To begin, the chapters I was supposed to read were Chapters 1-4, but I ended up skipping between chapters because of how long the first 4 chapters were, where others were much shorter. Along with that I read the introduction, and I wanted to start off with some things that caught my attention form the introduction.
The first thing that surprised me was finding out that Hitler’s dad was an illegitimate child. This fact interested me so much because this means that it is a possibility that Hitler’s grandfather was Jewish. This fact is very ironic because it is quite possible that he hated the blood that possibly ran through him. Another fact that ties into the introduction, is the fact that Hitler lies a lot in this text. They aren’t huge lies, but it gives off the vibe of a pathological liar because the topics he lies about are topics that don’t matter all so much. For example, he did well in school before “Realschule,” but during Realschule he did not do very well at all. He wasn’t stupid, but it was the fact that he didn’t try and was a lazy student. In his writing from himself, he describes himself as being very smart in history, but in actuality his grades did not show that this was true. This is one of many small lies that just don’t make sense in my opinion, but I guess Hitler wasn’t the most normal person ever.
Chapters 1 and 2 also caught my attention in the fact that Hitler came off to me as very entitled and narcissistic. In one instance on page 15 he describes himself as a “political revolutionary” and an “artistic revolutionary” at a young age. This just does not seem very true, and comes off as very narcissistic. I saw a sense of entitlement from Hitler when he describes the instance where his dad sends him to Realschule in hopes of turning Hitler away from his passion to pursue art. Hitler counters this by failing classes that he wants to fail in spite of his father. He thinks that this will help him later in life when he “becomes” a painter. Lastly, towards the end of chapter 1, the idea of nationalism and how strong Hitler believed in nationalism also came into play.
In conclusion, this book was a very interesting perspective, and the way Hitler wrote it almost gives off the feeling that Hitler made it through such a “rough” childhood and still “prevailed.”