COCONUT GROVE, FL – It has been 80 years since Adolph Hitler came to power. In a world where the admonition “If you repeat a lie often enough it becomes the truth” is taken as acceptable political strategy, it is imperative that we remember, not just what happened under Nazi power, but how it came to be in the first place. In the words of George Santayana, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

One cannot truly understand Nazism’s ascent without understanding Mein Kampf. Even today, Mein Kampf is one of the most feared books in the world. It will be banned in Germany until 2016. It is also effectively banned in Russia and China, although in the information age, these bans are difficult to enforce. One picks up Mein Kampf with the same trepidation that one turns on the television news channel least suited to one’s political views. We must be prepared to encounter information that is contrary to our own worldview and be prepared to reason our way through it. The good news is that finding the flaws in Mein Kampf is surprisingly easy. Mein Kampf is built on ancient prejudices, specious logic, and theories so radical it is highly unlikely that any thinking person would ever feel moved to pick up and advance its pernicious cause. But still, its weight in history persists.

Adolf Hitler wrote Mein Kampf in 1924 while incarcerated in Landsberg Prison for his involvement in the comically failed “Beer Hall Putsch” in Munich. Hitler’s deputy Rudolf Hess took his dictation, and no doubt acted as his editor. The book was first published in 1925, eight years before Hitler ascended to power. At the time it was published though, Adolph Hitler was still very much a marginal figure in German politics. The Nazi party then held only 24 seats in the Reichstag, polling at a mere 3%of the vote in the 1924 elections. That soon changed and, with a combination of masterful political maneuvering, and the calamitous economic crises of post-World War reparations, bank collapse, and the 1929 stock market crash, Adolph Hitler ultimately ascended to power.

On its release, Mein Kampf (“My Struggle”) sold thousands of copies in Germany and abroad and made Adolph Hitler a moderately wealthy man. At the time, it received lukewarm reviews.  Benito Mussolini said it was “a boring tome that I have never been able to read” and remarked that it contained “little more than commonplace clichés.” Given the destruction left in Hitler’s wake after the Second World War, Winston Churchill took the book more seriously, writing that no other book deserved more intensive scrutiny.

In the end, though, the book does not hold up to scrutiny. Its main premise is that the German people are a master race and, as such, are entitled to seize any territory they choose. In that regard, it is sort of a militant nationalist manifest destiny.  Hitler supports his arguments with multiple false choices and straw dogs. Chief among them is the anti-Semitic argument that Jews somehow were holding the German people back from greatness. He expands on this notion to make some very spurious assertions about Aryan superiority, then uses this premise to argue against the majoritarian rule, which sets up his final argument for totalitarian rule. The logical structure of the book is patchy at best – he skips between subjects readily, and largely without major scale organization.

Before delving into the specifics of Hitler’s philosophy, a little context may be helpful.

In 1925, Germany was in disarray. After the First World War, Kaiser Wilhem abdicated, and the Weimar Republic was established as a collection of relatively independent states, modeled on the British Parliamentary system. The Treaty of Versailles left Germany with a heavy debt of reparations to pay to France and England, at a time that Germany was already hobbled by the economic fallout of the war. Although economics was of primary concern, the pressing political issue of the day was Marxism. The October Revolution of 1917 had given rise to Marxism in Russia. The Weimar power elite was concerned that there would be a Russian-style worker’s revolution in Germany. A series of political compromises and power struggles minimized the Marxist threat but also left the government largely ineffective. Many political parties competed for power, among them was the nascent National Socialist German Workers Party, known as the Nazis.

When the First World War ended, Adolph Hitler was a 30-year-old veteran who had survived mustard gas attacks in Ypres. A former art student, he found himself increasingly drawn to politics, and soon found that he had a remarkable talent for public speaking. In time, he assumed dictatorial control of the Nazi party and by the time he was released from Landsberg Prison, the party was enjoying increasing popularity.

When the stock market crashed in 1929, the Weimar Republic went into crisis, and Hitler saw his opportunity. Drawing on financial support from industrialists who saw a totalitarian state as the best way to survive the economic crisis, the Nazis held massive rallies in places like Nuremburg. These rallies were filmed and broadcast; the Nazis took advantage of new technology and quickly became masters of political propaganda. Hitler made speeches in these carefully staged events and in them, in essence, promised everything to everyone. Given the depth of the economic crisis, his message fell on willing ears.

Nazi party membership grew and it soon became the majority party in the Reichstag. By then, the Nazi brown shirts (SA) and black shirts (SS) were a feared shadow military force. Likewise, the Nazi bureaucracy effectively formed a shadow government, which Hitler positioned to take power on his own assumption of power. With a mix of luck and political deftness, Adolph Hitler assumed the Chancellorship of Weimar Germany on January 30, 1933. Soon after, the Nazi-led Reichstag passed legislation effectively abdicating all of its legislative power to Hitler. On August 1, 1934, the aged President von Hindenberg died, and with him died the Weimar Republic. On that day, Hitler legally assumed total dictatorial control of Germany.

It is important to note that Hitler did not take control, the German people gave it to him. It was all legal.

What Hitler did with this power is now well known, but in 1934, people only had a few hints of what he would do, many of which appeared in Mein Kampf. Apart from a brief autobiographical sketch, the book is a series of arguments that lead to his ultimate conclusion – that the German race would ultimately rule the world.

The first major premise of the syllogism that Hitler stitches together is that the purpose of any state is to preserve the racial integrity of the people living in the state.

“The State is only the vessel and the race is what it contains.”

“The State is only a means to an end. Its end and its purpose are to preserve and promote a community of human beings who are physically as well as spiritually kindred. Above all, it must preserve the existence of the race, thereby providing the indispensable condition for the free development of all the forces dormant in this race.”

Beginning with Plato’s Republic, there have been many theories on the purpose of the state. Since the Enlightenment, most modern first world societies base their purpose on the Social Contract, which was posited by Thomas Hobbes. Under the Social Contract, people wishing to live together harmoniously and profitably, agree to relinquish some of their rights for the common good. For Hitler, it was race, not economics or peace that was the basis of his “People’s State:”

“[T]he State in itself has nothing whatsoever to do with any definite economic concept or a definite economic development. It does not arise from a compact made between contracting parties, within a certain delimited territory, for the purpose of serving economic ends. The State is a community of living beings who have kindred physical and spiritual natures, organized for the purpose of assuring the conservation of their own kind and to help towards fulfilling those ends which Providence has assigned to that particular race or racial branch.”

“The instinct for the preservation of one’s own species is the primary cause that leads to the formation of human communities. Hence the State is a racial organism and not an economic organization.” (He confuses species for race throughout the book.)

“Generally speaking, we must not forget that the highest aim of human existence is not the maintenance of a State of Government but rather the conservation of the race.”

Hitler’s thinking is particularly tribal in nature. The human tribal instinct is strong. People identify with sports teams, religions, regions, musical styles, fashion sense, as well as race. Race, of course, is a very slippery notion. Most biologists agree that, from a taxonomical standpoint, classifying people by race is an ill-defined moving target. Hitler acknowledges that he will have to, in effect, re-write history to define the state in the manner he posits:

 “Finally, it is the business of the People’s State to arrange for the writing of a world history in which the race problem will occupy a dominant position.”

Next is the straw dog argument. Hitler sets up a false choice between Aryans and Jews, arguing that, if the purpose of the state is to preserve the racial integrity, and if Jewish people are somehow racially inferior, then there must be some conflict between them:

“One thing is certain: our world is facing a great revolution. The only question is whether the outcome will be propitious for the Aryan portion of mankind or whether the everlasting Jew will profit by it…supreme combat that will decide the destinies of the world.”

He concludes that the Aryan will prevail and, as a master race, will rule the world:

“We all feel that in the distant future many may be faced with problems which can be solved only by a superior race of human beings, a race destined to become master of all the other peoples and which will have at its disposal the means and resources of the whole world.”

To support his argument that the Jewish people are racially inferior, he actually points out that they are superior, somehow being able to dupe unwitting Germans into bad loans and believing that bad films are actually good films. He draws on prejudices that today don’t hold much water, but in Weimar Germany, probably enjoyed popular support. What is striking about his anti-Semitism is that it is assumed, as if it needs no proof. Setting up the other side of his racial dichotomy, Hitler spares no small amount of hyperbole to express his exaggerated view of the Aryan contribution to world culture:

“Every manifestation of human culture, every product of art, science and technical skill, which we see before our eyes today, is almost exclusively the product of the Aryan creative power.”

“And the world is indebted to the Aryan mind for having developed the concept of ‘mankind.’”

“On this planet of ours, human culture and civilization are indissolubly bound up with the presence of the Aryan.”

“There may be hundreds of excellent States on this earth, and yet if the Aryan, who is the creator and custodian of civilization, should disappear, all culture that is on an adequate level with the spiritual needs of the superior nations today would also disappear.”

Disappear indeed. Having painted this picture, Hitler sets up the next point with another false argument, the choice between the majoritarian rule and totalitarian rule. Interestingly, he sets up this part of the syllogism using Judaism to attack social equality:

“To mask his tactics and fool his victims, [the Jew] talks of the equality of all men, no matter what their race or color may be.”

“[T]he more cunning Jew sees in this fact a new proof to be utilized for the theory with which he wants to infect the public, namely, that all men are equal.”

What follows is a refutation of majoritarian rule, setting up his final argument for the assumption of dictatorial powers. Much like many politicians argue today, Hitler maintains that the compromises necessary in majority rule make for a less effective government. Hitler makes this point, interestingly enough, using the same individual-versus-the-collective theme that pervades Ayn Rand’s objectivism:

“One truth which must always be borne in mind is that the majority can never replace the man.”

“Human progress and human cultures are not founded by the multitude. They are exclusively the work of personal genius and personal efficiency.”

“The absurd notion that men of genius are born out of universal suffrage cannot be too strongly repudiated…There is a better chance of seeing a camel pass through the eye of a needle than of seeing a really great man ‘discovered’ through an election.”

So, as Hitler’s theory goes, if the majoritarian rule is ineffective, the only other option is the totalitarian rule. Of course, this ignores the extra-constitutional conditions that affected Germany at the time, such as the economy. Without saying as much, Mien Kampf is at its core merely an expression of Hitler’s desire for power. Throughout the book, he seems intoxicated with the power of his own talent for public speaking which, he insists, is the same as the ability to lead. Without naming himself as the ultimate totalitarian leader (a rare feat of humility in this book), Hitler expresses his own a megalomaniacal sense of purpose:

“Out of the army of millions who feel the truth of these ideas, and even may understand them to some extent, one man must arise.”

“For to be a leader means to be able to move the masses. The gift of formulating ideas has nothing whatsoever to do with the capacity for leadership…But when the abilities of theorist and organizer and leader are united in the one person, then we have the rarest phenomenon on this earth. And it is that union which produces the great man.”

“The movement lays down the principle that, in the smallest as well as in the greatest problems, one person must have absolute authority and bear all responsibility.”

So, Hitler’s theory goes, leadership is the ability to rouse the public. Necessarily, and Hitler acknowledges this, that ability has a definite anti-intellectual bent:

“The leader of a genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belonged to the one category; for weak and wavering natures among a leader’s following may easily begin to be dubious about the justice of their own cause if they have to face different enemies.”

“[I]n most cases even the most beautiful idea embodied in a sublime theory can be brought home to the public only through the medium of smaller minds.”

And he does not hide his disdain for intellectuals:

“These writers were obviously counting on the proverbial humility of a certain section of our people, who believe that a person who is incomprehensible must be profoundly wise.”

“The so-called ‘intellectuals’ still look down with infinite superciliousness on anyone who has not been through the prescribed schools and allowed them to pump the necessary knowledge into him.”

So, in sum, Hitler’s argument is that the purpose of the state is to preserve and promote the Aryan race. He sets up Jewish people as the main hindrance to this purpose and offers totalitarian rule as the only viable solution to the problem. One remarkable thing about this argument is that he acknowledges, even embraces, the idea of governance through force of violence:

“This truthful teaching will finally prevail provided it is enforced with equal ruthlessness.”

“[T]he most ruthless methods of fighting are at the same time the most humane.”

“Whoever wishes to win over the masses must know the key that will open the door to their hearts. It is not objectivity, which is a feckless attitude, but a determined will, backed up by force, when necessary.”

“[A]ll earthly wisdom is useless unless it is supported by a measure of strength…”

“Accordingly we must look upon power, that is to say, the capacity to use force, as the second foundation on which all authority is based.”

He even alludes to genocide, his final solution for dealing with the Jewish people:

“The application of force alone, without moral support based on a spiritual concept, can never bring about the destruction of an idea or arrest the propagation of it, unless one is ready and able ruthlessly to exterminate the last upholders of that idea even to a man, and also wipe out any tradition which it may tend to leave behind.”

Hitler summarizes:

“World history would have taken another course and in this case no man can tell if what many blinded pacifists hope to attain by petitioning, whining and crying, may not have been reached in this way: namely, a peace which would not be based upon the waving of olive branches and tearful misery-mongering of pacifist old women, but a peace that would be guaranteed by the triumphant sword of a people endowed with the power to master the world and administer it in the service of a higher civilization.”

Given what we know today about Hitler’s final solution, these last two passages should give anyone a chill. Of the nine million Jews who lived in Europe at the time, six million were killed in a network of 40,000 facilities across Germany and German-occupied territory. Of the six million killed, one million were children. The sheer weight of this horror is a stain that will burden humanity forever.

We must remember what happened, and as part of that, we must understand how it happened. A charismatic leader took advantage of the economic and political turmoil and convinced people to willingly hand him their civil rights. Of course, human equality and majoritarian rule are deeply prized values among today’s first world countries, but that was not always the case. The 20th Century gave rise to many dictators who assumed totalitarian power from people who were all too willing to give up their natural rights in exchange for security. And the conversation continues. Even today, American politics is marked by the unwillingness to compromise, and a series of false choices involving personal liberties and national security. The most disturbing parallel between today’s America and Hitler’s theories are their pervasive anti-intellectualism. Hitler scoffed at intellectuals:

“They have spent thousands of hours [learning] a subject which will afterward be without any value or importance to them. The argument that these matters form part of the general process of educating the mind is invalid. It would be sound if all these people were able to use this learning…”

We too have politicians who disdain knowledge that is not “useful,” and even openly doubts generally accepted scientific principles such as evolution and global warming. If history has taught us anything, it is that when we dispense with the truth, something pernicious will fill the void.

Upon Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor, former General Erich Ludendorff, a First World War hero who actually supported Hitler in the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, sent President Hindenberg a telegram: “By appointing Hitler Chancellor of the Reich you have handed over our sacred German Fatherland to one of the greatest demagogues of all time. I prophesy to you this evil man will plunge our Reich into the abyss and will inflict immeasurable woe on our nation. Future generations will curse you in your grave for this action.”

Ludendorff was wrong. The woe was inflicted on all of us.

Patrick Goggins is a lawyer, writer, and musician based in Coconut Grove, Florida.He has practiced law for 20 years and has written over 800 songs. His writings have been published from Ken Kesey’s blog to the Journal of the Center for the Study of Communication and Culture in London. Goggins’ blog Dispatches From Coconut Grove covers a wide variety of topics, from automobile reviews to short fiction. Merry Prankster Ken Babbs says, “Goggins brings a little Kesey, a little Cassady, and a lot of fun to whatever he writes.”

Edited by Lynette McGuinness.

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