Finishing the Führer's Handiwork

Finally I have painstakingly finished a majority of Mein Kampf! Admittedly I did not read each section with equal attentiveness and sort of went about it in my own leisure, not necessarily correlating with the assigned reading. Nevertheless I feel like I retained the essentials from the work and got a feel for what it represents in history. First confronted with the notorious book, the blunt title, Nazi theme, and sheer thickness of the literature gave me the impression that it would be a compelling and almost demonic read, however I found it about as compelling as a redundant instructions manual. This was a surprise as first, since it was the product of a man who’s politics, speeches and drive were legendary. Hitler compelled an entire nation to slaughter millions of innocents, and summoned the courage to pick a fight against the rest of the world. Given the tedious and uninspiring nature of the book, this perplexed me at first.

This impression was somewhat extinguished when I found out the book was dictated, which would have made it difficult for Hitler to bring a sense of timing, wit, or flow to the text. This also explained the style for me, since his presentation is mechanical and direct. Unlike many philosophical or political texts he does not argue or think. Instead he asserts and plods on, assuming the reader is already familiar or accepting of all his ideas, or should be. Outrageous, stupid and deeply morally offensive comments are found surprisingly sparingly despite his aggressive political acts, but when he does the ideas are paraded by in a mind-numbing fashion, so casually you might not notice them after countless pages of mediocre political analyses. Such a tone is difficult to find appealing in the context of hundreds of repetitive pages, but I think it could easily hold its own in a fervent and uber-confident speech. The content matters somewhat, but it is important to take note that many of Hitler’s doctrines weren’t completely outlandish for the time period, and much like a majority of the text, were just filler. In addition his extremist viewpoints could have easily been interpreted as faith and drive (something post-WWI Germany desperately needed), in the midst of his confidant speeches. In the end Adolf’s book more than anything proved to me that his ideas were but a miniscule part of his appeal. Much like most contemporary successful politicians, his selling point was his ability to relate to the disfranchised masses.