Mein Kampf: A poorly written book with horrible ideas

Mein Kampf (My Struggle) is the only complete work written by Adolf Hitler. The book was written by Hitler when he was imprisoned after a failed coup and it showed Hitler's development of his racist and political ideology along with his future plans for Germany. The main thesis of Hitler was a theory that Jews were planning to take over the world. He also stated that the two evils of the world were Communism and Judaism. His ideas became increasingly antisemitic and militaristic throughout the book. The book is regarded as the "bible" by the Nazis. Originally the book did not sell well and it was not popular. However, when Hitler gained power, Mein Kampf was used everywhere and even given as wedding gifts. 

There were many horrifying ideas that Hitler presented in Mein Kampf, with specific ideas such as terrorist methods to gain political power and general ideas such as antisemitism. With statements such as, “the sacred mission of the German people…to assemble and preserve the most valuable racial elements…and raise them to the dominant position,” and "All who are not of a good race are chaff,” Hitler revealed his racist ideology, arrogance, lack of humanity, and blindness to reality.

Personally, the book was not enjoyable to read. Not only were the ideas presented in the book quite disturbing, but the reading was also boring. It was hard to focus on the book because of how wordy the sentences were and the fact that there wasn't an interesting plot. I did not want to finish reading the book and wanted to quit reading it multiple times. What kept me reading was not only for this blog but also because was curious about how corrupted Hitler's ideology was. 

The book definitely did not disappoint in horrifying me with corrupt ideas. It's scary to think how a human could come up with such a corrupt ideology filled with ignorance and lacking any humanity. The way he writes about genocide so carelessly, and killing the weak and sick instead of protecting them was something that I have never read before in a book. He saw that destroying the weak and sick would make proper space for the strong, which he also used in justifying antisemitism. He believed in Lebensraum (living space), that killing the Jews would allow the Germans to have more space. 

Not only was Hitler antisemitic, but he was also anti-Slavic. He openly stated in Mein Kampf's plans to invade Russia that he viewed Japan's victory against Russia in the Russo-Japanese War as a big "blow to Austrian Slavism". He criticized people's attempts to Germanise Slavs by teaching them German, he believed that would have created a "foreign race" by its "inferiority" to harm the "dignity" and "nobility" of the German nation.

In conclusion, I do not recommend anyone to read Mein Kampf. Not only is it a long book that is boring to read, but the ideas presented inside are also horrifying and disturbing.  Surprisingly, the book made Hitler 1.2 million Reichsmark which is equivalent to at least 5 million Euros today. In this book, Hitler wrote about his process of becoming antisemitic and racist from growing up as a child to future political plans for Germany and that is why you should not read this book.

By: Henry Guan