Orwell Notes Hitler's Rigidity of Mind

It is a sign of the speed at which events are moving that Hurst and Blackett’s unexpurgated edition of Mein Kampf, published only a year ago, is edited from a pro-Hitler angle. The obvious intention of the translator’s preface and notes is to tone down the book’s ferocity and present Hitler in as kindly a light as possible. For at that date Hitler was still respectable. He had crushed the German labour movement, and for that the property-owning classes were willing to forgive him almost anything. Both Left and Right concurred in the very shallow notion that National Socialism was merely a version of Conservatism.

Then suddenly it turned out that Hitler was not respectable after all. As one result of this, Hurst and Blackett’s edition was reissued in a new jacket explaining that all profits would be devoted to the Red Cross. Nevertheless, simply on the internal evidence of Mein Kampf, it is difficult to believe that any real change has taken place in Hitler’s aims and opinions. When one compares his utterances of a year or so ago with those made fifteen years earlier, a thing that strikes one is the rigidity of his mind, the way in which his world-view doesn’t develop. It is the fixed vision of a monomaniac and not likely to be much affected by the temporary manoeuvres of power politics. Probably, in Hitler’s own mind, the Russo-German Pact represents no more than an alteration of time-table. The plan laid down in Mein Kampf was to smash Russia first, with the implied intention of smashing England afterwards. Now, as it has turned out, England has got to be dealt with first, because Russia was the more easily bribed of the two. But Russia’s turn will come when England is out of the picture—that, no doubt, is how Hitler sees it. Whether it will turn out that way is of course a different question.

Notes:

He notes that Hitler's ideas did not change at all over 15 years and that is a mark of madness.

Folksonomies: plasticity cognitive plasticity insanity rigidity

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/society/unrest and war (0.262530)
/finance/personal finance/insurance/travel insurance (0.235547)

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Adolf Hitler (0.736340): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc | yago | musicBrainz
Nazism (0.641790): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Left-wing politics (0.623020): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Labour movement (0.601599): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc | yago
Democratic socialism (0.561905): dbpedia | freebase | yago
Socialism (0.539353): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Reality (0.536754): dbpedia | freebase

 Review of Mein Kampf
Periodicals>Magazine Article:  Orwell, George (1940), Review of Mein Kampf, Retrieved on 2014-08-16
  • Source Material [docs.google.com]
  • Folksonomies: politics criticism


    Schemas

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