I'm reading Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf again. It's been several months since I've picked it up and, in starting it once more, I'm reminded of why I put it aside in the first place: it's the most chilling book I've ever read. Even if I could ignore the author's reputation, I'd still be frightened--Hitler's ultra-conservative views on marriage, prostitution, and education are eerily similar to the views espoused by some evangelical Christians. Yet Hitler is able to take his stance on eugenics to an unsurprising level of barbarity:

The demand that defective people be prevented from propagating equally defective offspring is a demand of the clearest reason and if systematically executed represents the most humane act of mankind.

Several months ago, when I first started Mein Kampf, I wouldn't have recommended it to any but the most stalwart reader. It's not a book one reads for enjoyment. It's tiresome, poorly-written, confusing, and completely devoid of any literary value. But, as Abraham Foxman writes in his introduction, "... Mein Kampf's existence denies the free world the excuse of ignorance." Often, the passage of time brings a sort of acceptance that's dulled by an endless repetition of movies, books, and history classes. We know the statistics. We know the conditions of the concentration camps. We know the methods used by the Nazis. But to read Mein Kampf--as distasteful as it may be--is to deny yourself historical interpretation and, on a deeper level, to confront the hatred that lay at the heart of the National Socialist movement.

Mein Kampf has the unsettling ability to close the gap of time. Sometimes I want to rage at Hitler and his unfathomable ignorance, but more often than not (given that this was the book that started a world war), I find myself reading with an acute sense of sadness, anger, and fear. Despite the fact that Hitler is dead and defeated, and that his political theories have long been discredited, his legacy still resonates loud and clear in today's world.

Comments

[Renay]

I've been meaning to read this, to pair it with my WWII fiction project, so I could understand the forces driving the author/characters. I've been intimidated because I've had friends read it and just be beyond disturbed, so I've avoided it, which is probably a bad thing.

I mean, it kind of shocks me that I can still be scared of books enough to avoid them. But this is one of them that stands that test over and over again. All the more reason to read it, I suppose, although it's almost always checked out when I get up enough nerve to look for it--at least it's not just sitting there, I guess!

[Brandon]

Renay: I do think people should read this book. You'd think that, after movies like "Schindler's List," you'd be pretty jaded, but your friends are right: this book is truly frightening. There isn't much that scares me anymore, but one of the reasons I had to put it down is because it was giving me nightmares. One nightmare I remember, while reading this book, is that I was an SS officer guarding a concentration camp, and there were all these starving figures in the camp. Next thing I knew, I was surrounded by all these people. They were reaching out and kept on saying, "You shouldn't be reading this book" over and over. That's when I decided I'd had enough, that I was in over my head. That's the kind of power "Mein Kampf" has.

[Christopher]

What is more chilling is your commentary about the fact that the Evangelicals sound the same way. Chilling.

[verbivore]

I think there is a certain bravery in reading a book like this. I know I am much more comfortable ignoring this kind of ugliness. But I agree with the Foxman quote - we have no excuse for remaining deliberately ignorant. The fact that similar ideologies (if not the exact same ideology) still exist is because of the fact that not enough people read and discuss books like Mein Kampf. I think that in order to discredit something we have to understand and know what it is.

[J.S. Peyton]

I have to commend you for reading this title. It's so easy for us to fall into the habit of reading what makes us feel good, or simply what makes us comfortable, that readers (including myself) often forget that reading should also make us uncomfortable, challenge our beliefs, and make us ponder things we wouldn't have otherwise.

I used to be such a safe reader that I refused to even read novels which had a sad ending. I still think twice before I do (I have a tendency to cry over the littlest things), but I've been slowly but surely working to read novels that take me out of my comfort zone, and I usually feel the wiser for it. That said, I think Mein Kampf is still a ways off.