History Literature / MeinKampf

* ThePowerOfHate: What kept him going and alive despite himself nearly on the brink of DespairEventHorizon while in Vienna. And of course, this hatred, his raison d'etre, became focused on the people whom he believed was the source of all of Europe's ills, the defining hatred that made Adolf Hitler, Adolf Hitler: Jews.
* PurpleProse: Indeed, many history majors specializing in that area of history cite it as the most boring book they have to read. There's one exception: the chapter on propaganda is a clear and well-written, though astonishingly cynical, essay on mass psychology. Don't think, however, that this proves Hitler could actually write well when he wanted to: the entire chapter was copied from an official German army manual that Hitler had been given some years previously. The parts written by Rudolf Hess are also decently written since he had graduated from university and actually been taught how to write.

** Hitler is particularly vague and unreliable when it comes to his family and childhood in Austria. While Hans Frank, basically already facing the hangman's noose speculated about Hitler suspecting Jewish ancestry and wishing to keep that hidden.[[note]]For what it's worth, the way Frank claimed Hitler's origins work is not supported by much else except... his say-so[[/note]] The more likely answer is that the shallow gene pool (Hitler's parents were first cousins) and the provincial origins embarrassed him enough, so he wanted to seem vaguely "folksy" without coming across as a yokel. Hitler is also vague about just how much of a "strict disciplinarian" his father was. Attempts at having an alcoholic dad who beat little Adolf be his FreudianExcuse abound in certain types of books about Hitler's childhood.

* UnreliableNarrator: Hitler often embellishes his recollections to make himself look better. At least one translation uses footnotes to indicate when he is exaggerating or flat-out lying.

* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: Turns out that some digging into the archives proves Hitler... [[BlatantLies creatively remembered]] a number of events to make himself look better. For instance, he spent much of the war as a regimental runner, carrying messages between regimental [=HQ=] and near the front lines and back (he is sometimes said to be a ''Battalion'' runner, taking messages from one part of the front line to the other; these were prime targets of snipers and the job was extremely dangerous; Hitler's job was not exactly safe, but it was far less dangerous than that). He often gives the impression that he spent most of that time fighting on the front lines, but in fact he usually spent days or even weeks sitting fairly comfortably in regimental command awaiting orders, passing the time by reading or painting. Regimental runners were generally in much less danger than Hitler made himself out to be in, and lot of his fellow soldiers and even fellow runners sent him letters or wrote to newspapers saying as much (the Nazi party sued them for slander). He ''did'' win awards for bravery (though his closeness to regimental command almost certainly helped him there) and did ''some'' fighting, but not to the extent he made out.
** Hitler was hated by his fellow Soldiers, who called him [[SoldiersAtTheRear "the pig from the back of the lines"]] and joked that he would probably starve to death in a tin factory since [[EpicFail he didn't know how to properly use a can opener.]]

** TheSocialDarwinist: Hitler held an extremely cynical worldview, a world defined by [[ForeverWar perpetual struggle and conflict]], in which everyone and evey race compete against each other for survival and supremacy. The strong becomes the MasterRace, while the weak are annihilated or become subversive parasites (which he saw the Jews as). Critics called him a StrawNihilist for this.

* FreudianExcuse: Hitler admitted that he had a violent childhood wherein he always ended up always fighting his (pro-Habsburg) father, who [[MemeticMutation punished him severely]]. His years in Vienna didn't help, as he was expelled from the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, putting an end to his dream as an artist, and after his mother died he lived a life of poverty, homelessness, friendlessness and depression.

* ThePowerOfHate: What kept him going and alive despite himself [[DespairEventHorizon suffering poverty and severe depression]] while in Vienna. And of course, this hatred, his raison d'etre, became focused on the people whom he believed was the source of all of Europe's ills: Jews.

* UrExample: To Main/ThoseWackyNazis.

A sequel known only as ''Zweites Buch''[[note]]''[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Second Book]]''[[/note]] was [[AccidentalPun dictated]] and made but never published within his lifetime. It delves more into Hitler's ambitions to TakeOverTheWorld, which he believed required an eventual military confrontation with the United States, following the defeat of the Soviet Union, and finally a massive race war in East Asia.

A sequel known only as ''Zweites Buch''[[note]]''[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Second Book]]''[[/note]] was [[AccidentalPun dictated]] and made but never published within his lifetime. It delves more into Hitler's ambitions to TakeOverTheWorld.

** Hitler is particularly vague and unreliable when it comes to his family and childhood in Austria. While Hans Frank, basically already facing the hangman's noose speculated about Hitler suspecting Jewish ancestry and wishing to keep that hidden.[[note]]For what it's worth, the way Frank claimed Hitler's origins work is not supported by much else except... his say-so[[/note]] The more likely answer is that the shallow gene pool (Hitler's parents were first cousins) and the provincial origins embarrassed him enough, so he wanted to seem vaguely "folksy" without coming across as a yokel.

* AllThereInTheManual: Close examination of events as they actually played out reveals this as a ZigZaggedTrope. Hitler was very reluctant to annex his neighbours (initially, and only because he feared losing) and was annoyed that his followers kept pestering him to actually live up to his promises, commenting that when he wrote it he never expected to actually end up as dictator of Germany and he wouldn't have written the book if he had; he seemed to regard it as a "get-rich-quick" scheme to cash-in on his post-trial popularity and hoped to use the royalties to pay off his legal debts, and to inspire German far-rightists. When it came down to it, the invasions of both Austria and the Sudetenland were spearheaded by Göring, in large part because Germany's economic policies (ie. rapid re-militarization) meant they were spending far more than they had, and conquering her neighbours was the only way to balance her budget via rampant looting and theft (including from Jews), and seizing control of their industries. It was only after the world let Germany get away with this (and around the time he got hooked on amphetamines, which boosted his adrenaline and made him more reckless) that Hitler started getting more ambitious and taking his imperialist "promises" seriously, and masterminded the invasions of Czechoslovakia and Poland (both over the protest of Goring and others, though the likes of Ribbentrop and Himmler egged him on), and later the Soviet Union (again, over the protest of saner- if not exactly kinder minds). In general there is a ''great'' deal of debate about how much of the 1933-1945 timespan played out all as Hitler had planned it long before or whether he was taking the opportunities offered to him one at a time never planning a great deal ahead. Needless to say, there is evidence for both.

* HijackedByGanon: Everything was or will be a Jewish conspiracy. Losing UsefulNotes/WorldWarI? Jewish conspiracy. [[UsefulNotes/RedOctober Bolshevik Revolution]]? Jewish conspiracy. UsefulNotes/EsperantoTheUniversalLanguage? Jewish Conspiracy. Specifically, the idea was that Jews had been too weak to keep their own land and after scattering throughout the world, became bitterly jealous of those other ethnic groups/races that had managed to keep theirs, and that had "superior" cultures. Said cultures thrived because they held war, conquest, glory, elitism, purity and other such things as ideals, so the Jews spread the "lies" of pacifism, humility, democracy, egalitarianism etc., first through Christianity (which was sometimes held to be a Jewish corruption of what [[JesusWasWayCool Jesus]] actually taught--but since this was the only source of his teachings, they could re-imagine him to be whatever they wanted, like a great Aryan warrior, which they believed because of dubious pseudo-science at the time), then through liberalism, socialism and communism. Believing in pacifism ''et al''. made nations weak and corrupt and caused national disunity, which led to all of the above as the "pawns" of the Jews (socialists, pacifists, liberals etc.) turning against their leaders and their countries, with the end result being universalism where [[IfICantHaveYou like the Jews, nobody would have any land to call their own]]. And of course, the Jews loathed Germany especially [[SarcasmMode because Germany had the greatest race and culture of them all.]]

* BelievingTheirOwnLies: Hitler almost certainly believed at least some of the lies he perpetrated here were true. Especially the ones about his war record and past experiences.

** MasterRace[=/=]TheSocialDarwinist: Hitler, above everything else, believed in the idea of a "master race" that were "superior" in [[TakeOurWordForIt some vague way he failed to define]] and who would rule over all others, taking primary inspiration from the then-popular Aryan legend.

''Mein Kampf'' is UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler's infamous autobiography combined with an exposition of his political ideology. Originally entitled ''Viereinhalb Jahre (des Kampfes) gegen Lüge, Dummheit und Feigheit'', or ''Four and a Half Years (of Struggle) Against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice'', the book was written during Hitler's imprisonment after the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923, and published with the more concise name ''Mein Kampf'' (''My Struggle'') in two volumes, the first being published in 1925 and the other in 1926, prior to his rise to power in 1933.

** MasterRace: Hitler, above everything else, believed in the idea of a "master race" that were "superior" in [[TakeOurWordForIt some vague way he failed to define]] and who would rule over all others, taking primary inspiration from the then-popular Aryan legend.

* WorthyOpponent: Hitler viewed UsefulNotes/{{Britain}} as this, calling them the only natural ally of a future Germany.

A sequel known only as ''Zweites Buch'' was [[AccidentalPun dictated]] and made but never published within his lifetime. It delves more into Hitler's ambitions to TakeOverTheWorld.

* AllThereInTheManual: Close examination of events as they actually played out reveals this as a ZigZaggedTrope. Hitler was very reluctant to annex his neighbours (initially, and only because he feared losing) and was annoyed that his followers kept pestering him to actually live up to his promises, commenting that when he wrote it he never expected to actually end up as dictator of Germany and he wouldn't have written the book if he had; he seemed to regard it as a "get-rich-quick" scheme to cash-in on his post-trial popularity and hoped to use the royalties to pay off his legal debts, and to inspire German far-rightists. When it came down to it, the invasions of both Austria and the Sudetenland were spearheaded by Göring, in large part because Germany's economic policies (ie. rapid re-militarization) meant they were spending far more than they had, and conquering her neighbours was the only way to balance her budget via rampant looting and theft (including from Jews), and seizing control of their industries. It was only after the world let Germany get away with this (and around the time he got hooked on amphetamines, which boosted his adrenaline and made him more reckless) that Hitler started getting more ambitious and taking his imperialist "promises" seriously, and masterminded the invasions of Czechoslovakia and Poland (both over the protest of Goring and others, though the likes of Ribbentrop and Himmler egged him on), and later the Soviet Union (again, over the protest of saner- if not exactly kinder minds).

* HijackedByGanon: Everything was or will be a Jewish conspiracy. Losing UsefulNotes/WorldWarI? Jewish conspiracy. [[UsefulNotes/RedOctober Bolshevik Revolution]]? Jewish conspiracy. UsefulNotes/EsperantoTheUniversalLanguage? Jewish Conspiracy. Specifically, the idea was that Jews had been too weak to keep their own land and after scattering throughout the world, became bitterly jealous of those other ethnic groups/races that that had managed to keep theirs, and that had "superior" cultures. Said cultures thrived because they held war, conquest, glory, elitism, purity and other such things as ideals, so the Jews spread the "lies" of pacifism, humility, democracy, egalitarianism etc., first through Christianity (which was sometimes held to be a Jewish corruption of what [[JesusWasWayCool Jesus]] actually taught--but since this was the only source of his teachings, they could re-imagine him to be whatever they wanted, like a great Aryan warrior, which they believed because of dubious pseudo-science at the time), then through liberalism, socialism and communism. Believing in pacifism ''et al''. made nations weak and corrupt and caused national disunity, which led to all of the above as the "pawns" of the Jews (socialists, pacifists, liberals etc.) turning against their leaders and their countries, with the end result being universalism where [[IfICantHaveYou like the Jews, nobody would have any land to call their own]]. And of course, the Jews loathed Germany especially [[SarcasmMode because Germany had the greatest race and culture of them all.]]

* FirstInstallmentWins: ''Mein Kampf'' is way better known than its sequel ''Zweites Buch'', but that's because the latter did not get published during Hitler's lifetime, while the former became a bestseller when Hitler came to power and everyone wanted to know what he thought.

* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: Turns out that some digging into the archives proves Hitler... [[BlatantLies creatively remembered]] a number of events to make himself look better. For instance, he spent much of the war as a regimental runner, carrying messages between regimental [=HQ=] and near the front lines and back (he is sometimes said to be a ''Battalion'' runner, taking messages from one part of the front line to the other; these were prime targets of snipers and the job was extremely dangerous; Hitler's job was not exactly safe, but it was far less dangerous than that). He often gives the impression that he spent most of that time fighting on the front lines, but in fact he usually spent days or even weeks sitting fairly comfortably in regimental command awaiting orders, passing the time by reading or painting. Regimental runners were generally in much less danger than Hitler made himself out to be in, and lot of his fellow soldiers and even fellow runners sent him letters or wrote to newspapers saying as much (the Nazi party sued them for slander). He ''did'' win awards for bravery (though his closeness to regimental command almost certainly helped him there) and do ''some'' fighting, but not to the extent he made out.

** MasterRace: Hitler, above everything else, believed in the idea of a "master race" that would rule over all others, taking primary inspiration from the then-popular Aryan legend.

The book is not recommended for reading unless you are a history major -- Hitler was a ''terrible'' writer. If you speak sufficient German, Creator/SerdarSomuncu has done a DramaticReading of the book [[AdolfHitlarious as a comedy act]], which works amazingly well and makes the dreck Hitler wrote entertaining ''and'' scary.