Mein Kampf

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic
Review: i find this book the best book i have ever read, i think it includes some fasinating points and lines. I would reccomend it anyone who is open-minded and is prepared to let there "anti-racist, hate hitler" views go out of the window while you read it. Forget who it was written by for a minute if u dissaprove of the man and you will come to realise wat i mean.

Rating:
Summary: question
Review: Does anyone know where the procedes from this book are going to?

Rating:
Summary: Just FYI....
Review: I can't stand it when people post reviews which point out factual errors made by other reviewers, as this is usually done to show off their own knowledge rather than out of any charitable impulse to correct a wrong. That having been said, I have to do just that the two official Amazon reviews of this book posted at the top, one or both by Sunny Delaney, who should have checked the facts before posting them as such.

The original July 18, 1925 release of "Mein Kampf" was not a failure as stated. In point of fact this first printing of 10,000 hardback books sold 9, 473 copies in less than six months, despite a depressed economy and a relatively high price of 12 marks. If the printing had been a failure, Munich publisher Franz Eher would never have ordered a second in 1926. The second edition was in fact a disappointment, sales dropping off sharply in following years, and it was not until the Nazis gained significantly more momentum in Germany years later that additional editions were ordered. However, it is recorded that Hitler gained a substantial, if temporary, income from royalties of his book, and it may have financed or partially financed the 28,000-mark Mercedes-Benz he bought when released from Landsberg prison.

I understand that most people cannot even fake objectivity about Hitler as a historical figure because of the things he did and set in motion, but that is not an excuse for getting the facts wrong. "Mein Kampf" was by no means a runaway success, but neither was it a failure. It neither fulfilled the lofty expectations Hitler had for it nor flopped on its face as so many of his critics (and there were many, even in 1925) hoped. Hitler, as it happened, had no respect for objective truth and bent it to suit his purposes and his whims; in studying his life, career, and beliefs, we have an obligation to do the exact opposite and get the facts straight. There are enough myths, legends, and outright lies about this crucially important figure of modern history told every day without committing any more of them to print.

Rating:
Summary: Mein Kampf
Review: Many people claim that was the worst of human kind. I could not disagree more. Adolf Hitler was a genius with a clear sense of historical, social and political knowledge. He had to fight the jew controlled establihment early on his life and knew that the liberal lies where just that, i.e., lies. Whilst it is true that he is not a writer in the realm of either Donne, Milton, Dante or Shakespeare; one would be an idiot not to realize true genius when it stares one right in the eye. His knowledge in many fields is astounding and he writes verily like a scholar and a deep thinker. This book, i.e., Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler (Introduction), Ralph Manheim (Author), should be read by people whom are not affraid of the truth behind the jewish lies and deceit and want to know the true nature and spirit of one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century. Even though I find his occult ideas very troubling and his cult of personality smacks of heresey one can cleary see that their is a genius residing in that mind. A genius tainted by Satan and his minions , yet a genius. Yet Shakespeare wrote that one can smile and smile and still be a villain.

Rating:
Summary: Let Hitler speak for himself
Review: The edition of MEIN KAMPF I am reviewing here is the Murphy translation, different from the Manaheim translation which can be purchased in most book stores. It has this grainy, purple-colored picture of Hitler on the front in a Nazi uniform, and the spine is bright yellow with the title written in massive red letters. Most of the people who condemn this book so harshly probably did not read it, and have only a superficial, media-produced idea of what National Socialism/Nazism was all-about. Ho-hum--So self-righteous, so sanctimonious.

The style of MEIN KAMPF is very drawn out and highly technical and detailed, presented in the form of an autiobiographical, philosphical, political, social and quasi-spiritual diatribe. The prevailing theme of much of the first part is Hitler's frustration with the military alliance between Germany and Austria-Hungary. He felt that the Germans should all live in one country, rather than there being a Germany and an empire ruled by Germans (the Austro-Hungarian Empire) over various ethnic groups in Eastern Europe. I don't consider myself any kind authority on this period of time in the late 19th and early 20th century in central Europe, but some type of understanding of the political structure in place in Austria-Hungary and Germany is necessary to understand what Hitler is talking about, otherwise it will just seem like endless rambling. Hitler writes about his expiriences in WWI, and praises the heroism of the German army in the conflict. Germany not only held off both Britain and France on the Western Front, but was also free to battle at will with its enemies on the east and south, and (until 1918 before Marxist inspired workers' strikes), maintain the upper hand. Hitler analyzes the use of propaganda between the two sides and concludes that the Allies had the upper hand in influencing morale for their cause. Britain was especially successful in portraying the Germans as the 'Huns' who committed terrible atrocites so that the Allied troops would not be as shocked going into the war as the German soldiers were, whose propaganda portrayed the Allies as silly weaklings, which was obviously not true. Hitler understood well the workings of propaganda and how it can be used as a soft-core form of government mind-control. There is nothing different from Hitler's description and use of it and how it is used by the news and entertainment media in America today.

There are many anti-Jewish statements strewn throughout MEIN KAMPF, but they are not so much to be as shocking as many would think. The 'anti-Semitism' is more assumed than explained, but the explanation involves the Nazi theory of a three-tiered racial makup of mankind which determines human interaction between cultural and religious groups. The "founders of culture" are the mythical Aryans. All ancient cultural, religious and other developments can be traced to them, even though Hitler never explains who they are, or how they could be related to Germans. The "preservers of culture" are those who got culture from the Aryans, but stagnated after the Aryans interbreeded with those of lesser racial stock. The only apparent "preservers of culture" that Hitler mentions here are the Japanese. The Jews are the "destroyers of culture." Hitler criticizes them for using their religion to justify a racial-preservation group tactic. Hitler does not cite any sources as to where he got this information, and MEIN KAMPF generally relies on the readers' percieved, innate, subjective insight regarding racial and social issues. Throughout are descriptions of the state controlled eugenic social policies that would be in place once the Nazis gained power in Germany.

The last third or so of the book is dedicated to retelling the story of the National Socialist Movement and especially Hitler's personal perspectives and recollections on it. Highlited are the Nazi organizational sturcture and its struggles against the Marxists.

Rating:
Summary: Complete Rubbish, But By All Means A Must Read
Review: What can one say. The person responsible for so much misery in the world. Who never contributed a single positive thing to the life of anyone. Why read his book? Well there is more here than meets the eye:

1) It is really impossible to understand the historical angnst gnawing at the entrails of a future mass murderer without knowing what motivated him. Hitler is the repository of every hatred and scapegoat idea that ever oppressed the mind of a human being or a nation (see present day Serbia).

2) It allows one to look at the future blue-print of destruction for Europe. Although nothing was inevitable about the Holocaust and destruction of European Jewry (until Hitler and his henchmen made it happen), it is amazing how much detail and rough blueprint emerges from his turgid prose.

3) It is conspiracy theory par excellance and shows how conspiracy theorists are able to take simple facts and inuendo and then turn them into mass edifices of supposed belief --- it is in fact the very antithesis of logical, scientific thinking.

4) It shows how, in extreme form (along with Stalin and Pol Pot et al), how people can be regarded by the leader as theory fodder: eager to advance a grand idea of German domination and racial purity (whatever that is?) ---- willing to pound people into theory and crush the lives of individuals, including women and children, under the wheels of history, all in the name of warped conspiratorial views of the world.

5) It is useful as a litmus test in benchmarking populist of today, from Mr. Pym Fortune to Pat Buchanan to Neo nationalists in China, Russia and the new Naziism of Jean Mari LePen. Of course, all are not the same. Some are more malevolent than others, but Mein Kampf offers a test in warped thinking and clearly allows one to make a distinction between the ideas of a populist and those of a megolomaniac.

----

I have had a copy of this book since I was 11 at my house. Of course I did not know how to interpret it when I was young --- it was a mere book written by an evil man. It is still a mere book written by an Evil Man, but it allows us insight in unmasking Evil and knowing its various guises. Mostly it allows us to judge between when people are engaging in merely shoddy thinking and when their thoughts turn evil.

Rating:
Summary: Dizzying, rambling... but possibly very important
Review: In order to give any clear review for Mein Kampf it is necessary to attempt to read it as just another book by just another theoretician. While this eventually became untrue, viewing it this way helps to see it as it was initially encountered, which in turn may help us to understand how it went from long political diatribe to near-eternal infamy.

If we do that, here is what we discover. Adolf Hitler's long tome is not unintelligent. One could, in fact, make a list of quotations from Mein Kampf that are easy to agree with. This is due to the fact that in exploring his ideas Hitler touches on many areas of human and even natural experience. In doing so he states many things which would be difficult to not call truisms.

Yet in investigating this philosophy Hitler makes errors that perhaps it is easier for us to see in our time, but might have been harder when this was published. In describing human structures, Hitler is quick to designate terms that he feels he can pigeon-hole people into. Given his racial views this might not be surprising, but without that assistance, it might not be as easy to note his logical flaw when, for example, he divides activists into idealists and politicans; though he acknowledges that occasionally one is both, what he fails to notice is that the line between the two is not nearly as easily definable as he thinks it is.

Besides his use of this belief system as it relates to race, his tendency to do this extends to the rest of his writing. Mein Kampf is packed with various lists that Hitler feels can describe different phenomena. The more he lists, however, the more that you see someone in love with his own self-created systems than with any desire to map them accurately to reality. This is in spite of the fact that Hitler spends a good portion of the first 1/5 of the book discussing the evolution in his views as his old opinions fell in the face of adult-acquired evidence.

There is also a problem for the non-German reader in that Hitler spends a good amount of time focusing on specific words that appear to drive the debates of his time, the same way that the fight over words such as "liberal" or "alternative" defines ours. So when Hitler describes the battle for proper use of the word "folkish" to describe his utopian state, most lack the social history necessary to even fully understand his points, let alone judge his accuracy in describing them.

So the question comes: do you need to read this? That's not easy to answer. At roughly 700 pages with highly complex sentences that often go to more than 10 lines, Mein Kampf is a very difficult read. On the other hand, because we now know of the nightmare Hitler unleashed on the world, it is natural to want to read this to find out where he went wrong so we can avoid these problems in the future.

For people who feel that way, I would answer this "yes", as the answer for this is more hidden than you might guess. If you get into this with the mindset that you will find a one-to-one correlation of his philosophy to those of some modern-day leader or party, you'll be in for a surprise. Elements of right and wrong are interspersed all over Hitler's rambling. That makes it even harder to work through, but it also provides a reward more fulfilling than any black-and-white rallying cry. And given that that was the kind of world that Hitler saw, and we now know the results of these ideals, that might be all the more reason to put the effort in and understand with more maturity and clarity exactly where Hitler missed the point.

Rating:
Summary: Mein Kampf
Review: I am in the process of reading Mein Kampf and am nearing the end. I have found that the book is useful for the purposes of understanding Adolf Hitler as a person. I have also found out by reading the book that Adolf Hitler was not a hypocrit, and nearly all ramblings on did come to light.
In addition, I felt that the most interesting thing about the book was that Hitler knew that in order to have a National Socialist State he needed to introduce his policies to every person by making them first nature to all Germans and so that they, particularly younger people, would know little different. In effect, it would be the uniting foundation to their existence, all sharing and striving for one ideal over personal greed. These are just the hollow ideas, not the reality as it turned out.

Rating:
Summary: pass the advil
Review: hmmm...this book reads like a madman's amphetamine-driven rants. read it AFTER you read "rise and fall of the third reich" by william shirer, ian kershaw's 2-volume hitler biography, and shakespeare's "richard III."

Rating:
Summary: Better than anyone will admit
Review: I have just spent some time reading this book for the first time, and I can only come to the conclusion that most of the reviews of this book are written by people who have not read the book.

Hitler makes profoundly accurate indictments of modern internationalism and anti-culture. For anyone who has some understanding of how empty our modern culture is, this book will have a great deal of meaning.

The Jewish Question is a rather minor point in this book, and contrary to popular belief you will find no evidence for the Holocaust in Mein Kampf.

Overall, this book is not about Racism, but cultural unity. Race is perhaps a part of cultural unity but Hitler does not argue such a point in the way most would think. In this modern era of anti-internationalism known as anti-globalization, you will find in this work the first thorough criticism of the obliteration of group culture both in economics and art.

I find Hitler's writing style to be very personal, and genuine. Despite whatever one may think of his conclusions, he writes with a passion that is rare. In the future, this book will be much more appreciated as it was the first articulated reaction to our modern times. One thing is absolutely certain, the path humanity is currently following will ultimately fail. This book is an early attempt to explain why human existence is much more than having food, clothing, and shelter.