Adolf Hitler - Hitler’s second book

This book made available by the Internet Archive.

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Ubersetzung der Orginalausgabe

veroffentlicht vom Institut fur Zeitgeschichte in Miinchen

Hitlers zweites Buch.

Ein Dokument aus dem Jahr 1928.

Eingeleitet und kommentiert von

Gerhard L. Weinberg.

Stuttgart 1961

Uberarbeitete Neuauflage erschienen in der Dokumentation

Hitler. Reden Schriften Anordnungen.

Februar 1925 bis Januar 1933

Band II A

AuBenpolitische Standortbestimmung.

Nach der Reichstagswahl.

Juni-Julil928.

Eingeleitet von Gerhard L. Weinberg.

Herausgegeben und kommentiert von

Gerhard L. Weinberg, Christian Hartmann und

Klaus A. Lankheit.

Miinchen 1995

Copyright 2003 Enigma Books

Introduction by Gerhard L. Weinberg Edited and annotated by Gerhard L. Weinberg, 2003

Translated by Krista Smith

First English-language edition

ISBN 1-929631-16-2

Printed in the United States of America

Foreword

by Gerhard JL Weinberg

Until 1958 the actual document of what became known as Hitler's Second Book remained hidden within the archives of captured German records in Alexandria, Virginia, where I located it. Hider had dictated the text in 1928 but never had it published. In 1961 the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich published the book with the tide, Hitlers Zweites Buch: Ein Dokument aus dem ]ahr 1928 (Hider's Second Book: A Document of the Year 1928.)

The availability of a reliable English-language text is especially important for English-speaking readers and Americans in particular because beyond the repetition of such themes from Hitier's earlier work, Mein Kampf, as the eternal struggle for land, the racial basis of all history, the need for Germany to conquer additional living space, and the endless repetition of the importance of fighting an imaginary Jewish enemy, there are also themes of particular relevance today. There is far more extensive discussion of the United States than can be found elsewhere. It is somewhat more positive than his later remarks, and it culminates in the assertion that a Nazi

Gerhard L. Weinberg

government of Germany would have as one of its major responsibilities the preparation of the country for war with the United States. This belief of Hider's may make it easier for Americans to understand why, as soon as the initial rearmament steps of Hider's government had in his eyes reached the point at which the weapons needed for war with Britain and France were well on the road to full production, he gave orders in 1937 for the development of the inter-continental bombers and super-batdeships he considered necessary for war against the United States. And this at a time when the United States Congress was busy passing the so-called "neutrality laws."

There are, furthermore, still those who imagine that Hitler hoped to reverse the losses Germany had incurred through the 1919 Peace Treaty of Versailles. As he constantly asserted in his speeches and explains in detail in this work, that was the last thing Germany needed. In his eyes, the demand for this by other German politicians only showed what utter fools they were. A National Socialist government would never follow such a route; it would fight wars for hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of land, not the litde snippets that Germany had lost in 1919 and that would never suffice for the Germans to feed themselves on their own land. And, if Germany was to dominate the globe, obviously, as he points out in this work, the end of each war that he would lead for massive additional land would only provide the basis for the next conflict.

Both in the thinking of some and in Nazi propaganda during the war, there is the notion of Germany as a bulwark against Bolshevik Russia. In Hitler's racial perception of history, however, the Bolshevik Revolution became a racial displacement of the allegedly Germanic ruling elite of the Tsarist regime by a bunch of incompetents now ruling racial inferiors. It was, therefore, a stroke of great good luck for a German government that saw in this the easier opportunity to seize land for setdement in Eastern Europe.

Hitler s Second Book

Neither the inter-continental bombers nor the super-battleships were ever built; and the derogatory view that Hider had of Slavic (and one should say Chinese) people turned out to be grossly mistaken; but a revolution halted in its tracks cannot be understood without attention to the beliefs of those in charge and the goals toward which they thought themselves headed. Those who are interested in understanding one of the major and most evil figures of the twentieth century will find Hider's exposition of his own views essential.

Since the 1961 German-language edition of this book quickly went out of print and there was new evidence about the manuscript and additional relevant scholarship, the Institute of Contemporary History in Munich decided ten years ago to include the text of the document with a revised introduction by myself, and additional notes provided by members of the Institute staff, Christian Hartmann and Klaus A. Lankheit, as a special volume in its comprehensive edition of Hitler's speeches and writings. The intent to publish, at the time, a carefully translated and edited edition in the English language that would immediately follow the original German one was aborted by the appearance of a pirated edition which appropriated many of my notes but was neither carefully translated nor properly annotated.

In the Foreword of the original German edition I thanked a number of individuals who had helped me at that time. In addition, special thanks are due to Dr. Albrecht Tyrell, who provided me with significant archival information incorporated in the Introduction and to the staff members of the Institute of Contemporary History in Munich. I am very pleased that Enigma Books has decided to publish a carefully prepared English-language edition of this important source. The only extensive work dictated by Adolf Hider other than Mein Kampfis therefore now accessible to those in the English-speaking world.

Although as editor I accept responsibility for the introduction and commentary, the authorAdolf Hideris responsible