Taking a bullet...Conclusions drawn...

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I originally planned this review of Mein Kampf as reaffirmation of what I already believed about Hitler, and in that I have succeeded...Slogging through the filth that congested his tortured mind was depressing enough to cause me to think reading other translations for tiny differences would not alter my perspective...

In re-reading what I have written in my review, I notice much of the same randomly digressive pattern as that which the author displayed in his book...I can only hope mine is the result of the linear route I took as I read through Hitler's rants one by one compiling my thoughts, and not a sudden infestation of the same pathless mind-crickets that stirred aimlessly in his head...

I find myself in agreement with Hitler's kindred spirit, Benito Mussolini, who called the book "unreadable"...And Mussolini had the advantage over me by being fluent in not only Italian, but German, French and English...He could have read several translations plus the original to ensure his review wasn't tainted by the opinions of others...

My readers may also take note as I remind them that the book I have reviewed is but one translation into English of Mr. Hitler's call to madness, along with its attending pre-determined views by the translation team...If I should live long enough to wash the foul taste of Der Fuehrer's scattergun hatred out of my mouth, I may take it upon myself to review another version taken from a differing standpoint, perhaps the James Murphy translation...

Seen from a different continent, and another era in time, and with my advantage of a historical viewpoint, Hitler's arguments against Jews as the root cause of all German problems seem so flimsy and transparently false, it makes the people of that time seem like gullible buffoons to have taken it all seriously...Even a random passage from one of his rants concerning his fear of the Jewish plan to infect "Aryan blood", such as this one:

"According to this plan, these negroid parasites of nations rape our innocent young blond [sic] girls and destroy something in this world that can never be replaced."

...should have been the tipoff that a deranged personality was on the loose, and attempting to gain control of an unsuspecting world...But that world had other priorities in its struggle to recover from an economic depression, and rebuild after a devastating war...Those who actually read the words may have dismissed them as only rhetoric in a debate...

Yet I understand that the world leaders of the time faced their own set of problems, and though they saw the danger represented in the Nazis' hunger for conquest, they prioritized it as less important than the other demands placed on them domestically...The same might be said of the German people as they struggled with their own problems, thinking they could undo the wrongs they undoubtedly witnessed as soon as their own house was more orderly...

Both those within Germany, and those watching from outside its borders all had the opportunity to read Hitler's own plan in his own words as he detailed the steps he would take if given his chance...The German people had the best opportunity as the book was a mandatory adornment in each home...But even with this close proximity, most ignored the warnings found within...

Taken strictly for its literary value, Mein Kampf is mind-numbingly dull reading...Hitler trots the same tired ponies around the worn, dusty track inside his head, revisits the same overworked misconceptions, ad infinitum, in his belief he is imparting the wisdom of the ages, when all he has produced is an eyewitness account of the splintering away of his decaying soul...

I think I'm a bit closer to understanding an unlikely rise to power under the right breeding circumstances, even with a record as a convicted criminal, such as the one attached to Adolf Hitler...I briefly note two others who became leaders of their own countries' governments both having been imprisoned after convictions of crimes, yet each leaving different legacies following their deaths, Joseph Stalin and Nelson Mandela...

The careers of all three were products of the same century, although on different continents...All three were revolutionaries, but for different causes...All three were nominated for the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize under varying circumstances, but only one was awarded...Today only one is remembered with any feelings warmer than bitterness...

My apologies to my readers for the length of this review...When I began, I had no idea I would have this much to say about a book composed in a prison cell by a convicted traitor, dictated to a submissive groupie who assembled it on a borrowed typewriter...He then allowed another adulator to revise it into something slightly more intelligible before unleashing it on a yawning, but complacent public...

For their part in bringing Herr Hitler's enmity for the human race to the printed page, both men were suitably punished...Hess rotted in a Russian controlled prison until he was in his nineties, at which time he was found dead of asphyxiation from strangulation with an extension cord (ruled a suicide, but more likely a murder)...Father Stempfle was murdered on orders from Hitler during the Night of the Long Knives, simply because the Jesuit priest knew too much about Hitler's incestuous and fatal affair with his niece, Geli Raubal...

The Bavarian government, which became the de facto executor of Adolf Hitler's estate, was right to withhold publication of the book following the war, preventing the opening of unhealed wounds...They were also right in allowing limited publishing after the expiration of Hitler's copyright...It has allowed bona fide historians, and interested amateurs such as myself, to explore and postulate the causes, and more importantly, the prevention of calamities such as that which he initiated...

The odds against another venomous bringer of malfortune being elevated to a position of such power in the same nurturing environment must be astronomical indeed, but if it happened once, then the stage is already set for another, unless the memory of such costly lessons is forever kept in the forefront of the world's collective mind...

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