This book, I suppose, needs no introduction, having been written by the leader of the main 20th century boogeyman (nazi) and all.
Being born almost half a century after the events of the World War II, I had never had the chance to feel its direct effect on my life, and thus have always regarded Hitler as just another megalomaniac dictator who believed that he was working in the interests of his people and country a la Caeser or Napoleon. After reading this book, however, I came to a surprising realization that Hitler, despite how most people portray him, was never as megalomaniac or self-interested as most of the other leaders in history, or, indeed, as he should have better been. His love, or rather obsession, with Germany seeps through the pages of this book and I wouldn’t be surprised if Hitler sacrificed his own life for the country had he ever had the opportunity. His obsession with Germanic race, as opposed to his own personal gain, led him to hate everything that was hindering the state and, at the same time, offered a convenient tool to justify it. I wonder if he could have done as many atrocities as he did if he didn’t have this warped concept of “patriotism” clouding his mind. Incidentally, despite reading the whole book I couldn’t understand how Aryan race was supposed defined to the very end. It kind of seemed like an incomplete theory which could arbitrarily incorporate any white person who did something significant in history.
Anyway, while the ramblings about the greatness of the Germanic race and the illuminati Jews, who are responsible for every bad thing in the history of the universe, are mostly far-fetched and have a strong vibe of delusion the insights into the politics of the age and critique of the parliamentary government are quite well founded. Having only the most basic historical education of the period, a lot of his concepts and critiques went over my head, but I certainly could see a problem with a reluctant, responsibility-free government, especially since it’s probably the issue that’s still present in the modern world. Still, while his fascistic regime did kind of solve most of those problems, it introduced a plethora of way worse ones.
Originally, I thought that Hitler had something good in mind when I was told his movement supported natural selection. However, after reading Mein Kampf, I realized that his policy was actually rather in direct contradiction with the real scientific theory where genetic diversity is what makes species strong and adaptable. If the world had adopted Hitler’s racial policy we’d have various ethnic races oppressed or exterminated, reducing this genetic diversity and effectively going against our own interests from an evolutionary standpoint. Some people just have no idea how natural selection works, it seems. Favoring a single race, like Aryans or whatever, can only lead species to loss of genetic diversity and extinction; there is a reason why it is not recommended to have children with your siblings.
World is far from perfect now, but the capitalistic regime, where those in power are mostly motivated by personal gain as opposed to Hitler’s nationalism, is probably more beneficial to our species than any of his ideas ever could. After all, personal gain is the leading force of evolution, and a society where people are motivated to improve themselves (study) to achieve power without relying on the advantages gained through incidental subjective factors (race, nationality, religion, tradition) is a prime example of natural selection. Unfortunately, family connections and initial capital still factors a lot in gaining power in our society, but at least it is better than anything else people came up with in the past couple of millennium.
A fine read if you are interested in the personality of Hitler and an insider view of fascism, as opposed to all the subjective hate ridden stuff we are exposed to today. Not really as an insightful book as I had thought it to be, though; Hitler was more of a self-deluded patriot than a megalomaniac evil genius. Actually, from this book I got the impression that if there is a real genius there, it’s the Jews; their ability to freely manipulate all the world including this so called Aryan race only proves their superiority. Now that I think about it, arguably the most fascinating discovery in human history, general relativity, was also done by a Jew. If there was any truth to Hitler’s racial ramblings in this book, it, ironically, would only indicate that it was Jews, not Aryans, that were the “master” race.
By the way, people who have opinions and rate this book without even reading it are hardly better than the author. It is precisely those who choose laziness over critical thinking that are eventually manipulated into doing atrocities they themselves fail to comprehend, playing into the hands of misguided lunatics of the world.
Visual novel & other stuff impressions 