Hi my name's Kevin Hicks, welcome to my YouTube channel the History Squad. In today's video we
explore how Adolf Hitler wrote his book Mein Kampf and how it made him into a millionaire.
So I have a copy here of Adolf Hitler's book in English, Mein Kampf um which means my struggle
uh originally it was intended to have a much longer title but they reduced it to Mein Kampf for
my struggle I was amazed how easy it was for me to obtain a copy of this it's in English and I simply
got it online uh didn't cost very much money at all and it's a frightening book but it was
how it was written. You know if you you look up who wrote Mein Kampf it'll come up Adolf Hitler
but it was written when he was doing his nine months servitude in Landsberg Prison in his
luxurious cell shall we say and his acolyte, his supporter, worshiper Rudolf Hess wrote a
lot of it down. You imagine Hitler walking up and down, pontificating you know gesticulating
and shouting his thoughts that's the scene I've got in my mind of how this book was written.
Apparently there's a lot of grammatical errors and it's quite repetitive uh rambling
in in some respects. It's also kind of Hitler's view, if you like, of the third reich what's
going to happen in the future if he gets into power. I believe this is truly a dangerous book
and I can understand why the German government years ago was reluctant to have this released
I'm just going to read you one paragraph and explain about it to show you how dangerous it is
I use this paragraph for a film script that I was doing which was one of the reasons I had the book
so here's the paragraph I'm going to read to you and it's it is really quite frightening uh
So you imagine Hitler is pontificating waving his arms shouting and all that kind of stuff
and this is what's been recorded from his ramblings “He who is bodily and mentally not
sound and deserving may not perpetuate his misfortune in the bodies of his children.
The Volkisch state” that means the racial state “has to perform the most gigantic rearing task.
One day however it will appear as a deed greater than the most victorious wars
of our present bourgeois era” What he's talking about there is they've got to replace the dead
from the First World War yeah? But then it goes on “In other words, if you have
someone who is mentally ill, handicapped has a physical deformity or an incurable disease
they must be removed, for although they have a life, it is a life unfit for life.”
They actually use that in a poster later on yeah? “They are a burden on society and therefore
personally I think it's a very good thing it takes a lot of pressure off the hospitals and
the amount of money saved is substantial and can be used for more deserving cases”
That was read by an individual who had a son who was in a coma and had been most of his life
and he wrote to the Fuhrer, asked if he could you know do something about his son.
Hitler handed the job to somebody else this led to the forming of an organization called Tiergarten 4
and the euthanasia program. It’s estimated around 5,000 children, disabled one way or
another were put to death by the Nazis but the program grew to around a quarter of a million
disabled individuals being put to death in Germany all on the strength of a paragraph from this book.
So I've got another quote here “He who would live must fight, he who doesn't wish to fight
in this world where the permanent struggle is the law of life has not the right to exist”.
Good Lord that's frightening isn't it, but how did this book make him a millionaire?
You see when it first was published it wasn't an overnight success but the more popular he became
the more popular the book, until he eventually when he um got into power every household was
expected to have one. The government itself bought up thousands and thousands of copies uh which were
then given as a gift to every couple that were married, but there's a another thing to this
you know. It made Adolf Hitler a wealthy man a millionaire, well in 1927 he chartered an
aircraft to take him around 27 German cities where he appeared in person to make speeches.
This is a politician's way today isn't it, not back then. His popularity would soar because
of the way he was doing this and I asked you know where did the money come from?
Well I am sure some of it at least would have come from the sales of his book Mein Kampf
So by 1939 five million copies of the book had been sold
and it had been translated into 11 different languages.
But the book isn't that good, it's repetitious. I've got some of the notes written down here
what he's called, it's illogical self-indulgent and uh Hitler basically rambles on um and it's
full of grammatical errors which reflect that Hitler himself was only a half-educated man
and yet it's one of the most dangerous books I believe ever written.
So I hope you've enjoyed our little film,
uh if you did thumbs up, if you're a subscriber hey thanks a million. If you're not a subscriber
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