Mein Kampf

"Mein Kampf is a manifesto of a complete political program. Nazism had a theory of racism and of the Aryan chosen people, a precise notion of degenerate art, entartete Kunst, a philosophy of the will to power and of the Ubermensch. Nazism was decidedly anti-Christian and neo-pagan, while Stalin's Diamat (the official version of Soviet Marxism) was blatantly materialistic and atheistic. If by totalitarianism one means a regime that subordinates every act of the individual to the state and to its ideology, then both Nazism and Stalinism were true totalitarian regimes."

- Umberto Eco, "Ur-Fascism", The New York Review of Books, June 22, 1995

Adolf Hitler's infamous autobiography combined with an exposition of Hitler's political ideology. Written while imprisoned and published prior to his rise to power, "My Struggle" is one the best selling and most banned books in the modern era.

A sequel, Zweites Buch, was dictated and made but never released while he was alive.


 * Big Lie


 * All There in the Manual: Much of Hitler's plans for Germany and Europe were contained within, making it a twisted Cassandra Truth.
 * Author Tract: It's Hitler's longwinded rants about his views in prose format.
 * Author Filibuster / Doorstopper: Not a particularly well written or inspiring work of literature.
 * Bowdlerise: The first English translation removed some of the more anti-Semitic and militaristic statements. A more faithful one was released later but it lost a copyright lawsuit.
 * Conspiracy Theorist: Jewish People Are The Source Of All Bad In The World: The Tract.
 * Democracy Is Bad: Hitler disparages the concept in the text, considering it a majority rule by many easily misguided weak people, instead favoring strong rule by one forceful personality.
 * Greedy Jew: Whom Hitler lays the blame for most of the ills of the world.
 * Ideological Screed: Hitler's blueprint for what he would do in World War II, to be exact.
 * Master Race: The Germans, at least Hitler's idealized portrait of them, were this according to him.
 * Nazi Protagonist: It's written from Hitler's POV, this is a given.
 * Old Shame: While not ashamed of the content, Hitler later remarked he regretted the quality of the book, given even he admitted he felt it read like a disjointed narrative in many places he could have applied better prose to.
 * Patriotic Fervor: While the prose is turgid, it otherwise is a cheer-leading screed aimed at promoting this in the Germans as a national concept.
 * Red Scare: Hitler have hardly anything nice to say about communism and goes on at length about how bad it is.
 * Short Title: Long Elaborate Subtitle: The original intended title was Four and a Half Years (of Struggle) Against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice
 * Ubermensch: Germans are considered this according to Hitler.