There’s a bit of a dustup happening in German publishing circles over Adolf Hitler’s autobiography, Mein Kampf (My Struggle). The book’s copyright is set to expire on the 70th anniversary of its publication.
There are two contending points of view on the Nazi leader’s book: It should be left to disappear into the waters of history, or revived as a historical artifact — if only as an instructional resource for the world on How Not to Think and Behave.
Mein Kampf is one of the greatest bestsellers of all time, selling between more than 12 million copies between 1924 and 1945 in over 1,000 editions, according to the CBC.
Hitler is commonly described as a monster, yet he wasn’t from another planet or the Earth’s core. And with fascism resurgent in Europe, the man should be remembered for more than just wrecking the brush moustache for hipsters. In other words, it’s worthwhile to understand where his all-too-human rage came from.
I’ve never seen Mein Kampf in a bookstore or library, so I went onto the web to seek out a pdf version in English online. It wasn’t hard to find.
Browsing through this disturbing artifact, I half-expected to find some convoluted rationalizations for Hitler’s racial hatred. But no. The author claimed he never even heard the word “Jew” in school or at home. His father was a “cosmopolitan,” which affected his son’s viewpoint “to some extent,” he wrote. “Likewise at school I found no occasion which could have led me to change this inherited picture.”
What follows is a classic study of psychological projection, with Hitler railing on about Jews in a frenzy of hatred. He follows this with, almost comically, “Gradually I began to hate them.” (He doesn’t appeal to that infamous Czarist-era forgery, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” until page 223.)
Growing up in the wreckage of post-First World War Germany, the boy grew into a failed painter with an overwhelming sense of victimization.
Following a failed putsch in 1923, he dictated Mein Kampf to his deputy Rudolf Hess while in jail.
With the publication of Volume 1 in 1925, the upwardly mobile demagogue found millions of sympathetic readers, and millions of others who averted their eyes as one unthinkable event leapfrogged another in Germany, including Hitler’s crowning as Fuhrer of the “Thousand Year Reich.”
Many variables were involved in the rise of 20th century European fascism, but economic hardship stoked the flames. All it took was a simple formula of skin colour, religious belief, and ethnic tradition for propagandists to misidentify the sources of trouble.
As the Frankfurt-born psychoanalyst Eric Fromm explained in his 1941 book, Escape From Freedom, when the German middle class were confronted with chaotic economic and social circumstances, many among them were prepared to abdicate democratic representation for a strongman promising to restore order by flushing out enemies within the “Fatherland.”
Hitler’s genocidal regime is only a few generations back, a mere blip in historical time. And now that the postwar period of economic growth has stalled in the industrialized democracies, and disparities between rich and poor are reaching 19th century levels, the global petri dish is again host to the fascist bacillus.
Whether it’s the racist party Golden Dawn in Greece, the radical nationalist party Jobbik in Hungary, the extreme-right party Front National in France or the neo-Nazi militias rampaging through Ukraine, these and other movements owe some of their political DNA to 20th century goose-stepping.
And many are no longer marginal in political influence.
We now hear echoes across Europe of Hitler’s enthusiasm for ethnic cleansing — including a particular animus for the Roma people (Gypsies). The one place with a notable absence of racial hatred is Germany.
Let’s not forget the institutionalized racism just across our border. The U.S. has only three per cent of the world’s population but holds 25 per cent of the world’s prisoners. There are 7.6 times more black inmates in the U.S. prison population than white inmates, even though African-Americans constitute only 10 per cent of the entire population.
According to a 2008 study by Common Core, nearly a quarter of American 17-year-olds surveyed “could not identify Adolf Hitler; 10 per cent think he was a munitions manufacturer.”
Let the Reich Fuhrer’s disturbing autobiography disappear into history? It’s a tough call, but I think not.
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