Mein Kampf: Hitler's Horrifying Blueprint For The Holocaust | Witness | Nazi History Documentary

Hitler rewrites his own story, giving himself a hero's role. But not only that, he takes advantage of his incarceration to read dozens of books, like the essay on the differences between human races by the French writer Gobineau, or ones with charming titles, such as Rassenhygiene, Racial Hygiene. Today, it may seem revolting, but at the time, these pseudo-scientific theories were successful. Newspapers talk about races with no embarrassment. Hitler uses this as a source of inspiration. He starts collecting them. He puts them all together in a kind of hard-to-swallow soup. He manages to give a terrible, nightmarish coherence to these racial books and ideas. And so the months go on. Hitler perfects his terrifying theory, that of the racial struggle. At the top of his imaginary pyramid are the Aryans, in other words, the Germans, in a permanent battle to protect the purity of their race. Their biggest enemy, the Jews, who are considered a scourge. He is and remains a complete parasite, a scrounger, like a harmful bacteria always spreading further. His presence produces the effect of a parasitic plant. Wherever he settles, the people who welcome him will be wiped out eventually. Juden, in German, the Jews. It's one of the words that appears most often in Mein Kampf. It appears 373 times, an average once every two pages. An obsession for Hitler. He believes that they are responsible for all of Germany's failures, including their defeat in 1918. He tries to convince the Germans that the Jews are behind an international conspiracy to destroy Germany, and which is the cause of all their problems. He goes through the entire range of anti-Semitic discourse and brings it to its maximum intensity. At the end of 1924, Hitler leaves prison with hundreds of pages under his arm, and he doesn't have any difficulty publishing his text, which is extremely violent towards Jews. Because of his notoriety, publishers are lining up. The first books about him start to be released. Newspapers are talking about him. He was a star in the media at the time. Well, maybe not a star, but someone very well-known outside of Bavaria, and even outside of Germany. And so the possibility of publishing his first book was very attractive. Hitler has the choice, so he opts for the publisher who offers him the most money, Max Amann. He is also a friend, his former sergeant during the 1418 war. He runs a small publishing house and shares the same extremist ideas. But before the book is released, they have to find the right title, which is not easy. The first title of Mann Kampf was four and a half years of struggle against lies, cowardice, and weakness. The title says a lot, but it's not very catchy. The publisher insists on a shorter title, more compact, synthetic, and something that could be catchy. In truth, we don't know exactly who chose the final title. One thing is sure, it will be Mann Kampf, My Struggle. And for its release, it's highly advertised in the extreme right press. The best Christmas present, this newspaper suggests in December 1925. But when it arrives in bookshops, surprise, it's not a commercial success. A few thousand copies appeal to Nazi supporters, but the work does not break through as much as was predicted. Worse still, some newspapers annihilate him. Hitler is a political agitator who no longer understands the world. His ideas come from a twisted mind. The truth is that Mann Kampf is a book that is mostly unreadable. For his contemporaries, it's mostly a hodgepodge of ideas, a kind of volcanic explosion that isn't completely under control. In truth, the public expected sensational revelations about the Putsch that Hitler would reveal insider secrets. The expectation was too much. People expected to see a political bomb explode, and that was in no way what was in Mann Kampf. But Hitler insisted. In 1928, he even writes another work, which is totally unknown, nicknamed The Secret Book, another very aggressive work. However, this second book is never printed in his lifetime. The publisher refuses, given the poor sales of Mann Kampf. So Mann Kampf could have stayed a small, unknown work, except fate is about to take a dramatic turn. It's 1930, and the economic crisis in America hits a still-weak Germany hard. In the space of four years, the country has over four million more unemployed. At the elections, Germans avoid the classic parties and vote for the extremes. Hitler's party goes from three to 18%. Straight away, sales of Mann Kampf go through the roof. 54,000 copies were sold just in 1930. We want to know what Hitler thinks, what he wants, this man who has become part of the German political system. And in his quest for power, this book improves the Führer's image. It establishes Hitler's credibility as no longer just a political agitator, just a speaker but a writer. It's something that matters in Germany. Germany is still a country that respects its doctors and professors. 1933, Hitler amazes the whole world when he arrives in power, almost by surprise. He is appointed chancellor, though he only won 37% of the votes. To realize his dreams of greatness and the conquests he wrote about in Mann Kampf, he would need a united Germany. So with the help of Goebbels, he uses one of the theories contained in his book, propaganda. All effective propaganda must restrict itself to a few key points and enforce them with stereotypical formulas as long as required until the last of the audience is able to understand the idea. And one of the tools of this mass propaganda, of course, is Mann Kampf. Very soon, the state recommends that all government employees buy it. From 1936, it is given to all newlyweds. And then the Führer charmed the manufacturing industry. Thanks to rearmament, their orders increase eightfold. Businesses like Krupp hand it out to everyone. It was given as presents for birthdays and celebrations. Or it was given out like a bonus for good performances. And to boost sales, the publisher offers the book in all formats. Braille editions for the blind, deluxe versions with a marble cover and gold-plated pages, a limited edition for high-ranking Nazi dignitaries, and the ultimate in propaganda, an enormous version in Bible format. It was a symbol of domination for the National Socialists. It was considered like the Bible of Nazism. And even more important than the book itself was its symbolic function that everyone said, we know Mein Kampf, it's the Führer's book. By force, the book becomes a bestseller and so ensures Hitler's fortune. Through royalties, he earns the equivalent of around 10 million euros. He can buy himself his famous base, the Berghof, and satisfy his taste for luxurious Mercedes cars. In total, 12.5 million copies were printed in Germany until 1944. Hitler earned around one Reichsmark, which means through this book, he earned at least 12 million Reichsmarks. But behind the massive distribution, was Mein Kampf really read? This isn't certain. With its 700 pages and laborious text, the work certainly had enough to put people off. In 1940, Karl-Heinz Riener is enrolled in the Wehrmacht as a nurse. In his family, his father had received a copy from his company, but was not pleased with the gift. My father put the book on a shelf and it stayed there until 1945. My father looked inside it and said, it was a declaration of war, pure and simple, and added he would never read this nonsense. In fact, at the time, like many other Germans, Karl and his father underestimated Hitler. We didn't take Hitler seriously. We didn't think a man who wrote something like that could stay in power. And we made jokes about him. We laughed at him. In the end, it's true. Perhaps we should have taken him seriously. In other families, conversely, the book crystallized all their fears. In the suburbs of East Berlin, on the banks of the Spree, Lutz Rackow remembers perfectly the first time he heard talk of Mein Kampf. In 1938, Lutz was only six years old. His father, Otto, was an architect. One evening, he got all his friends together at their house to talk about Hitler's book. I was sat under the table instead of being in bed because I was curious to know what they were saying. I heard my father keep repeating, but read this book. And of course, they weren't talking about the Bible or anything else, but about Mein Kampf. Lutz doesn't know if his father's friends followed his advice, but one thing is sure. His father was one of the few Germans to understand the future catastrophes that this Nazi book forewarned. He was of the opinion that all the answers to what the Nazis were going to do were in Mein Kampf. At that time, I remember Hitler talked about freedom, freedom, freedom, and in reality, he was preparing for a war with all his force. And of course, this war that was in preparation had to stay completely secret, and that is exactly what started to worry Hitler. He is afraid that his plans will be revealed in his books. Indeed, some of the passages do announce future conquests. The aim of our external politics, ensure the German people that they will get the territories they should. Territory will justify the sacrifice of our own children.