Maris Tiller
FSEM – Forbidden Texts
09/24/2021
Mein Kampf is a terribly written piece of pure white nationalist propaganda whose ideas have sadly not entirely gone away since its publication. Hitler is a poor writer, technically speaking, but he certainly knows what he’s doing. His goal is not to write an excellent piece of political literature. At least, I do not not think it is and if that was what he was going for, well, he failed. But Hitler’s goal in writing this book was to inspire his ideas in others, not to write a book praised by scholars for its insight and wonderful prose. He hates scholars, after all; they would only deconstruct his ideas until there was nothing left at all.
Hitler is very hypocritical throughout this work in a way that makes it a very confusing read. His talk of Jews brainwashing children in schools contradicts his own goals of indoctrinating children into nationalist thought because they are “mirrors of loyalty”. He talks of how democracy is bad because the masses are stupid and vote against their best interest, then says that intellectuals and the government look down on other people and that’s why they’re bad. A lot of the text also echoes similar sentiments as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, down to the strange understanding of what Judaism and Marxism are. I have no doubt reading this that Hitler was very much influenced by anti-semitic thought of his time, including the Protocols.
In the chapters I was assigned (one and two), Hitler lays out his thoughts pretty clearly from the beginning. He’s a nationalist who longs to “restore” Germany to its former glory. Which is weird because he’s Austrian, but whatever. He also outlines his early life including his childhood and early adulthood where he started to develop his ideas which he curses us with throughout. There were a few things that stuck out to me in these chapters (which you can read in my posted notes on the chapters), especially the things which foreshadowed what Hitler would eventually do with his power. For example, he talks of how children are models of patriotism and should be taught about the glory of their nation young as they are “mirrors of loyalty”. To me, this foreshadowed the formation of the Hitler Youth. He also talks about the “poison of foreign races” and the danger of the Jews and other races who will be the downfall of Germany. His goal is clearly outlined in these first few chapters: to create a singular race of Germans which will be the salvation of the nation, and the fact that he feels the need to still go one for 500 more pages about this is absolutely ridiculous.