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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