the population of Austria, whose history and culture have been closely linked with its kindred German country for thousands of years, wish to re-established with Germany the connection that was only dissolved recently by a military decision, then Germany cannot pledge herself to oppose the wish of her German brothers in Austria, since the right of self-determination of peoples must apply generally and not solely to the detriment of Germany. Any other procedure would be in contradiction to the principles laid down in the Congress speech of President Wilson on February 11th, 1918.”

In drawing up the constitution of the German Reich, another attempt was made to keep the door open for union with Austria.

The following two clauses were introduced: Article 2.

“The territory of the Reich consists of the territories of the German countries. Other territories can be admitted to the Reich by law if their population desires it in accordance with the right of self-determination.”

[Page 73]

Article 61, par. 2.

“After union with the German Reich, German Austria shall receive the right of participating in the Reich Council with the number of votes corresponding with her population. Until such time the representatives of German Austria shall have an advisory vote.”

On September 2nd 1919, the following note was sent by President Clemenceau to the President of the German Reich.

“The Allied and Associated Powers have taken note of the German constitution of August 11th 1919. They confirm that the conditions of Paragraph 2 of Article 61 constitute a formal violation of Article 80 of the Peace Treaty signed at Versailles on June 28th, 1919.

It is a double violation

1. Article 61, in stipulating the admission of Austria to the Reichsrat, likens this Republic to the German provinces which constitute the German Empire; this is incompatible with the observance of Austria’s independence.

2. In allowing and regulating the participation of Austria in the Reichsrat, Article 61 creates a political bond and a common political action between Germany and Austria, in complete contradiction to the independence of the latter.

The Allied and Associated Powers therefore, having reminded the German Government that Article 178 of the German Constitution declares that the ‘conditions of the Treaty of Versailles cannot be affected by the constitution’ summon the German Government to take the proper steps to annul this violation forthwith, by declaring Article 61, paragraph 2, void.

With the reservation as to further measures in the event of refusal, and indeed on the basis of the Treaty (namely, Article 429), the Allied and Associated Powers inform the German Government that this violation of its obligations in an essential point will oblige the Powers to extend their occupation immediately on the right bank of the Rhine, if their just demand be not complied with within 14 days of the date of this note.”

[Page 74]

The clause was withdrawn.

Since then the agitation for the Anschluss has never ceased, and has grown in intensity as Germany under Hitler once more became a free nation.

After the abortive rising and the deplorable assassination of Dollfuss, the movement in favour of the Anschluss was savagely suppressed.

Staying in Salzburg at the time, we saw young peasants from the hills being marched in as prisoners. The Castle was full of prisoners and several were shot without trial although they had not been near Vienna and could have had nothing to do with the assassination.

When Schuschnigg broke all his promises to Hitler, and announced his travesty of a plebiscite, the Austrian pot boiled over. There was no register of voters, no arrangements to protect the secrecy of the ballot, and only one voting card with “Independent Austria, Heil Schuschnigg, Ja” printed on it. Anyone wishing to vote No, had to cut out a card of the same size, write on it No and hand it openly to Schuschnigg officials who were the only people allowed at the polling stations, with the probability of arrest and imprisonment.

On the 11th of March the following telegram was sent by Dr. Seyss-Inquart to Hitler:

“The provisional Government of Austria which, after the resignation of the Schuschnigg government, consider it their duty to restore calm and order in Austria, direct to the German Government the urgent request to support them in their duty and to help them in preventing bloodshed. To this end they ask the German Government to send German troops as soon as possible.”

After the receipt of this telegram, German troops marched in and the Anschluss was accomplished without the loss of a single life.

The Sudeten Germans

At the time when I am finishing this book, the governments of Europe have solved the vexed problems of the Sudeten Germans, and the Hungarians forcibly included in CzechoSlovakia, — another inheritance from the peace treaties.

[Page 75]

Czecho-Slovakia contains Germans, Slovaks, Hungarians, Poles, Rumanians, Ruthenians and Czechs, and over all these alien people bundled together by the framers of the peace treaties into one nation, the Czechs have a small majority which has enabled them under the outward form of democracy to keep supreme power in their own hands. Lord Balfour declared when the State of Czecho-Slovakia was brought into existence, that these new European States were built up on the principle of little nations on the victorious side seizing the territories of a country that was defeated, and holding them on a cut-throat basis which cannot be defended. None of these various races love one another, but all are agreed on a hatred of Czech domination, and both the Germans and the Slovaks have petitioned the League for freedom and independence.

There can be no question that the Sudeten Germans have suffered cruelly under Czech rule. The glass industry has been allowed to fall into decay, they are denied equality of political rights, they have great difficulty in getting employment, and a large number are slowly dying of starvation. The statistics as to disease from malnutrition among the German children are appalling. Until recently thousands have been imprisoned without trial.

Their terrible condition has naturally excited the greatest indignation among their German brothers in the Reich, and Hitler’s task has been to prevent any rash act on either side of the frontier which might lead to war.

The reason why all Europe was so interested in CzechoSlovakia is because Bohemia now part of Czecho-Slovakia, surrounded by mountains, is the natural citadel of central Europe. It is for this reason that the treaty between the Czechs and the Soviet was so dangerous. If Bohemia were in possession of the Soviet army, they could accomplish that Asiatic conquest of Europe which has so nearly happened more than once in the past. The treaty has now been denounced and the door for an inroad into Europe of Asiatic hordes under the flag of the hammer and the sickle, bolted and barred.

[Page 76]

When the Sudeten German question came to a head, and the pot long simmering boiled over, Hitler had to deal with a very complex situation. The German people were difficult to restrain, the Sudeten Germans were in rebellion and the Communist party in Czecho-Slovakia hoped to use the trouble to promote a European war, while it was impossible to trust Benes who had made so many promises he had never kept in the past.

While a party in Czecho-Slovakia wished to provoke an armed intervention by France, Hitler was doing his best to avoid the necessity. He had only to send an armed force from Austria into Slovakia, and promise independence to all the minorities and home rule to the Slovaks, for Czecho-Slovakia to fall to pieces, a result which the Communists were prepared to face if only France could be persuaded to intervene, — an intervention which Hitler had to do everything he could to prevent.

The Runciman report in favour of the cession of the Sudeten German area to Germany without delay, cleared the air, and when Hitler proposed this solution to Chamberlain at their first meeting, Chamberlain was able to persuade his Cabinet, Daladier and Benes to accept this solution.

Between Chamberlain’s first and second visit to see Hitler, certain incidents had taken place in Czecho-Slovakia which were not reported by our Press, but were witnessed by a friend of mine who was on the spot at the time. My friend entered Prague on September 20th, and found the Czechs very depressed at the thought of giving up the Sudeten German territory. That evening a wireless message was sent out by the Prague station, that Churchill had overthrown Chamberlain, become Prime Minister, and flown to Paris to arrange for war with Germany. Next day Prague was seething with excitement, and bills were posted in the town comparing the, military strength of Germany with the military strength of Great Britain, France, the USSR and the USA. The Prime Minister resigned and M. Hodza became Prime Minister.

In the meantime my friend had motored on to Eger. He arrived on the Wednesday afternoon, and found that the handing over of the Sudeten German area having been agreed to, the Czech government had allowed the Germans to take over the management of the town which was decorated everywhere with the German flag, and the people rejoicing in the streets. The Czech police were arranging to leave the town in the most peaceable manner.

[Page 77]

On the Thursday morning M. Hodza became Prime Minister, and on the Thursday afternoon, a telegram was received from the new government that the Czechs were again going to take over the town. There was a hasty hiding away of flags and decorations, and in the evening the Czech troops marched into a silent town with deserted streets, everyone hiding behind closed doors.

My friend motored on the frontier, and found bridges being blown up and machine gun emplacements being erected. It was evident that Benes had made up his mind for one last gamble for war, and that the message sent out by the new government that they adhered to the handing over of the Sudeten German area, was merely intended to put off time.

All these facts were of course known to Hitler, and caused him to draw up his ultimatum for immediate entry.

His proposal that Czech troops should retire and the German troops advance into the area was the only plan to prevent bloodshed between the Czech and German population. Runciman had already stated that it was necessary to act quickly to prevent civil war, and it is difficult to understand why Chamberlain rejected a plan which was unanimously adopted by the four powers a week later.

The ultimatum drawn up by Hitler might have been written in a more conciliatory manner, but the map accompanying it agreed closely with the map already prepared, and with the territory ultimately given up, and no difficulty was found in adhering to the time table he had originally drawn up. The flight of some of the Czechs from the Sudeten German area was quite unnecessary, as was proved by the quiet occupation of the area by the German troops without any disturbance of the existing population. The fact is that the Continental peasant from long and bitter experience over many centuries, whenever he hears of the approach of an army packs up his household goods and bolts.

During the interview with Chamberlain, Hitler for the first time threatened to use force and enter the Sudeten area even though opposed by Czech troops if it was not ceded at once. It seems to me inconceivable that we would have plunged Europe into war because Hitler insisted on an immediate occupation of territory which had already been ceded to him, millions of lives being sacrificed over a dispute about a time table.

[Page 78]

Hitler had pledged himself in his speech on March 7th 1936, that all adjustments of territory between Germany and other nations should be made by agreement and has carried out his pledge, though he seemed to come near to breaking it. It is probable that at the last moment Benes would have yielded as he could only trust the Czechs in his army, the whole Sudeten German population would have risen behind his troops, and Czech-Slovakia would have fallen to pieces though no German soldier had advanced beyond the Sudeten German area.

It is significant of the condition to which the German population had been reduced, that Hitler said that on his entry he had seen for the first time people weeping for joy and that the first thing the German troops had to do was to bring in large quantities of bread for the starving people.

Extract from Czech Schoolbook

“Who loves the Czechs — Hail to him! Long life to him!”

“Who loves the Russians — Hail to him! Long life to him!”

“Who loves the Serbs — Hail to him! Long life to him!”

“Who loves the Slovenes — Hail to him! Long life to him!”

“Who loves the Hungarians — Strike him down!”

“Who loves the Germans — Strike him down!”

[Page 79]

Chapter Eleven

ACTS OF “AGGRESSION” BY GERMANY

In order to get a true perspective towards what has taken place in Central Europe during the last five years, it is necessary to grasp the fact that what we have been witnessing is a rebellion of the German peoples in Central Europe against the peace treaties.

Hitler has been the leader, and the Nazi movement the spear head, but the rebellion was not confined to Germany, but included the German population of Austria and the Sudeten German area.

The allies had made an “Independent” state of Austria in spite of the unanimous vote of the first Austrian parliament for union with the Reich, and had handed over the Sudeten Germans to the Czechs in spite of their protests, for purely strategic reasons.

Dollfuss in order to maintain Austria as an independent state had to abolish the Austrian parliament, and rule as an absolute dictator, and Schuschnigg had to continue this policy. The Nazi movement progressed at first more rapidly in Austria than in Germany.

Once we have grasped the central fact that we have been witnessing a rebellion of the German peoples, all that has happened in the last five years falls into place and becomes intelligible.

Having risen in rebellion against the articles in the peace treaties which applied to them, they have re-armed, have occupied with troops their own frontiers, and have taken over the administration of their own rivers, railways and canals.

In addition the German people of Austria have joined with the German people of the Reich under one government.

[Page 80]

All these acts have taken place within territory inhabited by and belonging to the German people, and have in no way interfered with the rights of any other nation. In addition, with the consent of the three powers and of the government of CzechoSlovakia, the Sudeten German area has been joined to the Reich.

This addition to German territory was advised by our commissioner Lord Runciman, and has been described by Sir John Simon as an act of justice.

We are told by the enemies of Germany in this country that these acts of the German people were aggressive, violent and illegal acts, and we must proceed to examine these three accusations.

An act of aggression involves interference with other nations. It is not regarded by us as an aggressive act on our part to spend vast sums on munitions, or if we chose to do so to introduce conscription. If the Union between England and Scotland was taking place to-day, it could not be described by other nations as an act of aggression on our part. As all these re-adjustments made by German peoples took place in territory which contained an almost totally German population, we must give a verdict of not guilty when they are accused of acts of aggression.

The second accusation is that the German people have acted in a violent manner. As all these changes have been accomplished in a perfectly orderly way amid the rejoicing consent of the populations concerned, and without the loss of a single life, the charge of violence falls to the ground. There are people in this country who talk of the “invasion” of Austria. An “invasion” in which the people of the “invaded” country decorate the guns of the “invader” is something new in history.

The third accusation of having acted in an illegal manner is made under two heads. They are accused of breaking international law by tearing up the Treaty of Versailles, and also of acting against the protests of the League of Nations.

Let us begin by examining the first accusation. It has long been the custom among civilized nations who have been at war, after an armistice has been declared, for the delegates of both nations to meet in conference and draw up a treaty together.

Such a treaty is regarded as binding on both parties until owing to changing circumstances one party or the other denounces the treaty and a new treaty is drawn up. It has also always been understood that no act of war takes place after the armistice has been signed.

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The allies when engaged in drawing up the Treaty of Versailles, departed from both these customs which have been recognised by all civilized nations. The Treaty of Versailles was drawn up by the allies without the German delegates being admitted. They were then called in and graciously allowed to suggest certain modifications which were promptly rejected, and told to sign. They signed under protest, and said that the German people would never regard the treaty as binding. The second departure from civilized practice was the continuance after the armistice had been signed of the blockade which was starving the German people. The signature of the German delegates was made the condition for raising the blockade.

A treaty between two nations is of the nature of a contract between two men, and both parties are expected to carry it out. But if one of the parties after signing the contract can convince the judge that he signed it by compulsion with a pistol held to his head, no court would uphold the contract.

In the case of the entry into the neutral zone of the German troops, there is a plausible case against Germany. Her defence is that France, by making a treaty with the Soviet directed against Germany, had already torn up the Treaty of Locarno, and was fully warned of the view that would be taken of this act in Germany. Even if the verdict goes against Germany, and she did commit an illegal act, the crime of occupying your own territory with your own troops cannot be regarded as a very serious one.

The other accusation is that Germany acted in an illegal manner in. defying the protests of the League of Nations. The victorious powers decided to set up a perpetual committee which they invited other nations to join, and which they called the League of Nations. Germany was excluded at the beginning and the USA. washed their hands of the whole affair. The main object of the League was to keep the peace treaties inviolate, but it also took on other international duties. Those joining it signed a covenant promising not to make war on each other, but to refer matters of dispute to the League, and in certain articles the League took power to use force through its members against any nation which it had named as an aggressor.

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The League arrogated to itself a legal status which would not be recognised in international law. It had no more authority over other nations than any other alliance of the powers. The members of the League were of course bound by the terms of their contract while they remained members but if they chose to leave the League, the League had no jurisdiction over them and protests passed by the League had no more legal status than if they had been passed by a Mothers Meeting.

International law has grown up slowly through certain customs being finally accepted by all nations, and it is possible that if a League of Nations had been formed at some time before the war when the whole world was at peace, and had in the first instance been a voluntary body with no compulsory powers, it might in time have been recognised by all nations that its decisions were binding; but a League set up by the victors after a war to enforce the maintenance of a status quo which was intolerable to the conquered nations, was doomed to failure. We must therefore return a verdict of not guilty under the second accusation of illegal action.

The German peoples have only claimed and taken such rights as are granted to all nations, and have carried out their programme among themselves and within their own territory with the exception of the union of the Sudeten German area to the Reich which was done with the consent of the other three powers. Such action is neither aggressive, violent nor illegal, and in no way injures the interests of external powers.

Another accusation made against Germany that she uses the threat of force while the League and the Democracies confine themselves to sweet reasonableness and would never use a potential force to get their own way. They blame Hitler for having re-armed Germany. Surely that is an absurd accusation when France at the time he re-armed had an army of five hundred thousand men on a peace footing, and the Soviet an army of one million three hundred thousand men.

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Hitler has only once threatened to use force, when he stated that after a certain date he would if necessary force his way into the territory already assigned to him.

The fact is that in the present crude and barbaric conditions of the relations between nations, every nation has to be “well heeled” before going into a conference.

The allies used potential force to compel the Germans to sign the Treaty of Versailles and to prevent the union of Austria with Germany, and the League refused all concessions to Germany, and ignored the appeals of minorities in Czecho-Slovakia, because behind the League was the army of France.

It is now generally agreed that the Versailles Treaty was most unjust to Germany, but if Germany had not defied the League and begun to re-arm, she would to-day be in the position she was in 1932. Concessions are not made by one nation to another nation because they are just, but because it is dangerous to refuse.

It is true that Chamberlain agreed to the cession of the Sudeten German area because he thought it was just and right, and there are instances in our history when we have acted even to our own detriment on the merits of a case; but I know of no instance of such an action by any other nation except ourselves.

The whole conception of the League as a super state was built on a foundation of force, and the complaint of the parties of the Left in this country is not that the League was built on a foundation of force, but that when the time for action came the whole machine broke down, the various members of the League refusing to fight. In reply to a statement that we had forty nations behind us over the Abyssinian question, Chamberlain said, “Yes, they are behind us but not by our side”.

It is only fair to say that the Opposition claim that the mere threat by the League would be sufficient if it was properly organised for military action; but there always is the danger that the other side will call your bluff. A revolver charged with blank cartridges is a dangerous weapon when going into a quarrel.

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We are re-arming to-day not because Great Britain or the Empire is in the slightest danger from attack, but because we want to go into any discussion with any other power as “well heeled” as they are.

When Hitler says “the army is Germany”, has not that lesson been taught him by all that has happened since the Armistice was signed? If after the signing of the Armistice the army of Germany though in retreat had still been in being, the Treaty of Versailles would have been a very different document. Would France have entered the Ruhr if there had been the German army to oppose her? An unarmed nation will get no justice from the other nations.

Hitler says “the army is Germany”. Is it not equally true that our navy is the British Empire? We have built the Empire by force, we hold it by force, and we will defend it by force, and we possess it intact to-day because our navy is far stronger the the navy of any other Power.

“Ah”, my critic will reply, “the League, the Allies, France and Great Britain only use force in a just and righteous cause. All other nations and more especially Germany and Italy use it in an unrighteous cause”, which reminds me of a story told me by my father. When he was a boy Scotland was under the tyranny of a rigid Sabbatarianism. One day he was scolded for having laughed on the Sabbath day. He retorted that he had heard the minister laugh on the Sabbath. “Ah”, was the reply, “but that was a Holy smile”.

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Version History

Version 1: Published Sep 24, 2014

Treaty of Locarno – katana17

Rethinking Mein Kampf — by Thomas Dalton

Rethinking Mein Kampf

Thomas Dalton

CONTENTS

Preface

A Most Consequential Work

Origins and Context

November Revolution, and a New Movement

Chapter Synopses

Volume 1

Volume 2

Previous English Translations

Why a New Translation?

Some Contentious Topics

Racial Theory

On Religion

On the Jews

Hitler’s Legacy

BIBLIOGRAPHY

25 Points of the NSDAP Program

Notes

See Also

PDF Download

Version History

The Case for Germany – Part 5 – Union of the German People; Acts of “Aggression” by Germany

[Part 5]

The Case for Germany

A Study of Modern Germany

by

A. P. Laurie

DEDICATION

TO THE READER

PREFACE

CONTENTS

Chapter Ten

THE UNION OF THE GERMAN PEOPLE

OF AUSTRIA AND THE SUDETEN

GERMANS WITH THE GERMAN

PEOPLE OF THE REICH

The Sudeten Germans

Chapter Eleven

ACTS OF “AGGRESSION” BY GERMANY