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George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

gutenberg.net.au

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Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#411

Post by jhgb »

hef19898 wrote: post #402
jhgb wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Kind of free?" Are you kidding me? The absolutely laughable claim above was that women were not to be blamed for the electoral victories of Nazis. The fact that at least 80% of German women in Czechoslovakia voted for Nazis in free elections demolishes that absurdity.

Ok, apparently I can't stop... Source to the claim that elections in 1938, those we are talking about were not free: https://web.archive.org/web/20111110054101/http://www.uni-du... And yes, a difference of 20% is quite significant. Also, German citizens enabled the Nazi, no doubt about that. The situation in Czechoslovakia in 1938 is different: - the Sudetenland was dominated by a German minority, that German candida…

The Czechoslovak Republic was pretty much the last democratic country in the region. To say that those elections were "not free" requires a massive amount of guts. They were as free as you get in that time and place. If 90% of a German minority votes for an openly Nazi politician with an openly Nazi agenda, then 90% of that German minority are openly Nazi. Case closed, period.

> the Sudetenland was dominated by a German minority, that German candidates fare better among German voters is not a big surprise

Ah, so they had to vote for the Nazi.

> joining Germany wasn't an unpopular policy, not in Austria nor in the Sudetenland, that a party favouring that policy does well during elections isn't a big surprise neither

Ah, I see. "That doesn't count because it was popular." I assume you must also be an apologist for illegal Russian annexation of parts of Ukraine as well?

> those elections envolved a lot of intimidation to vote for the SdP, that means better results for the SdP

Yes, so many years after comparably free German elections, Nazis got even more votes in a country with less previous Nazi influence, and that means that these vastly higher results (2x or so?) were due to "intimidation".

> Just one question, what is it with you trying to pin those Henlein election results on women?

I'm not "pinning the results on women". I'm pinning them on all Germans who voted that way, which does not exclude German women as some kind of a group repressed by some "male loserdom", as claimed above. They were complicit in it to pretty much same degree as the male part of the population.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#412

Post by huijzer »

photochemsyn wrote: post #129
colechristensen wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“There should be a science of discontent” Many modern political problems stem from people needing something to struggle for and other people fighting against it. There’s also a lot of shaping going on where if people weren’t so upset about X they’d realize Y was a huge problem so let’s distract them permanently with X.

Full quote (Frank Herbert): > "There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles. (Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib by the Princess Irulan)" There are certainly many ways to fulfill this apparent necessity without resorting to war and other forms of tribal conflict. Exploration of wilderness, sporting competitions, running marathons, etc. They all have a kind of 'p…

>> "There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles."

If you’re interested, Andrew Huberman talks a lot about how it is important to work for your dopamine. If you get it almost for free, like in for example drugs, food, and Netflix, then that will cause unhappiness in the long run.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#413

Post by trompetenaccoun »

pessimizer wrote: post #373
rr808 wrote: post #68

Does anyone know why Hitler hated Stalin and communism so much? The article alludes to how Russia was always the main target, and he was friends with industrialists, but I've never seen a good reason why.

Hitler was a nationalist, the Communists were internationalists. Communists wanted to improve the lot of people, Hitler wanted to improve the lot of the German people. A random German could become a Communist, but a random Communist would never spontaneously turn into a German. So the same reason why all kings hate universal philosophies/religions. They bypass border defenses.

How does that fit with the Nazis forming alliances with Italy, Japan, Bulgaria, Croatia, Thailand and even China at one point? Hitler agreeing to a pact with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem to further German nationalism in the Near East? Then they had Muslim SS officers that had to stop training multiple times a day to pray to Mecca. Because Hitler was so anti-internationalist, the Nazis were eager to host the Olympics and invite people from around the world to show off their regime? What were they doing in Africa, were they defending the interests of the German state in the Sahara?

Don't be blinded by their propaganda, both Stalinism and Hitlerism and any totalitarian ideology is inherently internationalist. Because they tolerate nothing beside and beyond their own ideology, so they end up getting involved with the entire world always. It's about control and these regimes do not stop until their are either defeated of control the entire world.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#414

Post by helloworld11 »

>Probably, in Hitler's own mind, the Russo-German Pact represents no more than an alteration of time-table. The plan laid down in Mein Kampf was to smash Russia first, with the implied intention of smashing England afterwards. Now, as it has turned out, England has got to be dealt with first, because Russia was the more easily bribed of the two. But Russia's turn will come when England is out of the picture—that, no doubt, is how Hitler sees it.

Unsurprisingly, Orwell here was wonderfully prescient, even as many contemporaries failed to see that this exact plan was the case.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#415

Post by tasty_freeze »

superb-owl wrote: post #9

> Hitler, because in his own joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that human beings don’t only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice This fact has been the downfall of every utopian ideology, and ignoring creates a vacuum that fascist regimes readily fill. I wonder what…

The funny thing is we are facing a deep crisis that will require sacrifice and huge effort, but 50% of the country claims it's a hoax and the other 50% accept the problem but are whistling past the graveyard. I speak, of course, about climate change.

We have had a century of millions of people worldwide working ferociously and spending tens of billions of dollars every year to extract coal and oil for profit. To fix this problem will require a similar, sustained investment in labor and capital to halt that process and even capture and sequester some amount of what we are releasing at this very moment.

That seems like a struggle and self-sacrifice that is sufficient to unify not only nations but the world. Yet apparently it is not. I admit it lacks the adventure aspect.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#416

Post by hef19898 »

jhgb wrote: post #411
hef19898 wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, apparently I can't stop... Source to the claim that elections in 1938, those we are talking about were not free: https://web.archive.org/web/20111110054101/http://www.uni-du... And yes, a difference of 20% is quite significant. Also, German citizens enabled the Nazi, no doubt about that. The situation in Czechoslovakia in 1938 is different: - the Sudetenland was dominated by a German minority, that German candida…

The Czechoslovak Republic was pretty much the last democratic country in the region. To say that those elections were "not free" requires a massive amount of guts. They were as free as you get in that time and place. If 90% of a German minority votes for an openly Nazi politician with an openly Nazi agenda, then 90% of that German minority are openly Nazi. Case closed, period. > the Sudetenland was dominated by a Ger…

You didn't even look at the source, did you? An election is not free if one party, the SdP, uses intimidation againstvall other candidates. Up to the point that in some districs the SdP list eas the only one available. The SdP, with help from the Nazis, build up pressure on families of DSAP (social democrats) candidates. Economically, not supporting the SdP was a death sentence. The list goes on. It was the SdP who made those elections not free, not Czech authorities.

And despite this climate of fear, women voted, again using your numbers, 20% less for the SdP than men.

Nitpick so, those Sudetendeutsche enabled the local Nazi allies to win a communal election and get to "go home to the Reich". They did not enable the Nazi's rise to power in Germany.

As far as losers go: The German minority was economically desperate in the 30s, unemployment was rampant, industry loosing contracts, self determination was deteriorating. So yes, in a sense those were losers. Men, apparently, felt more like losers than women. Or they lacked the courage to not fall in line. The election results clearly show that.

I say that as being a direct decendant from those losers, and I have no idea how my grandparents voted back then, or would have if they were old enough to vote in 1938 that is. I assume so, that they would have clearly favored Henlein, both of them.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#417

Post by sillysaurusx »

Barrin92 wrote: post #407
mikaeluman wrote: post #335

Just have to admit to being impressed by how succinct and clear yet deep this writing was. Easy to read and understand, and certainly gets the point across.

That's too charitable. It's a rhetorical tool that Orwell uses to invoke a sort of comradery with the reader because it lends itself to the largely anti-establishment points he tried to get across. It's the old Etonian going "I'm one of you guys" which has a long tradition in British political rhetoric.

So?

You say it like it’s a bad thing to use rhetoric. But even pg has his own sharp set of rhetorical tools.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#419

Post by bobkazamakis »

refurb wrote: post #101
busyant wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many modern political problems stem from people needing something to struggle for and other people fighting against it. Reminds me of the lines in Fight Club: "We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war. Our Great Depression is our lives." I'm not sure if that precise quote is in the book, but it's certainly in the movie and it echoes your sentiment and those above.

And the saying “Good times create weak men”. And it’s true. You often see a growing discontent among wealthy societies where everything is taken care of. People need purpose in what they do and “my purpose is to fight for the survival of my country” is a pretty compelling one to many people.

> And the saying “Good times create weak men”.

Ah yes, the the folks partying around in the 1920s were sure weak and certainly had no other events to deal within their lifetime.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#420

Post by sillysaurusx »

cato_the_elder wrote: post #236

>[...] at this moment ‘Better an end with horror than a horror without end’ is a winner. Now that we are fighting against the man who coined it, we ought not to underrate its emotional appeal.” Orwell's attribution of the quote here seems to be incorrect. While it's true that Hitler used the saying in his speeches [1], it predates him by many decades, and is often attributed to Ferdinand von Schill (the guy who unsuc…

Thank you! I was surprised to hear that Hitler coined such a phrase, so it’s great to see it attributed properly.
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