Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ and the Holocaust

With in-depth studies of Mein Kampf as a genre (an anti-Semitic Bildungsroman), analyses of its context, esthetics, and its religious overtones, this collection of essays illuminates the most lethal and darkest of books. The close readings of Hitler’s language of crusade against the enemy and of his prophetic and apocalyptic discourse show how his breviary of hate led to the Holocaust, and how rhetorical violence can become a pathway to mass murder. * Clemence Boulouque, Carl and Bernice Witten Associate Professor in Jewish and Israel studies, Columbia University, USA *

Hitler’s Mein Kampf and the Holocaust is a very important anthology about one of the most influential books in modern world history, written by Adolf Hitler in 1923⁄24 during his imprisonment in the small Bavarian town of Landsberg am Lech. After its first appearance in 1925 it was destined to unfold its fatal effect as an ideological manifest of National Socialism. The anthology sheds light on key aspects of the complex history of the impact of Mein Kampf and represents a standard work on this subject.

* Stefan Paulus, Research Associate in Faculty of Philology and History, Augsburg University, Germany *

John J. Michalczyk is Professor and Director of Film Studies at Boston College, USA. He is the author of Filming the End of the Holocaust (Bloomsbury, 2014). He is also the editor of Medicine, Ethics, and the Third Reich: Historical and Contemporary Issues (1994), Resisters, Rescuers, and Refugees: Historical and Ethical Issues (1997) and, with SJ Raymond G. Helmick, Through a Lens Darkly: Films of Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing (2013).

Michael S. Bryant is Professor of History and Legal Studies at Bryant University, USA. He is the author of A World History of War Crimes (Bloomsbury, 2021), Confronting the “Good Death:” Nazi Euthanasia on Trial, 1945-53 (2005) and Eyewitness to Genocide: Jewish Witnesses, West German Courts, and the “Operation Reinhard” Trials, 1956-1966 (2014).

Susan A. Michalczyk is Associate Professor of the Practice at Boston College, USA.