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Has anyone else read this? I just . . . well, I thought it would be scarier. I assumed Hitler would just be so good at arguing that I could see how people would believe him. But it's so poorly argued, with no evidence and all kinds of huge overstatements and blatant lies, that I wonder how anyone took this guy seriously. They really must have been hungry for someone to blame.
quote:The black-haired Jewish youth, with satanic joy on his face, lurks in wait for hours for the girls he plans to defile with his blood, and steal the young girl from her people.
quote:Culturally he [the Jew] pollutes art, literature, and theater, makes a mockery of natural sensibilities, destroys every concept of beauty and nobility, the worthy and the good, and instead drags other men down to the sphere of its own lowly existence.
There's a lot more, but I'm reading it from an Acrobat Reader file and can't copy and paste, and I'm too busy and lazy right now to find it elsewhere.
What scares me about Mein Kampf now is completely different from what I was afraid of before. Before, I was terrified that a man could be simultaneously so brilliant and so evil as Hitler that ordinary people could be coerced into believing him. Now I'm terrified that he didn't have to be a brilliant debater to get millions of people to follow him into this madness.
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Anti-semitism was at an all-time high in Germany (and, IIRC, throughout Europe) at that time. People were ready to accept any piece of crap that confirmed their prejudices and then took it a step or two further.
Yeah, it is scary.
Posts: 1996 | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
I'm sure you have seen videos of Hitler speak. Remembering those, (even if you don't speak German, which I understand very little of) anyone would say that he had a "presence". His charisma and passion was captivating.
Even with all that, I still don't get it. How he convinced so many people to commit such terrible crimes....
I remember thinking the same things you are thinking when I read it.
Posts: 2064 | Registered: Dec 2003
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Read American anti-Jew stuff from around the same time and compare it to Meain Kampf and I think you'll see the difference. Hitler was a genius, in that he forged the anti-Jewish setiments and scape-goating into a compelling myth, instead of just undirected spouting off hatred. He gave a meaning and structure to this hatred and showed people who to make it their guiding story.
You have to understand, Hitler didn't create anti-Semitism or German yearnings for superiority. His writings weren't to convice people of these things. He was trying to harness them, refine them, and make them so pervasive and central to the idea of Gernman identity that even the idea of questioning them would be shouted down. He did a great job of this.
I'll plug it again, although I doubt it will do any good. If you want to understand the nature of prejudice, I give my highest recommendation to the The Nature of Prejudice by Gordon Allport. This is the work on prejudice and will most likely open your eyes about human nature.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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Squick is correct about Hitler not creating the antisemitism. When looking at Mein Kampf, don't look at is as trying to convince people. Most of them were already convinced. Also, many more people were subversively convinced (through Church depictions of Jews, economic struggles with all types of people, and general fear of that-which-is-different), and all Hitler did was tap into that. He wasn't the first, nor will he be the last. He was just, to date, the most successful.
Anti-Jewish sentiment runs deep in Western culture, and we are far from rid of it.
Posts: 779 | Registered: Dec 2003
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I believe the charisma of Hitler exists. It's like Elvis, actually. All the hype, all the photos, even the music, and it made no sense until I caught a movie of his on cable. Thirty seconds and I understood the myth.
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I've already posted one thread about it, digger. In a day or two, I'll be posting another with more stuff I've been studying, and more quotes from James Carroll (one of the authors, who puts the rest together very well).
Posts: 779 | Registered: Dec 2003
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Started reading it, but haven't finished. He was a looney, but a brilliant man all the same. Too bad he harnessed hate. If his heart was set to a different path, he could have made a contribution to the world. Instead he took w/o giving back.
Posts: 2208 | Registered: Feb 2004
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Thanks for the recommendation Squick. I'll check it out (literally--I'm trying to curb my book buying habit).
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Also, did you read it in German or was this a translation. If it was a translation, you wonder how "good" (or authentic anyway) is the translation?
I think the majority of people are sheep. In a lot of respects, I am.
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