Mein Kampf isn't just political philosophy. It's an original historical source document. I read it 20 years ago when I was studying the Holocaust. The night I met my (now) husband, I invited him back to my room. The next morning I realized to my horror that it was sitting in plain sight on my nightstand - and my hubby is Jewish. I apologized and started to explain, but he was delighted. Turns out he was impressed by the fact that I read books. :)

His late grandfather's 1939 copy is in our library now; he had a cousin in Poland who went up the chimney.

@1, that's a great story. Thank you!

@2
well somebody has to provide great stories, because you never do.

I'm actually reading it currently (along with a variety of other books) as reference material for a story I'm writing. It's exactly what @1 says: a historical primary source by one of the most persuasive public speakers of the 20th century (to say nothing of the most successfully evil).

Personally, I think that more people should read it, as a form of rhetorical vaccine. The more I read of it, the more I recognize the techniques and appeals he made, and the more I see them in today's political speakers. This doesn't mean that these politicians are necessarily Hitler Incarnate, but in appealing to a similar vein of passion in a population that believes themselves oppressed by a minority, these speakers run the risk of kicking a rather nasty wasp's nest, the result of which we've seen innumerable times throughout human history.

@Paul, it's not really an autobiography. Hitler speaks a bit to his background and upbringing, but the fact that historians continue to feel that not much is known about his early life underscores how little Hitler really wrote about it.

It's a historically significant text, and it's not like Hitler's making any money off the sales.

I just assumed that Jack Gladney finally started his course of Hitler Studies at College-on-the-Hill. The spike is his students purchasing the book in preparation for the spring semester.

@3, oh god, just fuck off, fuck off forever, you are an abomination and a blight and a horrible human being and no one, NO ONE, on Slog wants to see your fucking idiot posts ever again. GO AWAY.

I read it first in English; then, thinking I must have missed something, I read it in German. Then it dawned on me: To be affected by it, one had to have grown up between 1880 and 1930 in Germany in an abusive family, shocked by the loss of World War One. The book is an emotional artifact of the same generation who, if they grew up in America, were swept off their feet by "The Great Gatsby". Hitler was a lousy writer, a bigot and a profoundly ignorant man, but he knew his time and place.

@4: Hey, did you just Godwin the Godwin thread?! Check for wormholes in your vicinity! Such recursion is bound to cause one!

(Confidential to Tom @2: I always appreciate the civility you bring to this joint.)

You can't Godwin anything any more than you can Newton something. Godwin's Law is just an observation that comment threads will eventually talk about Hitler as they get longer. It is a pseudo-law of nature not a pseudo-law of actual law.

And sometimes people will blog the findings of others from Reddit as if they were their own discoveries. Something about the anonymity of internet seems to encourage people to do this.

@1 Thanks.

@10, thank you for informing us that Hitler was a bigot.

@1, I just can't imagine anyone being "delighted" to find Mein Kampf on a new date's bedside table. No doubt you are telling the truth, but really.

@ 10, the book did not have a big impact in Germany. It sold very poorly the first few years it was out, and only started to pick up in sales as Hitler and the Nazi Party grew in prominence during the early years of the Great Depression. Even then, it was hardly a best seller, and it only became one after Hitler became Chancellor. And that was due to Nazi influence on the culture. It became the book to give to graduates and newlyweds, along with (and often in place of) the Bible. But like the Bible, few people ever actually read it.

Confidential to TVdinner @13- Tom doesn't always bring civility to this joint.

@14 - I agree. No word should ever be used except in its original, literal usage. Proto Indo-European was good enough for my ancestors and it's good enough for me.

@ 14, it isn't that people will "talk about Hitler," it's that someone will call someone else a Nazi. Perhaps Paul was aware of that but used the term in his headline because it's got that nice sound bite quality that helps grab the attention of readers, but it's just as possible, maybe even more likely, that he misunderstands Godwin's Law. In my internet experience, a lot of people seem to think ANY mention of the Nazis in ANY context is Godwin's.

@17: my husband still tells the story of our meeting in that manner, and I can see the love in his eyes for me as he tells it, so the usage is correct.

@21, hooray! Just great.

And TVDinner @13, I'm glad. In an earlier iteration under a different Slog handle I was way more often a jerk.

MUH RED PILL!!