Mein Kampf

Title: Mein Kampf
Author: Adolf Hitler
Publisher: Jainco Publishers (First published 1926)
ISBN: 9788189474065
Pages: 581

First of all, let me confess that this is not a review of the title mentioned above, but of Mein Kampf itself, because Goodreads does not allow me to add that title nor a review of it. The need for this illogical censoring is hard to comprehend because only by the interchange of ideas can a regressive system could be kept in check. So, let's get back to Adolf Hitler and his book. This man, who found Germany lying prostrated after the defeat in World War I, found a scapegoat in the Jewish community for the defeat and then tried to exterminate them, in the process wrecking Germany in toto in another world war. Six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. I sought in this book the answer to the question that was in my mind for a long time – what made this man go after a miniscule community that had been living in Germany for centuries? Unfortunately, the answer could not be found. Even with the rabid anti-Semitic rant running from cover to cover, hints of a drastic measure such as the Holocaust is not to be seen. What Hitler repeatedly asserts in the text is that while the written word is for the intellectuals, the masses need the spoken word to get mobilized. Hence it is likely that he had chosen a sanitized version of his real thought in the book. Moreover, he started writing this book in 1924 while serving a prison sentence in the fortress of Landsberg am Lech when there was no prospect for him to ever achieve absolute power in Germany. This is organized in two volumes. The first covers Hitler's life, his migration from Austria to Germany and the foundation of the National Socialist Labour party. Volume 2 covers the ideals of the movement and was published in 1926, long before the party had any serious chance of assuming power. 

The first part, or volume 1, of the book covers the life of Hitler only in the broadest outline. There's no mention about his mother or siblings. Even the problems he faced in education and employment are utilized for buttressing the arguments of the Nazi movement. He makes some general observations in this volume. One is that every great movement on this earth owes its growth to great speakers and not to great writers. Obviously, he has only the demagogues in mind. The tactical object of a fight of the party was the winning over of the child in school. So, the first rallying cry should be addressed to the child. Hitler wants the study of history to be a search for and discover the forces that are the causes of those results which appear before our eyes as historical events. He also ascertains that people should be aware of the political situation in a country. Those who have no understanding of the political world around them have no right to criticize or complain. The importance of the politician is a concept that is frequently stressed in this book. Only in rare cases are kings found to be models of wisdom and understanding and integrity of character, though we might like to think otherwise. 

Hitler makes a survey of political systems that allegedly strived to keep Germany vanquished and identifies Marxism and Judaism as the culprits. He denies the religious nature of the latter and asserts that since the ideal of the Jew is world domination, it must be regarded as a political system and not religious. His antagonism with social democrats is evident in its equalisation with communism. He then makes a tirade on them, dripping with contempt in every sentence. He alleges that everything that was considered worthy are disparaged by the Marxists. The nation was deemed to be an invention of the capitalist class and the fatherland was an instrument of the bourgeoisie for the exploitation of the working masses. Rule of law, according to them, was a means of holding down the proletariat, religion a means to dope the people and morality a badge of stupid and sheepish docility. There was nothing that they did not drag in the mud. He takes on the employers who refuse to listen to the changing times and claims that there are employers who lack social understanding and have wrong ideas of justice and fair play. Against such people, it is not only the right but the duty of their employees to protect their interests by forming a trade union. Freedom of the press is alleged to be a euphemism under which journalists escape legal punishment for deceiving the public and poisoning the public mind. 

Hitler had strong likes and dislikes not just to people or races but also to places. He loved Munich, to which city he migrated from Vienna in 1912. He abhorred Vienna which was thought to be a 'Babylon of races'. Being an artist himself, Hitler states that one must know Munich if one wants to know Germany because Munich is called the metropolis of German art. What is striking in Hitler's narrative is the shockingly low regard he displays towards the masses whom he treats as nothing more than asses. He asserts that the broad masses possess 'a very short measure of thinking power'. A large section of them is claimed to believe that a person who is incomprehensible must be profoundly wise. Not only that, the masses are first set in motion along a definite direction by men of superior talents, but once in motion, they are like a flywheel to sustain the momentum. A politician who follows policies of value and significance for the future, Hitler says, is not understood by the mass of the people who find 'beer and milk' a more persuasive index of political values than far-sighted plans for the future. Hitler exhibits an underlying trust in the necessity of God to manage the society. He is never against the church nor does he belong to it. He believed that he is doing work to make the society conform to what god had willed. Often he refers to the eternal entity as 'Creator'. The concept of councils or parliament to act as a check on the power of a single individual was anathema to him. He stresses again and again that the majority can never replace the man. The majority is said to represent only ignorance and cowardice. A majority of ignorant and incompetent pass judgment on profound issues affecting the nation. Discussions are alleged to be conducted in an atmosphere befitting a card table which seems to be a much more fitting occupation for most of the deputies. Hitler opposed birth control. He envisaged a trouble-free expansion of population and competition between individuals for survival. In such a case, only healthy and strong individuals will survive. On the other hand, birth control brings to life fewer individuals and the drive to save feeble and diseased creatures will become strong. A worthless generation of human progeny will result. Here, direct traces of eugenics can be seen. He also puts forward early marriages as an alternative to prostitution and the venereal diseases it brings about. He intends that the only meaning of marriage is the increasing and maintaining the human species and the race. 

As we know, Hitler's downfall was directly caused by his rabid ideas on racial superiority and anti-Semitism. He describes about his early experiences with Jews in a way he interacted with an animal. In school, he knew a Jewish boy but all were 'on their guard in their relations with him'. In a disgusting narrative, Hitler evaluates the Jewish community in his home town of Linz. He finds that over the centuries the Jews 'had become Europeanized in external appearance and were so much like other human beings'. He reminisces that in Vienna, he looked at anti-Semitic newspapers with disgust. Then he changes track and blurts out that they 'do not wash and the odour of these people would make him sick'. He accuses them of dominating the press and theatre and vilifying the German nation while praising the virtues of the racially mixed French nation. Marxism is claimed to be a handiwork of the Jews that would bring only disaster to people who follow it. Again, he blames the Jews of lacking any sense of working for ideals and to sacrifice one's life for the society. The absence of a Jewish state in the world (at that time!) is construed as proof of this accusation. According to Hitler, the highest aim of human existence is not the maintenance of a state or government but the conservation of the race. The world is not there to be possessed by faint-hearted, inferior races. Results of inter-racial breeding are said to be that the level of the superior race becomes lowered and physical and mental degeneration sets in in the offspring. In order to preserve a certain culture, the type of manhood that creates such a culture must be preserved. 

In the second part of the narrative, Hitler expounds on the core philosophy of the National Socialist movement and the required changes in German foreign policy if his party came to power. He proposes colonization and exploitation of other nations to enrich his. He argues that vast, uncultivated open spaces all around the globe are not to be held unutilized in reserve for the future. Such land awaits people who have the strength to acquire it. Instead of looking for colonies in Africa and Asia and thereby antagonizing England, he advocates colonization of exploitable farm land in Russia in alliance with England. He is willing to sacrifice German navy if that would please England to remain in league with them. Hitler believes Nordic whites to constitute the Aryan race and imagines it to be superior to all others in the world. He postulates that every manifestation of human culture, every product of art, science and technical skill was almost exclusively the product of the Aryan creative power. He then finds the culturally rich Asian communities contradicting his hypothesis and retorts that the culture that is seen in Asian societies was created by Aryans who intermingled with them and got degenerated. The other races serve the purpose of the horse, to bring mechanical power to the creative enterprise of the Aryans. Whenever he talks about race, he brings in the Jew and claims that as long as a people remain racially pure and are conscious of the treasure of their blood, they can never be overcome by the Jew. A state is not an end; it is only a means to preserve the human race which has the potential to build a culture through the innate qualities pertaining to that race and bitterly complain that the then existing German state was not based on a uniform racial type. The Swastika in the Nazi flag signified the mission to struggle for the victory of the Aryan race.

Hitler often stresses on the Weltanschauung of the Nazi movement which can loosely be approximated as 'worldview'. It recognizes the significance of race and personal worth rather than collective work. It is interesting to have a glance at his future targets. The parliamentarian principle will be expurgated and personal responsibility will be substituted in its stead. For this to happen, the best brains (Aryans) should reach a position of dominant importance and influence in the community. Parliament can still be accommodated by restricting its role to an advisory council instead of decision making. The responsibility can and must be borne by one individual, who alone will be vested with authority and the right to command. Hitler seems to be exasperated with the presence of intellectuals in political movements and wants workers who blindly follow the leader. He suggests that a political movement will not be very effective in fighting if it were made up exclusively of intellectuals. He diligently balances the Protestant and Catholic elements in German society and admonishes each from attacking the other. In a chilling evocation of the eugenic spirit, Hitler advocates forced sterilizing of syphilitics, those suffering from tuberculosis or hereditary diseases, cripples and imbeciles. His advice for such people is to adopt healthy children and raise them as worthy of the 'race'. Hitler is full of ideas on how to change the school curriculum to reflect his party's goals. Science subjects need not be given special focus but emphasis must be made on subjects such as ancient history in such a way that the concept of 'race' is clearly brought out. Physical training should be made mandatory for all children. It should extend to a minimum of two hours per day with special encouragement for practising boxing. People who have a beautiful physique should be brought into the foreground, so that they might encourage the development of a beautiful bodily form among the people in general. The book also exposes Hitler's real opinion on the freedom movements then going in European colonies in Asia and Africa, India being a prominent case. Several leaders had gone to Germany to seek and enlist its assistance because Germany was the biggest rival to Britain. An organization called the 'League of Oppressed Nations' came into being, which requested the German intelligentsia for support. Hitler describes such people as charlatans who had no backing at home and not authorized by anybody. He advises not to waste time meeting such people and goes on to predict that England will never lose India unless it admits racial disruption in her administrative machinery in India or if it was overcome by some other nation in a war. He further adds that as a German, he'd prefer to see India under British domination than under that of any other country. 

The narrative is so impersonal as to feel like it was written by a propaganda machine. The party and its wicked ideology are the only two motivating factors as far as Hitler was concerned. He quotes from classical works occasionally to prove a point but these are few and far between. The text overflows with ideas and the entire book can be thought of as a long speech with an adoring audience in front of the orator. He puts forward several theories as if they are well-accepted principles but are in fact nothing more than Hitler's half-baked whims. No evidence from history is cited for any of the arguments. It seems that he enjoyed his military service in World War I and cherished his frontline experience on the battlefield, by providing glowing and nostalgic memories of the fighting. The book includes several rare photographs of Hitler depicting various episodes in his life. The book is mediocre and the expressed ideas stand unproven. It is nothing better than 581 pages of hallucinating rant.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star