Anyone read this? My lifelong love of history and warfare was piqued by a documentary on Saddam Hussein and his love of Hitler. I learned the Nazi Party played an important role in the Middle East. In fact There was an Iraqi who became a rather high-ranking leader(forget exactly) in the German Army in WW2.
I kinda keep my book to myself because I get funny looks while reading it.
It is interesting how a man of such apparent intelligence could be so insane. And if not intellegent, at least so powerful. An interesting human study at worst.
[quote]derek wrote:
Anyone read this? My lifelong love of history and warfare was piqued by a documentary on Saddam Hussein and his love of Hitler. I learned the Nazi Party played an important role in the Middle East. In fact There was an Iraqi who became a rather high-ranking leader(forget exactly) in the German Army in WW2.
I kinda keep my book to myself because I get funny looks while reading it.
It is interesting how a man of such apparent intelligence could be so insane. And if not intellegent, at least so powerful. An interesting human study at worst.[/quote]
I read the book several years ago in College and found it interesting as well.
Two points:
I’m not surprised that you get strange looks as we live in a politically correct world. If you have the book and are reading it the PC crowd will link that with you liking Hitler. That’s how they think. Don’t let it bother you. Tell the PC police that we can all learn lessons from the best and the worst. Repeat the best and never repeat the worst.
You stated: “It is interesting how a man of such apparent intelligence could be so insane.” That is what I find to be the interesting part. There are many highly intelligent people who are not insane. And there are many insane individuals who are not highly intelligent. But when you put the two together in one human being, and he lives in the right time and place, you have a recipe for disaster!
I understand that a vast amount of the favour shown towards Hitler in the middle east has something to do with anti-semitism. During WWII there was even an Islamic SS brigade with Nazi mullahs and so forth.
As far as reading Mein Kampf, I have never had a desire to do so. 6 years of history lessons at school and non-stop coverage on Hitler and the Nazis on all the various history channels on TV is more than enough for me in one life time.
People seem to want to write off every nasty character as just another stupid madman despite the evidence to the contrary. An idiot does not attain absolute power nor will a truly batshit crazy person. Sociopaths on the other hand are numerous in these positions and I would even say that positions of political strongly select for that “quality”.
I think Saddam was an example of this to a large degree. He was obviously a grade A sociopath, but he managed to hold together a largely artificial nation while holding off constant challenges to his power. He did this for 25 years in a country that chewed threw despots every few years prior. For this reason I have trouble believing that he was some kind of fool or just another crazy guy you see on the bus. Same goes with Hitler and his ilk.
[quote]derek wrote:
Anyone read this? My lifelong love of history and warfare was piqued by a documentary on Saddam Hussein and his love of Hitler. I learned the Nazi Party played an important role in the Middle East. In fact There was an Iraqi who became a rather high-ranking leader(forget exactly) in the German Army in WW2.
I kinda keep my book to myself because I get funny looks while reading it.
It is interesting how a man of such apparent intelligence could be so insane. And if not intellegent, at least so powerful. An interesting human study at worst.[/quote]
I tried to read Mein Kampf, and then got bored because Hitler is a poor philosopher and a shitty writer.
Maybe he was intelligent, but it doesn’t come through in the book. The psychology of the book is kind of interesting, if you consider what would lead a man to believe these things, but the work itself is the stuff of hacks. He reads like a poor man’s Nietzsche.
It’s interesting to see the parallels betwen then and now.
Our modern politicians have borrowed quite a few ideas from Hitler and Goebbels.
The concept of identifying an enemy of the people, then hyping people up to go after that supposed enemy, so our leaders can be the hero of the people is alive and well. The war on drugs is a good example of this. The ban on prohormones is another.
There’s nothing new under the sun.
The Nazi’s are a warning from the past that is worth studying.
[quote]harris447 wrote:
Has anyone read the unedited version with all the recipes?[/quote]
He had some real controversial takes on Gumbo that they didn’t cotton at all to in the South. But it’s actually quite delicious if you get used to the massive amounts of pork in it.
[quote]derek wrote:
Wow! Illegal to own a copy? Sounds like Hitler and the SS all over again![/quote]
Except that this time it is the Jews who are setting policy. Read: The Culture Of Critique: an evolutionary analysis of Jewish involvement in twentieth-century intellectual and political movements by University of California Long Beach Professor of Psychology, Kevin MacDonald.
Mein Kampf.
A borish account of Austria’s most prominent citizen seizing power. It’s nearly unreadable, 800 pages dripping with pathos.
Before the internet, it wasn’t that easy obtaining a copy here in Germany. Of course, that made the reading just more intriguing. And it wasn’t just illegal, it was totally verboten. Only mentioning it in school made you per se a Nazi. Most people here are sensitive about that stuff.
But back to the book:
I think it’s not really good written. It shows no signs of “genius” or “evil mastermind”. Although it does show that this guy really had an agenda. Nobody should say he wasn’t really aware off all the tragic things that came to pass therafter-he wrote them precisely down. Every married couple got a free copy.
What the book and this thread also show is people’s tendancy to think too highly of him. He clearly was no genius. And he wasn’t insane. You don’t need to have a special mind to hate. And this is the real freightening part of the history lesson: there doesn’t have to be some anti-messias for unspeakable acts to happen.
This piece of shit, who was considered by his World War companions a freak, who originally wanted to make a living by producing shoddy paintings, who fantasized about belonging to a supreme race, was just at the right time at the right place, to put it simple - in no way he was a mastermind or insane (that is, at least in the beginning of his reign).
[quote]cap’nsalty wrote:
I tried to read Mein Kampf, and then got bored because Hitler is a poor philosopher and a shitty writer.
Maybe he was intelligent, but it doesn’t come through in the book. The psychology of the book is kind of interesting, if you consider what would lead a man to believe these things, but the work itself is the stuff of hacks. He reads like a poor man’s Nietzsche.[/quote]
Exactly. I couldn’t get through it. I thought it was garbage.