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Adolf Hitler: Mein Kampf

Beer good,
Thanks for the correction and clarification of the two dates. For Pol Pot the information was all new to me.
So thanks on both counts, :)
Peder
 
Keks said:
I think he just hated himself and that took part in his ideology: his gandmother was a jew, he wasn't blonde and blue-eyed, and rumors also say he was gay. So he himself would have been one of the first ones to be executed!!
Did you know he wanted to become a painter? He tried several times to be accepted at a art-school in Vienna, but he always was dismissed. That really frustrated him and he took part in World War I. I think that's been the time when he developped his ideas.
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I agree.
I was also aware of his dream of painting, which was quite shocking when I first heard of it. You think of painting, along with any other art form, as a means of expressing the flaws with society, not encouraging them. I was not surprised to hear that he wasn't especially gifted.
As for World War I, yes, he was a soldier. He was very upset about the Versaille (sp?) Treaty as a young man, and wanted to take revenge on Allied powers. I suppose that an attempt to take over the world was good enough to satisfy his hate.
 
Peder said:
It does happen doesn't it?
In the case of Hitler, to stay more or less on topic, it seems to me that he came to power by one process but stayed in power by another. He came to power, as far as I can tell -- and I would be very glad to hear from anyone who knows better -- very roughly speaking by being an effective (and deceptive) politician and appealing to reasonably legitimate needs and desires of the electorate (relief of severe economic distress, desire for national autonomy, freedom from 'foreign' interference). He did not overtly campaign on the measures that he instituted once he became Chancellor, (concentration camps, mass exterminations, dictatorship, world war). Once elected, he abrogated legitimate democracy and progressively gathered power to himself until he no longer needed support of the people in any democratic sense. He instituted an illegal and criminal government that depended on violent and deadly force, is the best way I can summarize it in very broad terms. And some of his followers were quite cynical about it, saying that after they were elected to power then they would seize power. Through it all, he relied on what was called The Big Lie -- repeating lies over and over again until people came to accept them.
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It's basically right what you said, but I think it wasn't just because of Hitler or because of the electorate. From 1919 on there had been the Weimar Republic, a very weak state. It often said it's been a republic without republicans. There had always been attempts from both right-winged and left-winged extremists to take over the power. (also Hitler tried once in 1923, but I failed and he was imprisoned) But after Black Friday in 1929 it became even worse: economy and everything broke down and the government wasn't authorized by the people anymore. They ruled by emergency decrees. Between 1929 and 1933 there were 5 diffrent governments. The government was dependent on the Reichspräsident Hindenburg (He also appointed Hitler in 1933), he was very old and very influenceable. That's why in 1933 von Papen (a former chancellor) convinced him to appoint Hitler. But they didn't expect him to become that powerful, they didn't agree with his ideas and thought they will be able to control him.
Hitler was appointed the 31.1.1933 and until july 1933 he disposed very thing: parliament, parties, labor unions... . But everything he did until then was legal! The parliament agreed to the law that included their disorganization. And when Hindenburg died in 1934 there was nothing left to stop him.
Sorry it's become a bit long:eek: , but can't stop myself in terms of history! It's my second obsession (after reading of course!):D :D
What I wanted to show is, there are serveral other reasons for Hitler's takeover, too:
- the constitution of the Weimar Republic (power of Reichspräsident etc.)
- Versailles (it always burdened the republic, especially the war reparations and the article that declared that Germany was fully reponsible for World War I)
- and of course special people like HIndenburg and von Papen
 
Keks,
Many thanks for posting that very nice amplification. From what I see in the histories over here, everything you say seems fairly well agreed upon. My own minor observation, also, would be that Hitler was shrewd, wily and crafty enough to know how to capitalize on those sources of disaffection for his own benefit.
Which would you say have been the book or books that have given you the greatest insight into the time? Or perhaps confirmed your own knowledge? Though it is not an obsession of mine, it is definitely a topic of interest. And, of course, without close personal knowledge, either then or now, reading is the only thing available to me here.
Cordially,
Peder
 
Sorry, Peder, but it can't give you any advice really! These were all things I learned at school, as history has been one of my main subjects and I didn't bother much about reading books on this topic, because my head had already been crammed with facts and dates. (but I will have to start to so so soon, as school's over now and there's nobody left to tell me more!!!:D ) Well, and then I got to know much through documentations, exhibitions and newspaper articles
The second thing is the few books I read were in german and I think it will be difficult to get them in english! One that was really fascinating was "Des Teufels Werkstatt" by Adolf Burger, it's about his time in a concentration camp, but he wasn't a "normal" prisoner: he had to copy money for the Nazis.
 
Keks said:
Sorry, Peder, but it can't give you any advice really! These were all things I learned at school, as history has been one of my main subjects and I didn't bother much about reading books on this topic, because my head had already been crammed with facts and dates. (but I will have to start to so so soon, as school's over now and there's nobody left to tell me more!!!:D ) Well, and then I got to know much through documentations, exhibitions and newspaper articles
The second thing is the few books I read were in German and I think it will be difficult to get them in English! One that was really fascinating was "Des Teufels Werkstatt" by Adolf Burger, it's about his time in a concentration camp, but he wasn't a "normal" prisoner: he had to copy money for the Nazis.
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Keks,
Well, yours is valuable source knowledge that I'll never have. In my case the events were just too recent to have made it into the history books for school and, back then, my interests were in other directions. So now I just read. However, perhaps I might add a few mentions I came across related to the so-called "Table Conversations" of Hitler, which sound like further first-hand records of what he said and thought.. Unfortunately for me they are in German (and my few years of study are not that good) but they might have interest for you. Or perhaps you are probably already aware of them. In any event they come from John Lukacs' "The Hitler of History," p.47, a book of historiography which focuses on several major questions.
1.Max Dornarus, ed. "Hitler, Reden und Proklamationen 1932-1945" Munich 1965
2.Henry Picker, his stenographer, Bonn 1951, 1953
3.Heinrich Heim, "Adolf Hitler: Monologe im Fuehrerhauptquartier 1941-1944, ed. Werner Jochmann, Hamburg, 1980
4.Werner Koeppen manuscript in Institut fur Zeitgeschichte
5.Walter Hewel notes, used by David Irving, 1977,"an unrepentant admirer of Hitler"[!], n. Lukacs p26

I wish you every good fortune in your studies in this area,
Peder
 
This is interesting: George Orwell reviews Mein Kampf in 1940.

I should like to put it on record that I have never been able to dislike Hitler. Ever since he came to power — till then, like nearly everyone, I had been deceived into thinking that he did not matter — I have reflected that I would certainly kill him if I could get within reach of him, but that I could feel no personal animosity. The fact is that there is something deeply appealing about him. One feels it again when one sees his photographs — and I recommend especially the photograph at the beginning of Hurst and Blackett’s edition, which shows Hitler in his early Brownshirt days. It is a pathetic, dog-like face, the face of a man suffering under intolerable wrongs. In a rather more manly way it reproduces the expression of innumerable pictures of Christ crucified, and there is little doubt that that is how Hitler sees himself. The initial personal cause of his grievance against the universe can only be guessed at; but at any rate the grievance is there. He is the martyr, the victim. Prometheus chained to the rock, the self-sacrificing hero who fights single-handed against impossible odds. If he were killing a mouse he would know how to make it seem like a dragon. One feels, as with Napoleon, that he is fighting against destiny, that he can’t win, and yet that he somehow deserves to. The attraction of such a pose is of course enormous; half the films that one sees turn upon some such theme.
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Something to that, I think; the concept of the underdog, the martyr, the oppressed being righteous is deeply ingrained in us, and easy for a clever demagogue to exploit.
Hitler, because in his own joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that human beings don’t only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags and loyalty-parades.
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Good thing he's the only one who ever saw that, eh? :innocent:
 
That was a very interesting review and I actually agreed with a lot of it.

This reminds me I need to revisit the Documentation Center in Nürnberg.
 
Yeah; in retrospect it's easy to dismiss Hitler as an anomaly, an obvious madman, but it's important to remember that up until about 1940 or so, a lot of people both inside and outside Germany were genuinely charmed by him; nobody ever got elected by people who thought they were voting for the bad guys. (Not that Hitler ever was elected by a majority, but still.) And it rings a bit hollow to say "Never again" while people using the same tactics (if not with the same exact goals) still get elected all over the world today.
 
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