Hitler was not a man of letters; he was a natural, golden-tongued orator.
Hitler was not a man of letters; he was a natural, golden-tongued orator.
I refer you to:Originally Posted by Alexander III
You said all Germans of the time were mentally ill. StLukes listed a number of Germans who were quite brilliant. Where did that trip you up, exactly?
Well, the German language doesn't lend itself to being 'golden tongued'. However, Hitler's 'Hochdeutsch' was brilliantly used to express his contempt for those who had remained in power since 1918 and had by their timidity reduced parts of Germany to starvation levels.
"L'art de la statistique est de tirer des conclusions erronèes a partir de chiffres exacts." Napoléon Bonaparte.
"Je crois que beaucoup de gens sont dans cet état d’esprit: au fond, ils ne sentent pas concernés par l’Histoire. Mais pourtant, de temps à autre, l’Histoire pose sa main sur eux." Michel Houellebecq.
I could easily mistaken, but I doubt he meant that literally every single German at that time was crazy. Rather, that the general zeitgeist in Germany resembled mental illness.
With cafolini, it's hard to tell when he's being exaggeratory.
[QUOTE=Emil Miller;1118182]Hitler eliminated any opposition from the social democrats and the communist party by arresting their chief members prior to the vote for the enabling act. He received the support of the Centre Party by promising to allow its continued existence and also by intimidating them by the presence of armed brown shirts at the negotiations. Hardly a democratic victory. No different than Julius Caesar wrapping the Roman senate around his finger by the threat of his legions. Civil liberties - gone. Democracy - gone. Not a tyrant? Really.
And I don't really think there has been "a lot of nonsense talked about the third reich." Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels, the whole rotten lot were as evil and as dastardly as their infamy indicates. If you believe otherwise then put yourself in the shoes of one of the countless Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and free-thinkers whose last moments saw them marched into a gas-chamber.
It was mentioned that Winston Churchill originally looked favourably upon Hitler. But in the end he summed it up in his inimitable style as follows:
"After the end of the First World War, there opened up in the life of the German people a tremendous void. And after a pause, there strode into this void, a maniac of ferocious genius; the repository and self-expression of the most virulent hatred, that has ever corroded the human breast - Corporal Hitler."
Germany had also been very ill in WWI. Weimar had deteriorated long before the early 1900's. Of course Hitler was no just racist. He was like a magnet to any mental illness that could be had for free.
How coul you compare Grant or Greeley and that easily disputed racism you call "common sense" with the galactic propositions, flatulences and petulances inside the Reich?
Every German was disatisfied with the Treaty of Versailles. But they looked for it and they ended up with it.
Sorry you're offended, but I'll stand by what I said, and by my comparison of the racism of James Pike to that of Hitler. James Pike was racist, but he wasn't mad. To repeat from my earlier post:
"Hitler was mad, not because he was racist, but because he was obsessed with racism and with the loss of WWI and the injustices of the Treaty of Versaille."
I should, however, clarify my sentence following that statement. "It [i.e. Mein Kampf] is interesting because of the "accomplishments" of the author."
Last edited by Patito de Hule; 02-24-2012 at 11:02 PM.
[QUOTE=Darcy88;1118241]You have misinterpreted what Prof. Kershaw has written, he didn't say that Hitler wasn't a tyrant but that he was not imposed on Germany. It's ridiculous to say that he could have done it without the support of the population at large regardless of those minorities that disagreed with his policies. In fact, after he'd eliminated the other parties, his popularity soared as his government started to put its programme into effect.
I suspect that you don't know very much about Germany from personal experience but I have spoken to people who were alive at the time and whose description of events is at variance with those who were not even born and who rely solely on what they choose to read about it.
As for democracy, Hitler introduced the plebiscite which meant that he went to the people for approval of policies that had a direct bearing on the running of the country.
The articles of the "Plebiscite Law" were brief and clear:
The Reich government may ask the people whether or not it approves of a measure planned by or taken by the government. This may also apply to a law.
A measure submitted to plebiscite will be considered as established when it receives a simple majority of the votes. This will apply as well to a law modifying the Constitution.
If the people approves the measure in question, it will be applied in conformity with article III of the Law for Overcoming the Distress of the People and the Reich.
The Reich Interior Ministry is authorized to take all legal and administrative measures necessary to carry out this law.
Berlin, July 14, 1933.
Hitler, Frick
The electoral pledge given by Hitler that day was not vain rhetoric. One national referendum followed another: in 1933, in 1934, in 1936, and in 1938, not to mention the Saar plebiscite of 1935, which was held under international supervision.
The ballot was secret, and the voter was not constrained. No one could have prevented a German from voting no if he wished. And, in fact, a certain number did vote no in every plebiscite. Millions of others could just as easily have done the same. However, the percentage of "No" votes remained remarkably low - usually under ten percent. In the Saar region, where the plebiscite of January 1935 was supervised from start to finish by the Allies, the result was the same as in the rest of the Reich: more than 90 percent voted "Yes" to unification with Hitler's Germany! Hitler had no fear of such secret ballot plebiscites because the German people invariably supported him.
Was a Hitler a tyrant? As it turned out, the answer is yes, but it's all to easy to say so now. Being wise after the event isn't exactly the pinnacle of intellectual attainment.
"L'art de la statistique est de tirer des conclusions erronèes a partir de chiffres exacts." Napoléon Bonaparte.
"Je crois que beaucoup de gens sont dans cet état d’esprit: au fond, ils ne sentent pas concernés par l’Histoire. Mais pourtant, de temps à autre, l’Histoire pose sa main sur eux." Michel Houellebecq.
I agree. He reigned for what, just over ten years, decided he wanted to take over the world, got his *** kicked and killed himself. He fed his people, sure, by stealing. In less than a decade he managed to become one of the most hated people in human history while simultaneously staining his nation's reputation forever. Yeah, great job. Maybe he was good at rallying starving, desperate thugs (quite the challenge, I'm sure) but he was a crap leader.
Last edited by JuniperWoolf; 02-25-2012 at 08:35 AM.
__________________
"Personal note: When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun. So once when I was six, I did. At first the brightness was overwhelming, but I had seen that before. I kept looking, forcing myself not to blink, and then the brightness began to dissolve. My pupils shrunk to pinholes and everything came into focus and for a moment I understood. The doctors didn't know if my eyes would ever heal."
-Pi
A thread about Mein Kampf was bound to degenerate into a thread about Hitler. To use a cliche, Hitler yanks a lot of chains. While he was a great orator and able to say a lot of things that people wanted to hear, he was a poor writer and the book is a rant mostly written while he was incarcerated. It is incredibly boring and gives very little insight into the Third Reich. It does give some little insight into Hitler's state of mind after the putsch and before the rise of Naziism.
I made the comparison earlier to James S. Pike's The Prostrate State, which Cafolini found offensive but which I stand by regardless. I would also make a comparison to Thomas Dixon's The Clansman, the 1905 second book of his best-selling Trilogy of Desire. Dixon, as a child, idolized his uncle who was a Klan chief. The novel glorified the Klan and, along with D. W. Griffith's 1915 Hollywood spectacular The Birth of a Nation (which you can watch on You Tube, as I did, or buy the DVD, as I also did). The book and the movie were co-responsible for the revival of the Klan in 1915 and throughout the 20's.
I'm not saying that Mein Kampf rivived Naziism. It perhaps helped resuscitate it as it struck a responsive chord with people who were anti-Semitic and overwhelmed with the conditions after the Great War. It was the worst war since the seventeenth century Thirty Years War which was still in the hearts and minds of the German People. I read Mein Kampf several years ago and I read The Klansman recently for the same reason--hoping to gain an insight into the mind of the author and the minds of the people who acted upon it. The former was a colorless jeremiad; the latter was an interesting romantic novel which I enjoyed, even though I was disgusted with the message of the author with regards to the Klan.
This appears to me as your most ridiculous message. Just at the very beginning there is enough for an impossible discussion. How can you say "a thread about Mein Kampf was bound to degenerate into a thread about Hitler?" Ridiculous. Hitler was one of the grand degenerates of history, and Mein Kampf was his product. How could Mein Kampf not be degenerate in the first place? Etc., etc., etc. Case closed for you. I feel like a judge from Nuremberg.
Well, you do not give him enough credit. What would you make of Napoleon then? Also crap? What of Caesar, also crap?
Don't get me wrong, I am not defending the guy, but he wasn't as stupid and useless and you make him seem. He was, however, as others have discussed, an awful author.
This is a literature forum and a general literature subforum. The question was about reading Mein Kampf, presumably as literature. Your comments are ad hominem and add nothing whatever to any discussion on either Hitler or his book.
Have you read Mein Kampf? The OP asks whether anyone would be willing to discuss the book.
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