The title Mein Kampf ('My Struggle') wasn't Hitler's first choice. His preferred title for his autobiography - dictated to Rudolf Hess in prison - was A Four and a Half Years’ Battle Against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice: A Reckoning with the Destroyers of the Nazi Party Movement. Max Amann, Hitler’s publisher, took one look at it and suggested cutting it to a more manageable length for sales reasons. He left the text substantially alone, however, and the book’s 600 pages are very much in the style of the rejected title - a mélange of paranoia and bombast. Along with A Brief History of Time it is probably one of the world’s least-read bestsellers. Its foreign editions disagreed about the translation of ‘Kampf’, which in English is less ‘struggle’ than ‘battle’ or ‘fight’: they included My Battle in the USA, Mi Lucha in Spain and La Mia Battaglia in Italy.Consulted:
Hitler, A: Mein Kampf, trans and intro by Watt, D.C. (1969)
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Brrr... I remember this guy screaming at me last year because we didn't sell the book. He thought it was unacceptable. I thought he was unacceptable.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds nasty. I perused it in the university library here, and it's available to buy on Amazon and presumably in other bookstores. It's a moral dilemma for bookstore owners, who would not, I suppose, consider stocking The Protocols of the Elders of Zion or other out-and-out racist literature. If I owned a bookshop I think I would tend towards making it available so that people could see it for what it is - though of course that doesnt excuse rudeness!
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with you, Gary, I think it should be available... however, I would not find it terrible that a bookseller refuses to have it on display in his/her store.. It's pretty much the seller's call, depending on personal 'sensibilities' (god, that sounds wrong)
ReplyDeleteThe reason it was not available in the bookstore is actually that some people, when seeing the book, started destroying it. So first, the boss kept it in a "safe" place - then she stopped...
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