Mein Kampf - the Official 1939 Edition

FOOT NOTES

1)    In order to understand the reference here, and similar references in later portions of Mein Kampf, the following must be borne in mind:

From 1792 to 1814 the French Revolutionary Armies overran Germany. In 1800 Bavaria shared in the Austrian defeat at Hohenlinden and the French occupied Munich. In 1805 the Bavarian Elector was made King of Bavaria by Napoleon and stipulated to back up Napoleon in all his wars with a force of 30,000 men. Thus Bavaria became the absolute vassal of the French. This was ‘The Time of Germany’s Deepest Humiliation’, Which is referred to again and again by Hitler.

In 1806 a pamphlet entitled ‘Germany’s Deepest Humiliation’ was published in South Germany. Amnng those who helped to circulate the pamphlet was the Nurnberg bookseller, Johannes Philipp Palm. He was denounced to the French by a Bavarian police agent. At his trial he refused to disclose the name of the author. By Napoleon’s orders, he was shot at Braunau-on-the-Inn on August 26th, 1806. A monument erected to
him
on the site of the execution was one of the first public objects that made an impression on Hitler as a little boy.

Leo Schlageter’s case was in many respects parallel to that of Johannes Palm. Schlageter was a German theological student who volunteered for service in 1914. He became an artillery officer and won the Iron Cross of both classes. When the French occupied the Ruhr in 1923 Schlageter helped to organize the passive resistance on the German side. He and his companions blew up a railway bridge for the purpose of making the transport of coal to France more difficult.

Those who took part in the affair were denounced to the French by a German informer. Schlageter took the whole responsibility on his own shoulders and was condemned to death, his companions being sentenced to various terms of imprisonment and penal servitude by the French Court. Schlageter refused to disclose the identity of those who issued the order to blow up the railway bridge and he would not plead for mercy before a French Court. He was shot by a French firing-squad on May 26th, 1923. Severing was at that time German Minister of the Interior. It is said that representations were made, to him on Schlageter’s behalf and that he refused to interfere.

Schlageter has become the chief martyr of the German resistancc to the French occupation of the Ruhr and also one of the great heroes of the National Socialist Movement. He had joined the Movement at a very early stage, his card of membership bearing the number 61.

2)    Non-classical secondary school. The Lyceum and Gymnasium were classical or semiclassical secondary schools.

3)    See Translator’s Introduction.

4)    When Francis II had laid down his title as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, which he did at the command of Napoleon, the

Crown and Mace, as the Imperial Insignia, were kept in Vienna. After the German Empire was refounded, in 1871, under William I, there were many demands to have the Insignia transferred to Berlin. But these went unheeded. Hitler had them brought to Germany after the Austrian Anschluss and displayed at Nuremberg during the Party Congress in September 1938.

5)    The Phaecians were a legendary people, mentioned in Homer’s Odyssey. They were supposed to live on some unknown island in the Eastern Mediterranean, sometimes suggested to be Corcyra, the modern Corfu. They loved good living more than work, and so the name Phaecian has come to be a synonym for parasite.

6)    Spottgeburt von Dreck und Feuer. This is the epithet that Faust hurls at Mephistopheles as the latter intrudes on the conversation between Faust and Martha in the garden: Mephistopheles: Thou, full of sensual, super-sensual desire, A girl by the nose is leading thee. Faust: Abortion, thou of filth and fire.

7)    Herodotus (Book VII, 213-218) tells the story of how a Greek traitor, Ephialtes, helped the Persian invaders at the Battle of Thermopylae (480 B.C.) When the Persian King, Xerxes, had begun to despair of being able to break through the Greek defence, Ephialtes came to him and, on being promised a definite payment, told the King of a pathway over the shoulder of the mountain to the Greek end of the Pass. The bargain being clinched, Ephialtes led a detachment of the Persian troops under General Hydarnes over the mountain pathway. Thus taken in the rear, the Greek defenders, under Leonidas, King of Sparta, had to fight in two opposite directions within the narrow pass. Terrible slaughter ensued and Leonidas fell in the thick of the fighting.

The bravery of Leonidas and the treason of Ephialtes impressed Hitler, as it does almost every schoolboy. The incident is referred to again in Mein Kampf (Chap. VIII, Vol. I), where Hitler compares the German troops that fell in France and Flanders to the Greeks at Thermopylae, the treachery of Ephialtes being suggested as the prototype of the defeatist policy of the German politicians towards the end of the Great War.

8)    German Austria was the East Mark on the South and East Prussia was the East Mark on the North.

9)    Carlyle explains the epithet thus: "First then, let no one from the title Gehoernte (Horned, Behorned), fancy that our brave Siegfried, who was the loveliest as well as the bravest of men, was actually cornuted, and had horns on his brow, though like Michael Angelo’s Moses; or even that his skin, to which the epithet Behorned refers, was hard like a crocodile’s, and not softer than the softest shamey, for the truth is, his Hornedness means only an Invulnerability, like that of Achilles..

10)    Lines quoted from the Song of the Curassiers in Schiller’s Wallenstein.

11)    The Second Infantry Bavarian Regiment, in which Hitler served as a volunteer.

12)    Schwabing is the artistic quarter in Munich where artists have their studios and litterateurs, especially of the Bohemian class, foregather.

13)    Here again we have the defenders of Thermopyl^ recalled as the prototype of German valour in the Great War. Hitler’s quotation is a German variant of the couplet inscribed on the monument erected at Thermopyl^ to the memory of Leonidas and his Spartan soldiers who fell defending the Pass. As given by Herodotus, who claims that he saw the inscription himself, the original text may be literally translated thus:

Go, tell the Spartans, thou who passeth by,

That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.

14)Swedish    Chancellor who took over the reins of Government after the death of Gustavus Adolphus

15)    When Mephistopheles first appears to Faust, in the latter’s study, Faust inquires: "What is thy name?" To which Mephistopheles replies: "A part of the Power which always wills the Bad and always works the Good." And when Faust asks him what is meant by this riddle and why he should call himself ‘a part,’ the gist of Mephistopheles’ reply is that he is the Spirit of Negation and exists through opposition to the positive Truth and Order and Beauty which proceed from the never-ending creative energy of the Deity. In the Prologue to Faust the Lord declares that man’s active nature would grow sluggish in working the good and that therefore he has to be aroused by the Spirit of Opposition. This Spirit wills the Bad, but of itself it can do nothing positive, and by its opposition always works the opposite of what it wills.

16)    The last and most famous of the medieval alchemists. He was born at Basle about the year 1490 and died at Salzburg in 1541. He taught that all metals could be transmuted through the action of one primary element common to them all. This element he called Alcahest. If it could be found it would prove to be at once the philosopher’s stone, the universal medicine and the irresistible solvent. There are many aspects of his teaching which are now looked upon as by no means so fantastic as they were considered in his own time.

17)    The Battle of Leipzig (1813), where the Germans inflicted an overwhelming defeat on Napoleon, was the decisive event which put an end to the French occupation of Germany.

The occupation had lasted about twenty years. After the Great War, and the partial occupation of Germany once again by French forces, the Germans used to celebrate the anniversary of the Battle of Leipzig as a symbol of their yearning.

18)    The flag of the German Empire, founded in 1871, was Black-White-Red. This was discarded in 1918 and Black-Red-Gold was chosen as the flag of the German Republic founded at Weimar in 1919. The flag designed by Hitler - red with a white disc in the centre, bearing the black swastika - is now the national flag.

19)    After the debacle of 1918 several semi-military associations were formed by demobilized officers who had fought at the Front. These were semi-clandestine associations and were known as Freikorps (Volunteer corps). Their principal purpose was to act as rallying centres for the old nationalist elements.

20)    Schiller, who wrote the famous drama of William Tell.

21)    The reference here is to those who gave information to the Allied Commissions about hidden stores of arms in Germany.

22)    Before 1918 Germany was a federal Empire, composed of twenty-five federal states.

23)    Probably the author has two separate incidents in mind. The first happened in 390 B.C., when, as the victorious Gauls descended on Rome, the Senators ordered their ivory chairs to be placed in the Forum before the Temples of the Gods. There, clad in their robes of state, they awaited the invader, hoping to save the city by sacrificing themselves. This noble gesture failed for the time being; but it had an inspiring influence on subsequent generations. The second incident, which has more historical authenticity, occurred after the Roman defeat at Cannae in 216 B.C. On that occasion Varro, the Roman commander, who, though in great part responsible for the disaster, made an effort to carry on the struggle, was, on his return to Rome, met by the citizens of all ranks and publicly thanked because he had not despaired of the Republic. The consequence was that the Republic refused to make peace with the victorious Carthagenians.

On April 1st, 1924, I began to serve my sentence of detention in the Fortress of Landsberg am Lech, following the verdict of the Munich People’s Court of that t
im
e.

After years of uninterrupted labour it was now possible for the first time to begin a work which many had asked for and which I myself felt would be profitable for the Movement. So I decided to devote two volumes to a description not only of the aims of our Movement but also of its development. There is more to be learned from this than from any purely doctrinaire treatise.

This has also given me the opportunity of describing my own development in so far as such a description is necessary to the understanding of the first as well as the second volume and to destroy the legendary fabrications which the Jewish Press have circulated about me.

In this work I turn not to strangers but to those followers of the Movement whose hearts belong to it and who wish to study it more profoundly. I know that fewer people are won over by the written word than by the spoken word and that every great movement on this earth owes its growth to great speakers and not to great writers.

Nevertheless, in order to produce more equality and uniformity in the defence of any doctrine, its fundamental principles must be committed to writing. May these two volumes therefore serve as the building stones which I contribute to the joint work.

The Fortress, Landsberg am Lech.

At half-past twelve in the afternoon of November 9th, 1923, those whose names are given below fell in front of the Feldherrnhalle and in the    forecourt    of    the

former War Ministry in Munich for their loyal faith in the resurrection    of their

people:

Alfarth, Felix, Merchant, born July 5th, 1901

Bauriedl, Andreas, Hatmaker, born May 4th, 1879

Casella, Theodor, Bank Official, born August 8th, 1900

Ehrlich, Wilhelm, Bank Official, born August 19th, 1894

Faust, Martin, Bank Official, born January 27th, 1901

Hechenberger, Anton, Locksmith, born September 28th, 1902

Koerner, Oskar, Merchant, born January 4th, 1875

Kuhn, Karl, Head Waiter, born July 25th, 1897

Laforce, Karl, Student of Engineering, born October 28th, 1904

Neubauer, Kurt, Waiter, born March 27th, 1899

Pape, Claus von, Merchant, born August 16th, 1904

Pfordten, Theodor von der, Councillor to the Superior Provincial Court,