There is an interesting controversy brewing between academics and Jewish groups in Germany as the deadline approaches for the end of the copyright over Hitler’s “Mein Kampf”, the book that laid the foundation for the Nazi takeover and ultimately the genocidal crimes of World War II. For seven decades, the copyright has rested with with Bravarian officials who have prevented the publication of the work. Now, academics are arguing that the book should be reprinted due to its obvious historical significance. However, Jewish and other groups are demanding a continuation of the ban on reprints.
The 800-page book, “My Struggle,” will become part the public domain on January 1st.
But as “Mein Kampf” — whose title means “My Struggle” — falls into the public domain on January 1, differences have emerged over how it should be treated in future. The historians at the Institute of Contemporary History of Munich (IFZ) will produce an annotated version of the two-volume tome that will be offered in January for 59 euros ($65).
The historians view this as a compromise since the work will be heavily annotated. However, Charlotte Knobloch, President of the Jewish community in Munich and Upper Bavaria, objects that even an annotated version “contains the original text” which “should itself not be printed”. She insists that it will be “in the interest of right wing militants and Islamists to spread these ideas.”
I certainly understand the concern but I believe that work should be reprinted with or without annotations. It is a historically important work in understanding the crimes and ideology of the Nazis. Like most free speech advocates, I have always been critical on the effort of Germany to criminalize references or symbols of the Nazi period. These laws have been easily circumvented by developing closely related symbols and salutes for Neo-Nazis. More importantly, it remains a fundamental tenet of free speech that the solution to bad speech is good speech — not censorship. The scourge of white supremacy and Nazi values has continued despite these laws, which allow extremists to assume the claim of victims and accuse the West of hypocrisy (or fear of exposure to these ideas). There remains plenty of sources of this information, particularly given the Internet. Historians however believe that the work should be available in new additions to be studied in history, political science and other departments. Perhaps not too surprising given the free speech and academic interests, I favor reprinting the work and leaving the debate over its content to the market of free ideas and exchange.
What do you think?
Source: Yahoo
Thanks for commenting Dieter! Very interesting.
stevegroen The phenomenon Hitler was unique (“einmalig”) hence it is ridiculous to call him a “communist”, or a “socialist”, or even a “capitalist”. His ideal was not a hybrid of anything but his own and quite unique mental creation of a classless and purely Aryan Germany (“wir sind alle Deutsche”!) run by the Fuehrer Principle that is to say by a small coterie of men kept in power by absolute obedience upwards. That was not the concept of a rational adult but of a frustrated teenager.
The slogan “Fuehrer befehle, wir folgen dir” was not a joke because Hitler had actually managed to brilliantly despoil most of the German nation.
What about the “socialist” points in the program of the NSDAP? Hitler was actually only interested in program points as long as they fit in his propaganda and the competition for Reichstag votes with the communist and socialist parties. He had not the slightest intention of honoring them as dictator. However, when his crony Gottfried Feder publicly demanded the destruction of the German banking system Hitler told him in no uncertain terms to shut up because you do not bite the hand that feeds you. Feder did shut up.
Hitler’s relationship with the German captains of industry was complex too. After the “Nacht der Langen Messer” and the death of Roehm it was clear not only to every member of the NSDAP and SA but also to all captains of industry that open disobedience of the Fuehrer could either land you in a concentration camp or as ashes in a box delivered to your family. It was a weird alliance which produced one of the most powerful armed forces the world had ever experienced. A frightening sort of “live and let live”.
Dieter: Excellent post. Thanks for it.
So. as I understand your argument, you’re asserting his form of totalitarianism was Stalinism and not fascism?
Works for me. 🙂
Dieter Heymann wrote: “The phenomenon Hitler was unique (“einmalig”) hence it is ridiculous to call him a “communist”, or a “socialist”, or even a “capitalist”. His ideal was not a hybrid of anything but his own and quite unique mental creation of a classless and purely Aryan Germany (“wir sind alle Deutsche”!) run by the Fuehrer Principle that is to say by a small coterie of men kept in power by absolute obedience upwards. That was not the concept of a rational adult but of a frustrated teenager.”
It seems quite clear to me that either you have not read Mein Kampf, or you did not understand what you read. This is exactly why I think Mein Kampf should be read by every student in public education. The reason many countries banned the book is because Mein Kampf is logical and persuasive. We know that there are problems in there because we judge the final fruit of the man. What better way to make sure history doesn’t repeat itself than reading what led that man to his final state?
There is no doubt that Adolf Hitler was a socialist. He fought aggressively for the poor working class of people. He identified with them by titling the book, “My Struggle.” He railed against the rich Jewish bankers and blamed them for poor economic conditions. For you to separate Hitler from socialism, you would have to take a very narrow definition of socialism. I think you conflate terms the way you sling them around and make Hitler out to be some kind of “hybrid.”
The term socialism is primarily an economic term referring to the community owning the means of production. There are many different forms of socialism, but they all have this same common core philosophy. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his contribution.”
The term communism also is primarily an economic term, referring to the community owning the means of production and distributing its profits according to the needs of everyone. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”
The term fascism is primarily a political term referring to the needs of the State and government being more important than the wants, needs, or desires of any individual. Fascism is best understood by reading Benito Mussolini’s, “The Doctrine of Fascism.”
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/rschwart/hist151/MUSSOLINI.pdf
Mussolini expresses in his essay that fascism is the opposite of Marxian Socialism. This is his way of distancing fascism from the economic implications of socialism. Although fascism’s parent philosophy was socialism, its focus is more on the community in ways that go far beyond economics. Socialism tends to measure human worthy by material possessions. It presupposes that happiness is a result of the right economy where people economically benefit equally to others based upon equal labor. In contrast, fascism immediately makes the State the object of an individual’s attention rather than the economy. It repudiates the idea that happiness is based upon a class warfare that leads to new economy. Fascism for Mussolini basically was a religion, as it was for Hitler as well. It is a religion that puts the needs of the nation above the needs of the individual. That is why you saw Japanese kamikaze pilots, and the reasoning is similar to why we have Muslim extremist suicide bombers.
There can be little doubt that Hitler was a socialist. He was not a Marxist socialist, but he definitely believed in the government controlling the means of production in a way that every laborer received just compensation for his labors. Hitler believed in, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his contribution.” His rise to power was based upon this socialist philosophy. However, Hitler hated communism as much as he hated Jews. Hitler did not believe in the kind of socialism that Marx said was the stage prior to communism. In Marxist Socialism, the anticipation leads to a peaceful classless society known as Communism (“From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”). Hitler replaced Marx’s perspective of future history with the philosophy of fascism. Hitler hated Jews, not only because they were not of the Aryan race, but because they were wealthy and controlled many of the banks and stock exchange firms. They were, in effect, little capitalists in his world that should focus on the State, and what better way to do that than for people to be proud of their ethnic race, and to hate all races inferior to them. It was a nice reason to seize the means of production from all the Jews in Germany.
All the wealth envy that socialists exhibit was found also in Adolf Hitler because he was at his heart a socialist first and a fascist second.
I wrote earlier that Hitler failed with regards to the input of workers to the condition of the workplace. He destroyed the workers unions. Why? Because this violated his “Fuehrer Prinzip”.
Dieter writes, “I wrote earlier that Hitler failed with regards to the input of workers to the condition of the workplace. He destroyed the workers unions.”
Hitler may have taken ideas from socialism and fascism to create what others term a hybrid, but that hybrid was way more fascist than socialist, as Annie and others have quite thoroughly pointed out. No socialist would have destroyed unions to the benefit of private German capitalism as did Hitler. About the only collectivism that Hitler espoused was slave labor.
It was not only in Germany that the sale of “Mein Kampf” was forbidden after WW2. I know for certain that this was the case in the Netherlands.
Konrad Heiden, the first biographer of Hitler, wrote that MK contains some interesting/clever remarks and proposals in addition to a tsunami of irrational and vile garbage.
There is here a discussion whether Hitler was a “socialist” or not.
The central tenet of communism was that the means of production must be controlled by those who produce. Although the more centrist socialists of the 20th century abandoned that principle they still maintained that the producers must have significant input on the conditions of the workplace. On both accounts Hitler fails.
NSDAP, the name Hitler gave his budding party contains the word Socialist but the name was not Hitler’s invention. He borrowed it from a bunch of Austrian fascists who were on a visit in Munich. Their party was named NSOAP.
The closest to “socialists” in the NSDAP were the brothers Strasser. One of them was murdered on Hitler’s order.
I am willing to accept the sobriquet “Stalinist” for Hitler.
I am late to this thread, but Adolf Hitler had such a profound effect in recent history that his book Mein Kampf should be required reading in public education. There is so much commentary about Hitler, often conflicting commentary, that reading Mein Kampf is the best way to teach students about going to original source material and learning directly. This puts all commentary into perspective. No book better helped me understand Hitler than his book Mein Kampf. His hatred for Jews and Communists is clear, and his vision of fascism is clear. There is no better backdrop for understanding the politics of socialism and what happened in World War II.
You are welcome.
That’s: Proving my point
“That one political party is evil while the other are saints.”
That wasn’t a comment about government in general, Mr Rhetoric, and yes, it could be referring to Republicans as well as Democrats. Republicans are as free to respond, same as me. I chose to, and it still was not a defense of the Democrats.
Thanks for proving my, again.
One more time T. Hall; read slowly:
“That one political party is evil while the other are saints.” Oct. 29 3:30pm
Your response to that comment was:
“Point of fact, I do not think the Democratic Party is the party of saints, they deserve plenty of criticism.”
And you assert:
“I pointedly did not defend my political party. To imagine that I did is to twist the meanings of language to fit your preconceptions. That ain’t rational.”
The context of my original post was regarding what government has accomplished. It was an entirely party neutral post and instead of either agreeing or disagreeing with the statement you instantly ASSUMED I was targeting the Democrats. YOU brought your party bias into it when I was speaking of government in general. I have no idea what party you support and I really don’t care. What I do care about is the divide both parties have created and the damage that has been done to our rule of law.
“Can anyone be blamed for worrying about you having a gun?”
Um, yeah. That would be completely irrational.
Steve: Thanks again.
T.Hall writes, “But now I have to ask whether you have encountered anything in Zinn’s accounts that you found hard to believe or didn’t strike you as correct. And did you then investigate the issue further.”
To be frank, I have never read anything by Howard Zinn apart from short passages on various subjects. His lecture videos are abundant, and the stories he tells seem to ring true. I haven’t had the occasion to contest them until now. So, here is a chance for Nick and Paul, two former history teachers, to show me a thing or two about Zinn, but so far the silence has been deafening other than blanket allegations of misrepresentation by Zinn and Nick’s own misrepresentation, ignored as if “Zinn-heads” are not worthy of his expansive knowledge. That’s primary school playground stuff.
So, too, Paul makes vast generalizations based on other historians claims.
Zinn may be wrong, but when they’re called on it Nick and Paul gotta shi’ite or get off the bucket. I hope they’re up to the task.
Olly,
“One only needs to look at how an indictment of both major political parties triggers the party zealots to defend the party.”
This nonsense of yours illustrates how inaccessible your mind is to reasonable argument.
I pointedly did not defend my political party. To imagine that I did is to twist the meanings of language to fit your preconceptions. That ain’t rational.
Secondly, you threw out a blanket assertion open to anyone, and I spoke in reply about what are my views regarding politics. Your accusations are pointless.
Lastly, your accusations are so petty, they are a more accurate reflection the smallness of your intellect and a better illustration of how low the average American’s debate skills have fallen. Your debating skills are so anemic that violence can never be far from your range of possible response.
Can anyone be blamed for worrying about you having a gun?
Paul writes, “stevegroen – no one cares if a historian uses real facts.”
Paul, I don’t know who “no one” is, but it doesn’t include many of us.
Best regards.
stevegroen – are you upset if historians use real facts? I should have written a little more artfully, but you needed to include the following sentence.
Schulte: I’ve done a little Google searching on Zinn. Most of the criticism seems to be coming from avowedly conservatives sources, like scholars writing for George Mason’s History News Network.
Interestingly, a critic there was contending Zinn’s account of the Prince Philip war was wrong and one sided, yet the story Zinn related gibes more closely with the history of those events that Nathaniel Philbrook writes in Mayflower. So score one for Zinn.
I ask you…what facts did Zinn invent; what parts of history did he fabricate. Could you be specific or are you just going on what you’ve heard?
Steve: Thanks for the thoughtful responses to my question. It’s a very well-reasoned explanation for forming an opinion. Well said.
I think every story has at least two sides and, as been said, history is written by the victors. Labeling an historian as on the fringe could actually seen as an endorsement. The problem Nick and Schulte seem to be having is that Zinn’s version of events challenges their belief systems
But now I have to ask whether you have encountered anything in Zinn’s accounts that you found hard to believe or didn’t strike you as correct. And did you then investigate the issue further.
The entire book is available in English on Google. Here is the beginning:
CHAPTER I
AT HOME
FODAY I consider it my good fortune that Fate de-
1 signated Braunau on the Inn as the place of my birth.
For this small town is situated on the border between
those two German States, the reunion of which seems, at
least to us of the younger generation, a task to be furthered
with every means our lives long.
German-Austria must return to the great German mo-
therland, and not because of economic considerations of
any sort. No, no: even if from the economic point of view
this union were unimportant, indeed, if it were harmful, it
ought nevertheless to be brought about. Common blood be-
longs in a common Reich. As long as the German nation is
unable even to band together its own children in one com-
mon State, it has no moral right to think of colonization as
one of its political aims. Only when the boundaries of the
Reich include even the last German, only when it is no
longer possible to assure him of daily bread inside them,
does there arise, out of the distress of the nation, the moral
right to acquire foreign soil and territory. The sword is
then the plow, and from the tears of war there grows the
daily bread for generations to come. Therefore, this little
town on the border appears to me the symbol of a great
task. But in another respect also it looms up as a warning
4 MEIN KAMPF
to our present time. More than a hundred years ago, this
insignificant little place had the privilege of gaining an
immortal place in German history at least by being the
scene of a tragic misfortune that moved the entire nation.
There, during the time of the deepest humiliation of our
fatherland, Johannes Palm, citizen of Nurnberg, a middle-
class bookdealer, die-hard ‘nationalist, 1 an enemy of the
The idealism of the Wars of Liberation, waged by Prussia
against Napoleon, is reflected in the career of Johann Phillip
Palm, Nurnberg book-seller, who in 1806 issued a work en-
titled, Deutschland in seiner tiefsten Erniedrigung (Germany in
the Hour of Its Deepest Humiliation). This was a diatribe
against the Corsican. Palm was tried by a military tribunal,
sentenced to death, and shot at Braunau on August 26, 1806.
During the centenary year (1906) a play in honor of Palm was
written by A. Ebenhoch, an Austrian author. It is possible
that Hitler may have seen or read this drama.
Leo Schlageter, a German artillery officer who served after
the World War in the Free Corps with which General von der
Goltz attempted to conserve part of what Germany had gained
by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, was found guilty of sabotage
by a French military tribunal during the Ruhr invasion of
1923. He had blown up a portion of the railway line between
Dusseldorf and Duisburg, and had been caught in the act.
The assertion that he was ‘betrayed* to the French is without
historical foundation. It was the policy of the German govern-
ment to discountenance open military measures and to place
its reliance upon so-called ‘passive resistance.’ Karl Severing,
then Social Democratic Minister of the Interior in Prussia, was
a zealous though cautious patriot whose firm defense of the
democratic institutions of Weimar angered extremists of all
kinds. He was thus a favorite Nazi target. The governments oi
the Reich and of Prussia made every effort to save Schlageter.
The Vatican intervened in his behalf, and it is generally sup-
posed that the French authorities would have commuted the
sentence had it not been for a sudden wave of opposition to
AT HOME 5
French, was killed for the sake of the Germany he ardently
loved even in the hour of its distress. He had obstinately
refused to denounce his fellow offenders, or rather the chief
offenders. Thus he acted like Leo Schlageter. But like
him, he too was betrayed to France by a representative of
his government. It was a director of the Augsburg police
who earned that shoddy glory, thus setting an example for
the new German authorities of Heir Severing’s Reich,
t In this little town on the river Inn, gilded by the light of
German martyrdom, there lived, at the end of the eighties
of the last century, my parents, Bavarian by blood, Aus-
trian by nationality : the father a faithful civil servant, the
Poincar6’s policy in the Chamber. That induced the govern-
ment to make a show of firmness. Schlageter, whose last words
are said to have been, ‘Germany must live,’ was executed on
May 26, 1923. Immediately he became a German national hero.
His example more than anything else hallowed the tradition of
the Free Corps in the popular mind and thus strengthened pro-
militaristic sentiment. One of the first cultural activities of the
Nazi regime was a tribute to Schlageter.
Hitler’s family background has been a subject for much re-
search and speculation. The father, Alois Hitler (1837-1903),
was the illegitimate son of Maria Anna Schicklgruber; and it is
generally assumed that the father was the man she married
Johann Hiedler. Until he was forty, he bore the name of his
mother, being known as Alois Schicklgruber. Then on January
8, 1877, he legally changed the name to Hitler, which had been
that of his maternal grandmother. His third wife was Klara
Poelzl (1860-1908), who on April 20, 1889, gave birth to Adolf
Hitler. There may have been a brother or half-brother if
reports current in Nazi circles are to be credited. At any rate,
Hitler has a living sister and a half-sister. The first has lived in
retirement, but the second a woman of considerable charm
and ability is known to have exercised no little influence at
times.
6 MEIN KAMPF
mother devoting herself to the cares of the household and
looking after her children with eternally the same loving
kindness. I remember only little of this time, for a few
years later my father had again to leave the little border
town he had learned to like, and go down the Inn to take a
new position at Passau, that is in Germany proper.
But the lot of an Austrian customs official of those days
frequently meant ‘moving on.’ Just a short time after-
wards my father was transferred to Linz, and finally retired
on a pension there. But this was not to mean * rest’ for the
old man. The son of a poor cottager, even in his childhood
he had not been able to stay at home. Not yet thirteen
years old, the little boy he then was bundled up his things
and ran away from his homeland, the Waldviertel. Despite
the dissuasion of ‘experienced’ inhabitants of the village
he had gone to Vienna to learn a trade there. This was in
the fifties of the last century. A bitter resolve it must have
been to take to the road, into the unknown, with only three
guilders for traveling money. But by the time the thirteen-
year-old lad was seventeen, he had passed his apprentice’s
examination, but he had not yet found satisfaction. It was
rather the opposite. The long time of hardship through
which he then passed, of endless poverty and misery,
strengthened his resolve to give up the trade after all in
order to become something ‘better.’ If once the village
pastor had seemed to the little boy the incarnation of all
obtainable human success, now, in the big city which had
so widened his perspective, the rank of civil servant became
the ideal. With all the tenacity of one who had grown ‘ old ‘
through want and sorrow while still half a child, the sev-
enteen-year-old youth clung to his decision . . . and became
a civil servant. The goal was reached, I believe, after nearly
twenty-three years. Now there had been realized the
premise of the vow that the poor boy once had sworn, not
to return to his dear native village before he had become
something.
It is a Sin to degrade Zinn when he speaks of Mao, Hitler, Stalin or Woodrow Wilson. Zinn said that they were all birds of a feather who might flock together. Wilson was more like Hitler in that he re segregated Washington DC and the U.S. Military. Today America still strives to “Make The World Safe For Democracy”. There was another blogger on here who discusses Wilson and the current foibles in the muddle east.
I debate, discuss, and argue ALL THE TIME! Daily, here. I simply don’t debate Zinn-heads and the aforementioned other zealots.
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You understand, of course, that anyone who disagrees with him is a zealot. He finds them to be especially zealot-like, when he is flummoxed.
And SOME might quibble with the word debate. He mostly ‘pronounces’, ‘proclaims’. No matter. It’s the preferred method of debate around here. KC has mastered it.
Olly, That is what drew me here. JT is the real deal.
Nick,
It would appear CNBC debate moderators have infiltrated this blog. One only needs to look at how an indictment of both major political parties triggers the party zealots to defend the party. This is why I respect JT, his worldview is constitution first.