Hitler mainly used Mein Kampf to outline the ideological foundations of what became known as the National Socialist Workers' Party, or Nazis. In this sense Mein Kampf was itself a tool for Hitler's rise, as it was quite widely read in the early 1930s, as Nazis were beginning to win seats in the Reichstag and Hitler was becoming a nationally prominent politician. In Mein Kampf Hitler elucidates his views on the so-called "stab in the back" that led to German surrender in World War One, his virulent brand of anti-Semitism, and his bizarre racial theory of history. He did describe, in great detail, how propaganda should be used to facilitate the Nazi rise to power. Propaganda, he told his readers, was not intended to "weigh and ponder the rights of different people." Rather, its purpose was to:
...emphasize the one right which it has set out to argue for. Its task is not to make an objective study of the truth, in so far as it favors the enemy, and then set it before the masses with academic fairness; its task is to serve our own right, always and unflinchingly.
So Mein Kampf emphasized the importance of propaganda, the centrality of race, and the supposed need for totalitarian leadership to restore Germany. In this way, it anticipated the methods that Hitler would use in his rise to power and many aspects of his policies once he seized control of Germany.
No comments:
Post a Comment