My struggle
My Struggle (German: Mein Kampf) is the first book written by Adolf Hitler, combining autobiographical elements with an exposition of his own ideas and a manifesto of the political ideology of National Socialism. The work describes the process by which Hitler became antisemitic and outlines his future plans for Germany. The first volume was published on July 18, 1925, and the second in 1926. The book was first edited by Emil Maurice and then by Rudolf Hess. In My Struggle, Hitler developed the main thesis of the "Jewish danger," which spoke of a Jewish conspiracy to gain world leadership, and announces his hatred of what he believed to be the world's two evils: Communism and Judaism. He argued about the German nationalist idea of Drang nach Osten : ("Push to the East") the need to gain Lebensraum ("living space") to the east, especially in Russia.
Hitler wrote My Struggle while incarcerated for what he considered "political crimes" after his failed Munich Putsch in November 1923. Although he initially received many visitors, he soon devoted himself entirely to the book. As he was writing it, he realized that it would have to be a two-volume work, with the first volume scheduled for publication in early 1925. The Governor of Landsberg noted at the time that "he [Hitler] expects the book has many editions, allowing him to meet his financial obligations and defray expenses incurred at the time of his trial". After slow initial sales, the book became a bestseller in Germany after Adolf Hitler's rise to power in 1933.
After Hitler's death, the copyright for Mein Kampf passed to the Bavarian state government, which refused to allow the book to be copied or printed in Germany. In 2016, after the copyright held by the Bavarian state government expired, Mein Kampf was republished in Germany for the first time since 1945, sparking public debate and divided reactions. of the Jewish groups.
Book index
The book was published in two volumes. The first appeared on July 18, 1925, entitled "Retrospection"; the second volume, published in 1926, was entitled "The National Socialist Movement."
Chapters of 1.♪ Take it.
| Chapters of the 2nd volume
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In the years since the original and currently these two volumes have been published in a single book.
Contents
The book outlines the main ideas that the German regime would carry out during its rule. Especially prominent is Adolf Hitler's love for the German people, accepting among other theories The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a text that purported to expose the Jewish plot to control the world. This later became in part of the Nazi propaganda effort to justify the persecution and annihilation of the Jews. For example, it denounced Esperanto as part of a Jewish plot, and argues for the German nationalist idea of Drang nach Osten: ("Push East") the need to gain Lebensraum ("living space") to the east, especially in Russia.
Among the sources used by Adolf Hitler to write My Struggle, the book The International Jew: The World's First Problem (1920), by the famous American industrialist Henry Ford, Hitler's financier and admirer of his ideas. Ford is precisely the only United States citizen mentioned by Hitler in his book.
Throughout its 782 pages, Hitler detailed the steps that a future National Socialist German state would have to follow to finally become the "master of the world". He first advocated the final conclusion of Franco-German hostility, which would be achieved with the destruction of France. Once this was achieved, Germany would finally be free to expand, with the aim of achieving the so-called "German living space". Hitler concludes that the Third Reich should not seek colonies in Asia or Africa, but should expand eastward, at Russia's expense. While acknowledging that various peoples already inhabit Eastern Europe, he asserts that the German people have the right to evict to its occupants:
... nature has not reserved this land for the future possession of a particular nation or race; on the contrary, this land exists for the people who possess the power to take it.About the German expansion east.
Anti-Semitism and Anti-Marxism
Hitler used the main theses of the «Jewish danger», which spoke of a Jewish conspiracy to gain world leadership. He explained many details about his childhood and the process by which he became increasingly anti-Semitic and militaristic, especially during his years in Vienna. In the second chapter, Hitler writes about how he saw the Jews on the streets of the city, and then wondered: "Were those Germans?" He said that when he first encountered the anti-Semitic press, he dismissed her as unworthy of serious consideration, but later became a "cosmopolitan wimp"; to a "fanatical anti-Semite". Such views became crucial to his program of national reconstruction of Germany.
Hitler attacked Judeo-Christian ethics following Friedrich Nietzsche's critique as the creators of slave morality and deteriorating values. Hitler describes the product of this "cultural perfume" as the "average man " with interest of the community and the "complete man" motivated by self-preservation. It was the mixing of blood that caused the deterioration of culture by "poisoning" Jew who "systematically carries out this mode of 'disarming' to the intellectual establishment of his racial adversaries. However, to mask his activity and lull his victims, he speaks more and more about the equality of all men regardless of race and color". It is important to note that Nietzsche was a critic of both antisemitism (saying "the literary obscenity of scapegoating Jews for all conceivable public and domestic misfortunes is spreading") as well as German nationalism (saying in The Gay Science: "we are far from being German enough [...] to become spokesmen for nationalism and racial hatred"). It was partly Nietzsche's sister, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, who manipulated her brother's words to fit the National Socialist worldview.
When it comes to political theories, Adolf Hitler describes his aversion to what he believes are the twin evils of the world: Marxism and Judaism, and stated that his purpose was to eradicate them from the Earth. In the book, Hitler blamed the parliament of the Weimar Republic on the Jews and Social Democrats for the main problems of Germany.
According to Hitler: "The Jewish doctrine of Marxism rejects the aristocratic principle of Nature and places in place of the eternal privilege of force and vigor, the numerical mass and its dead weight. He thus denies [...] individual merit and challenges the importance of nationalism and race [...]". He explained that the National Socialist State knows no classes, it only recognizes citizens and further argued that "unionism itself is not synonymous with social antagonism," something that Marxism used as a weapon of the "international Jew" for their class struggle, which is why National Socialism must prevail. Hitler also criticized the Western democratic system as being "the forerunner of Marxism, which would be inconceivable without it" and provides "to this world plague the field of nutrition". He announced to destroy the parliamentary and democratic system by degrading the complete authority of the Führer. Hitler further explained his techniques and political campaigns that his party carried out, such as for example, appropriating the color red in their propaganda and flags to attract the working class and distance it from the left-wing parties.
National Socialist State and Eugenics
As for the Third Reich, Hitler clearly defines that the system of government will be a dictatorship: In addition, the state will have very little to do with the economy, since it will actually be a "racial organism". that the Aryan race is superior to the rest, he asserts that it must subjugate the others in order to "preserve and increase culture". He concludes that the Germans are in the current state because they did not preserve their pure race, and "gradually they lost their cultural creativity". After writing this, it is not surprising that he determines that the main purpose of the Nazi state is "the preservation of the original racial elements that confer culture and create the beauty and dignity of a people." superior humanity".
A racial version of Nietzsche's Übermensch, often translated as "superman", became a philosophical basis for National Socialist ideas. For Nietzsche, the Übermensch In his writings, especially in the book Thus Spoke Zarathustra, he is a person capable of generating his own value system, identifying as good everything that comes from his genuine will to power. The Nazi notion of the master race also spawned the idea of "inferior humans" (Untermenschen) who should be dominated and enslaved. This term does not originate with Nietzsche.
The Nazi movement, Hitler admits, "depends on fanaticism, if you will, on intolerance," in the same way that Christianity triumphed not because of its philosophical currents but because of "unwavering fanaticism with which he proclaimed and upheld his own doctrine". Hitler maintained the inferiority of the races, being "the antipode of the Aryan is the Jew". He affirmed that "the mixture of Aryan blood with that of inferior peoples resulted in the ruin of the race of higher culture" and therefore "the nationalization of the masses can only be successfully achieved if [...] those who spread the international poison among them are exterminated". He suggested that " if at the beginning of the war and during the war twelve or fifteen thousand of these Hebrew corrupters of the nation had been subjected to poison gas, such as hundreds of thousands of our best German workers of all classes had to endure in the field and professions, then the sacrifice of millions at the front would not have been in vain".
According to Hitler, the National Socialist state classifies its inhabitants into three groups: citizens, subjects and foreigners. Subjects can be German but cannot actively or passively participate in politics. These are educated to "comply with the physical training requirements prescribed by the State, to finally enter the army service" that upon completion of them he will receive citizen rights "which are established in the territory of a State for solely "utilitarian" purposes". On the other hand, being a citizen of the Reich is "more dignifying" than the king in a foreign state.
Hitler argued that nature concentrates on the selection of the species. Thus, human life "cannot be a matter of artificially improving the subsisting bad [...] but on the contrary must seek to ensure healthier bases for a cycle of development to come". He compared the " racial conception of the National Socialist State" with the eugenic principles that the United States of America used during the early XX century, such as prohibiting the entry of immigrants affected by contagious diseases and "exclude from naturalization, without any qualms, elements of certain races".
Their politically elitist insights culminate in a version of social Darwinism: "The great mass are but a part of nature and their minds cannot comprehend the mutual handshake between men who claim to pursue conflicting goals. What the masses want is the triumph of the strongest and the destruction of the weak bear unconditional submission".
Lebensraum and Generalplan Ost
In the chapter 'Political Orientation to the East', Hitler argued that the Germans needed to obtain new Lebensraum territory in the East, a "historical destiny" that would adequately nurture the German people. Hitler believed that "the organization of a Russian state formation was not the result of the political skills of the Slavs in Russia, but only a wonderful example of the state-forming effectiveness of the German element in an inferior race." Hitler openly declared future German expansion in the East, foreshadowing the Generalplan Ost:
And so, the National Socialists consciously draw a line below the foreign policy trend of our pre-war period. We continue where we broke six hundred years ago. We stop the endless German movement to the south and west, and turn our gaze to the earth in the east. We finally break with the colonial and commercial policy of the pre-war period and move to the land policy of the future. If we speak of soil in Europe today, we can think mainly of Russia and its vassal border states.
History
Development
Hitler began writing the book in Landsberg prison in May 1924, after being sentenced to five years in prison for planning and carrying out the failed Munich coup. Despite his conviction, Hitler had preferential treatment and received visits from admirers and gifts. Regarding the writing process, the most widespread opinion is that Hitler began by dictating the text to his driver, Emil Maurice, who would soon be replaced by what would be his personal secretary., Rudolf Hess. However, Ilse Pröhl, Hess's lover, who was collaborating with him at the time reviewing the galleys of the book, stated that in prison it was Hitler himself who was in charge of the typing, a version supported by the discovery in 2006 of five pages of the original text and eighteen sheets of drafts with Hitler's handwritten corrections. In addition, the priest Bernhard Stempfle and Josef Czerny, an anti-Semitic writer, helped in the writing and revision of the book. Originally Hitler wanted to call his next book Viereinhalb Jahre (des Kampfes) gegen Lüge, Dummheit und Feigheit , or Four and a Half Years (of Struggle) Against Lies, Stupidity and cowardice. Max Amann, director of the Franz Eher Verlag and Hitler's editor, is said to have suggested the much shorter "Mein kampf" or "My struggle". This work was dedicated to Dietrich Eckart.
Hitler wrote most of the second volume in Berchtesgaden during two stays in the summers of 1925 and 1926, the first staying at the Moritz Pension, owned by the Büchner couple, and the second at the Deutsches Haus hotel. The second volume did resort to dictation and, although the identity of the 1925 typist is not known, in 1926 the work was done by Hertha Frey, who would be his personal secretary until 1930.
Hitler had titled the book 4½ Jahre Kampf gegen Lüge, Dummheit und Feigheit (Four and a half years of fighting against lies, stupidity and cowardice), but Max Amann, coordinator of Nazi publications, convinced him to reduce it to My Struggle. Amann had hoped that Hitler would write his autobiography and that it would focus on the Munich coup, an event that had made the Nazi Party nationally famous, and would probably be attractive to readers; but Hitler barely made a mention of this episode. In the book, Hitler avoids the subject, claiming that the forces that suppressed them—the Bavarian government, police, and army—had acted in good faith. Considering that some leaders of these forces were assassinated or sent to concentration camps when Hitler came to power, it is likely that he evaded the issue so as not to prematurely antagonize these political forces.
Sales and popularity
| Sales in Germany of My struggle |
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| Source: The rise and fall of the Third Reich; a history of Nazi Germany |
The first volume of My Struggle, of 400 pages, was published on July 18, 1925 at the price of twelve Reichsmark, about three US dollars at the time. Despite the fact that the Nazis they claimed to have sold 24,000 copies in the first year, with an upward trend, the seizure of documents from the Nazi publishing house Eher-Verlag by the Allies in 1945 have disproved these claims. The book sold slowly and sales fell in the following years. On December 11, 1926, the second volume was published, but sales fell to less than half that of the previous year. However, with the arrival of the Great Depression, the popularity of the Nazis increased, as did the sales of the book. It may also have affected the fact that a cheap edition of My Struggle was published in 1930.
In 1933, the year in which Hitler came to power, sales skyrocketed and the book sold one million copies, a rate that it maintained until the fall of Nazi Germany, being the best-selling book in this period, after the Bible. Because Hitler's main source of income was the sale of this book, in 1933 he became a millionaire and became the most prosperous German author.
During Adolf Hitler's rule, it was customary to give a copy of the book to the bride and groom at their wedding, and to students when they graduated. By the end of the war, approximately ten million copies of the book had been distributed in Germany and it had been translated into 16 languages.
Some historians have argued that a wide reading of the book might have alerted to Hitler's purposes, but only an abridged version was published in English shortly before World War II. Even so, the publisher of the English edition removed some of the anti-Semitic and militaristic statements. The publication of this version prompted Alan Cranston, a US journalist for UPI in Germany and later a senator from California, to publish his own annotated edition, which he believed better reflected the book's contents. In 1939 he was sued by Hitler for infringement of copyright (author's rights) and a judge in Connecticut, United States, had to rule in his favor; sales of the Cranston edition had to be discontinued after 500,000 copies had been sold.
The printing of this book is considered by the laws of several countries a crime to which penalties ranging from a small fine to several months in prison can be applied.
Translations
In 1935 the first complete translation into Spanish of My fight was published, a translation made by the Central Editor of the National Socialist Party and published by Franz Eher Nachfolger GmbH, in Munich, Germany. The first edition of the book 'My fight' it featured a cover photo of Adolf Hitler taken by his personal photographer Heinrich Hoffmann. That same translation was published in Spain, also in 1935, by an unspecified publisher under the epigaphre "Distribución para España, Ávila, San Roque 13" and by the Casa Editorial Araluce in Barcelona.
In French the first complete translation of the book was illegally published in 1934 under the title Mon Combat.
In English, a partial translation (two hundred and fifty pages compared to almost eight hundred of the original) was published in 1933 by Edgar Dugdale for the London publisher Hurst & Blackett. Its title, My Struggle, became My Battle for the American edition published in Boston by Houghton Mifflin. Dugdale's version continued in circulation until 1939, when the publisher replaced it with a complete one by James Murphy. Two other translations were also published in the United States in 1939; the first, directed by Alvin Johnson, for the New York company Reynal & Hitchcock and the second from Stackpole, which was withdrawn following a complaint by Houghton Mifflin, the United States rights holder of Hitler's work. Houghton Mifflin later published, in 1943, a final translation by Ralph Manheim that is which has continued to be sold in English-speaking countries.
Current Availability
Historian Werner Maser, in an interview with Bild am Sonntag, had stated that Peter Raubal, son of Hitler's nephew Leo Raubal, would have a strong legal case for copyright if I tried; however, Peter Raubal, an Austrian engineer, stated that he was not interested in claiming such rights.
Until April 2015 the Bavarian regional government, in agreement with the German Federal Government, did not allow any copying or printing of the book in Germany and was opposed to any edition in other countries, albeit with less success. On April 30, 2015, the 70th anniversary of Adolf Hitler's death, his book My Struggle became public domain.
The book always was and is perfectly legal in Germany. This legality was confirmed by the official decision of the Federal Court of the Federal Republic of Germany on July 25, 1979. Trading in old copies is equally legal, unless it advocates war or racial hatred, issues that yes they are usually illegal in most countries of the world.
The uncertain situation has led to conflicting lawsuits in Poland and Sweden. Mein Kampf, however, is published in the United States, as well as in other countries, such as Spain, Turkey, and Israel, by publishers with various political views. On the other hand, in the Netherlands selling the book, even in the case of being an old copy, is illegal and qualified as an apology of racial hatred, but it is not to own or lend it. In 1997 the government explained to parliament that selling a scientifically annotated version could escape the ban.
In 1999, the Simon Wiesenthal Center documented that the largest online bookstores such as Amazon.com or Barnesandnoble.com sold Mein Kampf in Germany. As a result of this complaint, the sale in Germany was discontinued.
Free downloadable copies of Mein Kampf are available on various Internet sites; some also sell copies of the book. Even so, the edited copies are of doubtful reliability, since, for example, several references to Christianity are replaced by neopaganism. In 2016, a commented version of the book was released in Argentina.
An annotated edition of Mein Kampf was published in Germany in January 2016 and sold out within hours on the German Amazon site. The publication of the book sparked public debate in Germany and divided reactions from Jewish groups, some supporting and some opposing the decision to publish it. German officials had previously said they would limit public access to the text amid fears that its republishing might arouse neo-Nazi sentiment. Some bookstores stated that they would not they would store the book. Dussmann, a Berlin bookstore, stated that one copy was available on the shelves in the history section, but that it would not be announced and more copies would be available on request only. As of January 2017, the German annotated edition had outsold of 85,000 copies.
In January 2021, the publication of an annotated edition of "Mein Kampf" was announced in Poland, for the first time in its history. This fact caused a great controversy in the country.
Sequel
After the Nazi Party lost the 1928 election, Hitler believed that some reasons for its failure were that the public had not fully understood his ideas. Therefore, he retired to Munich to dictate a continuation of Mein Kampf focused on foreign policy. The book was never published, perhaps due to the poor sales rate of his first book or because it revealed too much of his purpose. The book was kept by his publisher and was not discovered until 1958. [citation needed ]