Should "Mein Kampf" Be Banned?

[lightbeamrider]

Nope and neither should Darwin.

Darwin

At some future period not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes...will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest Allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as the baboon, instead of as now between the Negro or Australian (Aborigine) and the gorilla"

Hitler

"The gulf between the lowest creature which can still be styled man and our highest races is greater than that between the lowest type of man and the highest ape."

If Nature does not wish that weaker individuals should mate with the stronger, she wishes even less that a superior race should intermingle with an inferior one; because in such a case all her efforts, throughout hundreds of thousands of years, to establish an evolutionary higher stage of being, may thus be rendered futile. Mein Kampf

 

[edwest2]

As the following article explains, *Mein Kampf * (Hitler’s autobiography written while he was in prison and before his rise to power) is about to be published amid furor that it will reignite a Nazi mentality in Germany. The publication of the book has been banned in Germany since the end of World War II. How, in your opinion, should the proposed publication be banned or defended? On what grounds?

washingtonpost.com/world/europe/mein-kampf-a-historical-tool-or-hitlers-voice-from-beyond-the-grave/2015/02/24/f7a3110e-b950-11e4-bc30-a4e75503948a_story.html

Anyone can get a copy of Mein Kampf. It doesn’t matter one way or another if it is republished in Germany. The “Nazi mentality” doesn’t mean anything. Having read Mein Kampf, it was written about issues Germany was facing at the time like “living space.” A push to the East was inevitable. The Bolsheviks (Russians) were the ultimate enemy.

I’ve seen original signed copies for sale. Just because publication was banned does not mean original copies cannot be obtained from various sources. Or that old copies were kept and are still held by individuals there. The social, political and economic issues facing Germany in 1933 were far different than today.

Ed

 

[edwest2]

Nazi organizations have been prohibited in Germany since 1945. Certainly, anti-semitism and state socialism have been reborn under other labels. The poor writing style of Hitler’s book probably means that it will not become very popular.

It sold very well when first published and was translated into other languages. This is a historical book.

Ed

 

[edwest2]

Banning is what tyrants and Nazis use to direct people’s minds.

I am not a German. But I believe folks **should **read Mein Kampf so as to understand what their grandparental generation was faced with.

ICXC NIKA.

Not just Mein Kampf. That is but a snapshot of the time period. There were a great many other German publications I can name that were influential.

Time magazine had a painted cover of Hitler in 1933. They named Adolf Hitler: Man of the Year in 1938. He is shown in a painting on the cover of the April 1941 issue. Strangely, there is an illustration of him on the cover in 1931.

He was the man who rebuilt Germany. He gave jobs to the people and began a rearmament program that only a blind man could have missed.

Ed

 

[ialsop]

I believe there is stuff to be learned from every bit of nonfiction. Like this one too. Focus on the good in it, ignore the bad. Thats how we should read EVERYTHING, and we should read everything.

 

[oldcelt]

Rather than being banned, Mein Kampf should be required reading at all university levels. I was astounded when I read it to find that Hitler, for all practical purpose, had given the world a blue-print in advance. He then proceeded to do precisely what he said he would.
My point…never assume that the proper person cannot lead an otherwise decent people down the road to destruction.
Had post World War I politics not been so punitive toward the Germans, Hitler would have had a much more difficult time. But the allies crippled the economy, instituted an ineffective government, stole German Patents, etc., etc. We might as well have handed Germany to Hitler right after the Beer Hall Putsch.
At least we did not repeat those mistakes post WWII.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Had post World War I politics not been so punitive toward the Germans, Hitler would have had a much more difficult time. But the allies crippled the economy, instituted an ineffective government, stole German Patents, etc., etc. We might as well have handed Germany to Hitler right after the Beer Hall Putsch.
At least we did not repeat those mistakes post WWII.

Instead we carved Germany in half and gave the half we didn’t want to Russia.

We didn’t do that after WWI. Maybe we should have?

 

[oldcelt]

Instead we carved Germany in half and gave the half we didn’t want to Russia.

We didn’t do that after WWI. Maybe we should have?

That was a grave mistake. We attempted to buy peace with the Russians (Soviets) by providing a buffer against their enemy. Patton preferred another option and was training former SS troops for just that notion.

The Marshall Plan was a worthy attempt to avoid the mistakes made by the Treaty of Versailles. Not perfect…but a good effort.

 

[PseuTonym]

The Marshall Plan was a worthy attempt to avoid the mistakes made by the Treaty of Versailles. Not perfect…but a good effort.

“Not perfect” is an understatement if the Marshall Plan failed.

Also, it is important to think carefully about one’s goals before investing time, effort, money, and other resources into achieving a goal. If there is no need to achieve the goal, and if the methods relied upon are not legitimate, then what can we say? In that case, “good effort” might be appropriate praise only if it is praise of some low-level people who had relatively little authority.

All of the above is hypothetical, relying upon the hypothesis that the Marshall Plan failed, that it was not necessary, and that it made demands on the people of the USA that were not legitimate demands.

I do not myself assert that the hypothesis is true, but it seems that other participants on this forum do make that assertion. Perhaps there is an opportunity for an interesting debate, perhaps in a new thread created specifically for that debate.

The words I quoted were …] written …] in 1957 …]. Well after the Marshall Plan proved to be such a failure.

The Marshall Plan …] was neither legitimate nor necessary.

Yup.
The Marshall Plan is one of those sacrosanct myths that are lionized in school textbooks. Too bad the myth has nothing to do with the facts.

 

[gracepoole]

I believe there is stuff to be learned from every bit of nonfiction. Like this one too. Focus on the good in it, ignore the bad. Thats how we should read EVERYTHING, and we should read everything.

What exactly is “good” in Mein Kampf?