Mein Kampf-- opinions please

[A.J. Zawadzki]

Abebooks is always a good place to check. Here's the link - starting with the most expensive current listing:

hitler - mein kampf - AbeBooks

Regards,
Tony

[Wagriff]

It's in crummy condition anyway-you can do Way better. Just keep your eyes out and a Decent one will come along. William

Another good source is "bookfinder.com" and...the much dreaded eBay,of course!

[António Fragoeiro]

Thank you all.
Weitze is also a good place to get them. Has them at several diferent prices.
Cheers.
Nuno

https://www.weitze.net/detail/63/Mei..._167863_e.html

https://www.weitze.net/detail/34/Mei..._158634_e.html

[KRISSE]

Nope, US is more expensive then EU!!!

[KRISSE]

I payed 85€ for mine...

[Franz1944]

It depends on what you buy, most German stuff is cheaper from Europe. Exchange rate extra

[big ned]

I wonder how many members have actually read 'Mein Kampf'. Myself and several other lads ordered it through a book supplier at school in around 1980-81 and paid a fair amount for it too if I recall, much to the chagrin of our teacher and librarian, the left leaning Mr. Anderton.

Obviously it was an english translation, and to be honest, the most dissapointing book and biggest waste of money to a handful of schoolboys since the 'Club International Linda Carter Special' that I purchased with same callow youths on a school trip to Copenhagen in 1979.

The best summing up of it I have personally read was by Sir Winston Churchill in his book 'The Gathering Storm', and is a far more riveting tome to boot. Here are the points he highlighted in 'Mein Kampf', and Hitler's mindset in general.

*Man is a fighting animal; therefore the nation, being a community of fighters, is a fighting unit.
*Any living organism which ceases to fight for its existence is doomed to extinction.
*A country or race which ceases to fight is equally doomed. The fighting capacity of a race depends on its purity. Hence the need for ridding it of foreign defilements.
*The Jewish race, owing to its universality, is of necessity pacifist and internationalist. Pacifism is the deadliest sin; for it means the surrender of the race in the fight for existence.
*The first duty of every country is therefore to nationalise the masses; intelligence in the case of the individual is not of first importance; will and determination are the prime qualities.
*The individual who is born to command is more valuable than countless thousands of subordinate natures.
*Only brute force can ensure the survival of the race; hence the necessity for military forms.
*The race must fight; a race that rests must rust and perish. Had the German race been united in good time, it would have been already master of the globe.
*The new Reich must gather within its fold all the scattered German elements in Europe.
*A race which has suffered defeat can be rescued by restoring its self-confidence.
*Above all things the Army must be taught to believe in its own invincibility.
*To restore the German nation, the people must be convinced that the recovery of freedom by force of arms is possible.
*The aristocratic principle is fundamentally sound. Intellectualism is undesirable.
*The ultimate aim of education is to produce a German who can be converted with the minimum of training into a soldier.
*The greatest upheavals in history would have been unthinkable had it not been for the driving force of fanatical and hysterical passions.
*Nothing could have been effected by the bourgeois virtues of peace and order.
*The world is now moving towards such an upheaval, and the new German State must see to it that the race is ready for the last and greatest decisions on this earth.
*Foreign policy may be unscrupulous.
*It is not the task of diplomacy to allow a nation to founder heroically, but rather to see that it can prosper and survive.
*England and Italy are the only two possible allies for Germany. No country will enter into an alliance with a cowardly pacifist state run by democrats and Marxists.
*So long as Germany does not fend for herself, nobody will fend for her.
*Her lost provinces cannot be regained by solemn appeals to Heaven or by pious hopes in the League of Nations, but only by force of arms.
*Germany must not repeat the mistake of fighting all her enemies at once.
*She must single out the most dangerous and attack him with all her forces.
*The world will only cease to be anti-German when Germany recovers equality of rights and resumes her place in the sun.
*There must be no sentimentality about Germany’s foreign policy.
*To attack France for purely sentimental reasons would be foolish.
*What Germany needs is increase of territory in Europe.
*Germany’s pre-war colonial policy was a mistake and should be abandoned.
*Germany must look for expansion to Russia and especially to the Baltic States.
*No alliance with Russia can be tolerated. To wage war together with Russia against the West would be criminal, for the aim of the Soviets is the triumph of international Judaism.

These points that Churchill highlighted are merely a small part of Hitler's book, and how many here have even bothered to read all or any of them??? How many collectors feel the need to own a copy of Hitler's, ahem...,singular thoughts, yet have not a clue as to the content and authors thoughts and idealism??? Quite a lot it appears, but for what reason??? So you can lay claim to owning a period copy of his thoughts on the 'improvement' of 'Greater Germany'. But if engaged as such, could you keep your end up....??? Probably not, so why bother yourselves buying a book that you will never read...."Because it's there"....??? Maybe it's me, but I don't get the point, and I've read it.....

Regards, Ned.

[Wagriff]

It's been 40 years or more since I read Mein Kampf and it nearly killed me to finish it. Either Hitler(or Hess) was a horribly monotonous writer, or else the translation I found was done by a gorilla. It starts out very promising and interesting and quickly evolves into a droning wooden style of writing that challenges "The Red Badge of Courage" or "Siddartha" for most unreadable book of the 20th century. I can just picture the faces of all the "good Germans" who received one of these masterpieces as a wedding or other occasion gift from some well-meaning friends or family. It must have been like the proverbial "4 slice Chromed Wedding Toaster". There must have been aLot of subtle rolling of eyes and sighing as they carefully but prominently placed it on their shelf where everyone could See that they had a copy of it....where it remained untouched until the Instant the war was over. William