Preface
played against a background colored by a century of high pressure nationalism.
The German people had reached a point where order and security seemed to matter more than a political freedom that had become synonymous with brawls and bloodshed. Hitler understood these things and used them for his purposes, aided by a phenomenal capacity for organization and propaganda and by the readiness of Germany’s great industrialists to finance his campaigns. Once established, the German’s innate respect for authority made it simple to establish Fascist leadership.
Anti-Semitism, concentration camps and political oppression, however, are no more characteristic of the German people than fever and delirium are normal in the healthy human body. They are the symptoms of a virulent disease and they will disappear when that disease has run its epidemic course.
When will that be? Who knows! Perhaps the last chapter of Hitler’s Mein Kampf is still to be written. The present version makes no mention of the Fuehrer’s plans of conquest and penetration in the Western Hemisphere. If it did, we might read this book with a clearer conception of its ultimate significance.
Ludwig Lore
A Note on the Translation
The translation in this volume, the first unexpurgated version in English, has been made from the two-volume first edition of Mein Kampf, the first volume of which was published in 1925, the second in 1927.
Where Adolf Hitler made changes in later editions to modify or change his meaning, the translator has adhered to the original version. Occasionally, however, Hitler’s alterations were made in order to clear up meaning and correct his language. In such cases the present translation has adopted the changes.
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