Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ and the Holocaust: A Prelude to Genocide

369 Pages·2022·29.27 MB·English

by  John J. Michalczyk (Editor), Michael S. Bryant (Editor), Susan A. Michalczyk (Editor)

Hitler’s Mein Kampf
and the Holocaust
PERSPECTIVES ON THE HOLOCAUST
A series of books designed to help students further their understanding of
key topics within the field of Holocaust studies.
Published:
Holocaust Representations in History (2nd edition), Daniel H. Magilow
and Lisa Silverman
Postwar Germany and the Holocaust, Caroline Sharples
Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, Beth A. Griech-Polelle
The Holocaust in Eastern Europe, Waitman Wade Beorn
The United States and the Nazi Holocaust, Barry Trachtenberg
Witnessing the Holocaust, Judith M. Hughes
Hitler’s Mein Kampf and the Holocaust: A Prelude to Genocide, John J.
Michalczyk, Michael S. Bryant, and Susan A. Michalczyk (eds.)
Forthcoming:
Sites of Holocaust Memory, Janet Ward
Hitler’s Mein Kampf
and the Holocaust
A Prelude to Genocide
Edited by
John J. Michalczyk,
Michael S. Bryant, and
Susan A. Michalczyk
BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC
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First published in Great Britain 2022
Copyright © John J. Michalczyk, Michael S. Bryant and Susan A. Michalczyk, 2022
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as Author of this work.
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Cover Image: Picture taken on January 1945 at Auschwitz, after the liberation of
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Dedicated to Jacques Salmanowitz (1884–1966)
Jacques Salmanowitz, a Swiss businessman, was instrumental
in bringing to safety in Switzerland many individuals trapped
behind German lines in the Second World War.
vi
CONTENTS
List of Figures ix
Foreword xi
Acknowledgments xii
Introduction 1
PART I The Mise-en-Scène of Mein Kampf, 1924–2016 9
1 Focus Landsberg: A Bavarian Town and Its Historical
Ties to Hitler Karla Schönebeck 11
2 Mein Kampf: Part of the Right-Wing German Postwar
Literature Othmar Plöckinger 19
3 Mein Kampf: The Critical Edition in Historical
Perspective Magnus Brechtken 33
PART II Establishing Power 51
4 Hitler, Leadership, and the Holocaust
Paul Bookbinder 53
5 Violence in Mein Kampf: Tactic and Political
Communication Nathan Stoltzfus and
J. Ryan Stackhouse 70
PART III Eugenics and Aesthetics in Mein Kampf 85
6 Mein Kampf: Race, Blood, and the Holocaust
John J. Michalczyk 89
viii CONTENTS
7 Degeneracy—Attack on Modern Art and Music
Ralf Yusuf Gawlick and Barbara S. Gawlick 112
PART IV Mein Kampf and the Crusade against Germany’s
“Enemies” 127
8 The Auroras of the Final Solution: Intimations of
Genocide in Mein Kampf Michael S. Bryant 131
9 Pathway to the Shoah: The Protocols, “Jewish
Bolshevism,” Rosenberg, Goebbels, Ford, and
Hitler David M. Crowe 146
10 Marxism—Enemy of the People in the Political Party and
Military System Melanie Murphy 166
PART V Religious Overtones in Mein Kampf 183
11 Being Adolf Hitler: Mein Kampf as Anti-Semitic
Bildungsroman Susannah Heschel 185
12 Mein Kampf: Catholic Authority and the
Holocaust Martin Menke 197
13 The Apocalypse of Adolf Hitler: Mein Kampf and
the Eschatological Origins of the Holocaust
David Redles 213
Part VI Epilogue 235
14 Holocaust Education and (Early) Signs of the Erosion of
Democracy Tetyana Hoggan-Kloubert 237
Appendix 253
Notes 264
Bibliography 328
List of Contributors 346
Index 350
FIGURES
1.1 Hitler, released from prison, poses in front of the Bavarian
Tower in Landsberg 14
1.2 Hitler returns to Landsberg in 1934 15
1.3 Father Karl Morgenschweis prays for condemned prisoners
on the gallows 17
2.1 Theodor Fritsch, Handbuch der Judenfrage (The Handbook
of the Jewish Question) 24
2.2 Theodor Fritsch (1852–1933) was a journalist and
publisher of anti-Semitic writings such as The Protocols
of the Elders of Zion and Henry Ford’s International Jew,
besides The Handbook of the Jewish Question 25
3.1 Institut für Zeitgeschichte (Institute of Contemporary
History), Munich, Germany: staff members at a cabinet
with building plans from the Third Reich, c. 1950 34
4.1 “One People, one Reich, one Führer/Leader”: Image of authority 56
5.1 SA/Sturmabteilung storm troopers in action 71
6.1 “Blut und Boden” (“Blood and Soil”) was the 1930s slogan
for a program that combined racial ideals with the land 91
6.2 In 1933, Jewish businessman Oskar Danker and his
girlfriend, a Christian woman, were forced to carry signs
discouraging Jewish-German integration 104
6.3 Photo of biracial girl used in lectures at Germany’s State
Academy for Race and Health 106
6.4 Aryan certificate (Ariernachweis) stating that one is of
Aryan bloodline 110
7.1 Publicity for the Entartete Kunst/Degenerate Art exhibition:
Otto Freundlich’s sculpture “Der Neue Mensch” 119