In attempting to find an angle on the much publicized fact that Germans are once again allowed to read Adolf Hitler’s “My Struggle,” published in two volumes, in 1925 and 1926, it might be instructive to examine some of the book’s more popular quotes and see whether or not they have stood the test of time.
To those of us who miss those smoke-filled rooms where party bosses traded for the country’s next leader, instead of the silly season events we call presidential primaries, Hitler wrote: “Sooner will a camel pass through a needle’s eye than a great man be ‘discovered’ by an election.”
Tired of the society of plenty with its ridiculous self-adulation and creature comforts? Hitler was, too, and he said so: “Mankind has grown strong in eternal struggle, and only in eternal peace does it perish.”
“Nature . . . puts living creatures on this globe and watches the free play of forces. She then confers the master’s right on her favourite child, the strongest in courage and industry . . . The stronger must dominate and not blend with the weaker, thus sacrificing his own greatness. Only the born weakling can view this as cruel.” Which is why he was so offended when African-American Jesse Owens came to the Berlin Olympic Games and robbed the master race of four gold medals, in 100 meters, 200 meters, long jump, and 4 × 100 meter relay.
Albert Speer wrote that Hitler “was highly annoyed by the series of triumphs by the marvelous colored American runner, Jesse Owens. People whose antecedents came from the jungle were primitive, Hitler said with a shrug; their physiques were stronger than those of civilized whites and hence should be excluded from future games.” So much for Nature and her favorite children…
“All the human culture, all the results of art, science and technology that we see before us today, are almost exclusively the creative product of the Aryan.” If you exclude those thousands of Jewish works of art, science and technology. It is widely accepted that the reason Hitler lost the war was that he drove away German Jews, who excelled in so many areas of art, industry, commerce and science.
“Blood mixture and the result drop in the racial level is the sole cause of the dying out of old cultures; for men do not perish as a result of lost wars, but by the loss of that force of resistance which is continued only in pure blood. All who are not of good race in this world are chaff.” Boy, was Adolf wrong on that one. It has been shown repeatedly that children of mixed races are smarter and stronger than their “pure blood” counterparts. It’s conceivable that had Hitler won the war, his racial policy would have caused Germans to become feeble and unable to fight diseases.
Here’s something he just made up but wasn’t as farfetched as one might think: “The spark of a genius exists in the brain of the truly creative man from the hour of his birth. True genius is always inborn and never cultivated, let alone learned.” The fact is that recent studies in identical twins that were raised separately find that IQ levels are about 70% genetically based and 30% the result of the nurturing each twin received.
Finally: “For there is one thing we must never forget… the majority can never replace the man. And no more than a hundred empty heads make one wise man will an heroic decision arise from a hundred cowards.” Yes, Mr. Schicklgruber was full of himself.