Mein Kampf of Adolf Hitler republish or not? A scientific version was published in Germany last year, after which the discussion erupted. Isn't the hate-mongering book banned for nothing? Historian Ewoud Kieft is in favor of a new edition. Only by studying National Socialism can we understand why this ideology attracted millions. And Mein Kampf is the perfect source for that.
Ewoud Kieft forced himself to Mein Kampf read as unbiased as possible to understand why the content resonated with millions of people. He has described his findings in a personal way in 'The Forbidden Book. Mein Kampf and the Attraction of Nazism. Candidly, Kieft tells his reader how in some passages, for example about combativeness, he recognizes more of himself than he would like. How he regularly has the feeling that he is present at a fiery speech by Hitler himself. He frequently quotes from the translation 'My Camp' (sounded more recognizable than My Strijd ) by Steven Barends from 1939.
Populist Handbook
Nowadays almost no one has banned it Mein Kampf read more and en masse we think that this is better too. Kieft, who was supposed to write the foreword for a Dutch adaptation, struggled through it for months. According to him, it is too easy to dismiss this book and National Socialism as reprehensible and only for backward followers. It appealed to too many people for that. But what was it? To explain this, the historical context is important. A large part of his book is about the zeitgeist in Europe and in particular Germany after the lost First World War (1914-1918).
Kieft interweaves this with the autobiographical chapters of Mein Kampf, to show how Hitler was influenced by his time and especially by the war. Mein Kampf and Nazism, as Kieft says, is primarily a product of radicalized World War I culture. According to Hitler, Germany had unjustly lost the war and every effort had to be made to rectify this. He wrote all down how Hitler intended to achieve this and how the masses had to be played for it. Or as Kieft puts it nicely:'With Mein Kampf Hitler wrote a handbook for populists, in which he explained all his propagandistic insights, from the need for ideological radicalism to the organization of the party'.
Hitler gets podium
With the rise of Hitler's popularity, it is important to include his 1924 high treason criminal trial. Kieft does this extensively and describes brilliantly how Hitler played the (international) press and the judges with his rhetoric. But also how little startling his anti-Semitism was seen in it. Hitler was charged with high treason and could face the death penalty. On November 8, 1923, he wanted to carry out a coup in Munich with the help of former veterans and four thousand members of paramilitary organizations.
This takeover failed. The courtroom gave Hitler a podium which he gratefully used. Many Germans who had never heard of him or the NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers' Party) read about this process in the newspaper. And most of the messages were neutral or positive. Foreign journalists listened to Hitler's defense speech full of Jew-hatred, but few spoke about it. Kieft also quotes the Dutch press:'The NRC reported that Hitler 'reviled in a very eloquent way the Jews, the Marxists, the French', but emphasized above all how 'compelling' and 'often humorous' his defense speech had been.'
Hitler's argument about the revolution in the aftermath of the First World War received particular attention. According to him, the current rulers of Germany were the real traitors:they had extradited millions of Germans by the Treaty of Versailles. This treaty stated that Germany had to take on all the debt and pay billions to the allied countries.
In Mein Kampf Hitler explains that he kicked this treaty on purpose because he knew how much it was hated. He wrote his book after he had to go to prison for six months after the trial and the NSDAP was (temporarily) banned. To keep his supporters together and to share his ideology with them, he wrote his book.
Disrupted society
The post-war installments contributed to an economic crisis, accompanied by enormous inflation. Food prices rose hourly. Kieft describes how people with wheelbarrows of money ran down the street to get food. Society was disrupted and the moderate politicians had no answers. Kieft's argument is striking how this particularly affected the wealthy citizens. According to him, workers were used to poverty, but the groups above them not only lost their wealth, but also their social status. The Germans felt humiliated and ashamed. The difference with the global elite became bigger and bigger and here Hitler pointed to the scapegoat:the Jew.
Only one percent of Germans were Jewish. But Kieft shows that Jews were percentage overrepresented in the financial sector, wholesalers and the media, among other things. This made them visible and an easy scapegoat. In addition, according to Hitler, they would also be the leaders of the socialists, who used the German workers for their own gain. As he read, Kieft increasingly got the feeling that Hitler was saying what his audience wanted to hear, that he noticed that anti-Semitic statements garnered the most applause. Hitler's anti-Semitism is therefore above all a political tool. He even described how best to use it:"You only get the people with you if you give them one great destructive enemy, who can be blamed for the defeat." In any case, no evidence has been found that Hitler had anti-Semitic ideas before 1919, although he did so in Mein Kampf. makes it appear otherwise.
Trauma
Kieft clearly explains how much Mein Kampf the result of war trauma. Not just Hitler's but all of Germany. Hitler was far from alone in propagating radical ideas. Moderate parties lost about half of their voters after World War I. They moved to the political, uncompromising extremes:the communists and the ultra-nationalists. Anti-Semitism was already rife in Europe at the time and became more radical during the increasingly deteriorating First World War. Hitler's anti-Semitism was distinguished by portraying the Jews as the political and economic rulers who had betrayed Germany and therefore had to be fought. This required a strong state, based on military principles.
National Socialism was the all-encompassing world view because "political parties are prone to compromise - world views never", according to Hitler. He knew that the Germans mistrusted their politicians and needed an ideology that gave meaning to all the post-war misery. That the millions of dead and wounded had not been in vain and that Germany would come out of it better. Even if that meant fighting terror with terror. Germans were looking for light in a black period and part of them thought they could find it in Hitler.
Spectacle
The big difference between Hitler and other (radical) politicians was not even his ideas, but the way he managed to play his audience according to Kieft. He reached the masses with compelling speeches, spectacle and an identifiable scapegoat for all misery. The latter also had a goal:Hitler wanted to distance himself from the elite in power. He wanted to appear as the man of the people, who resisted the rotten establishment.
Hitler drew his inspiration from the composer Richard Wagner and his bombastic operas, and from his enemy:the socialists. A lot of flag display, musical spectacle and nationalistic romanticism had to move and enthrall the spectators. Everything in Mein Kampf was intended to play the 'common man'. And it worked at that time. The fact that we absolutely cannot understand this now has to do with the negative association from the Second World War, according to Kieft.
The peaceful society in which we now live is extremely vulnerable and in history the exception and not the rule, Kieft realized after reading Mein Kampf. He therefore pleads for a new scientific edition and study of the book as a historical source. This is to gain insights into how anti-Semitism and racism could become successful so that we can fight it in the future. For those who also want to know more about the origin of National Socialism but the 'heaps of racist bagger' in Mein Kampf are too intense, Kieft's Forbidden Book is highly recommended.