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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

#581

Post by dang »

cypherpunks27ad wrote: post #522

The link is actually to a censored version of the review which omits the sentence "I should like to put it on record that I have never been able to dislike Hitler." An uncensored copy of the review which does contain that sentence is here: https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks16/1600051h.html Here is a reference from the NYT to show that yes, he really said this: https://www.nytimes.com/1984/06/22/opinion/l-orwellian-ambiv…

I don't know that it's Orwellian except insofar as it's stupid, and since stupid conventionality was one of Orwell's great themes, it is Orwellian, so you're right.

We've belatedly changed the URL now. I wish I'd seen it sooner.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#582

Post by ambrozk »

notRobot wrote: post #216
rossdavidh wrote: post #186

So, there's a lot to be said about Hitler and fascism and propaganda and all the other fascinating topics Orwell brings up here, but I'd just like to point out how routinely excellent Orwell's analysis is. Of course I mostly see the best bits brought out and dusted off, no doubt he did mediocre stuff as well, but it is worth noticing how often it turns out that Orwell, nearly a century on, still has plenty in his wri…

Any recommendations for other writings and analyses by Orwell?

Down and Out in London and Paris is a great, great memoir. It's 50% Kitchen Confidential, 50% tramping in England during the Depression. I really can't communicate how readable and fun it is.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#583

Post by avodonosov »

nl wrote: post #575
avodonosov wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read, the Battle of Britan can indeed be called a failed attempt to conquer Britan. Althouhg not ended with a peace treaty, wikipedia even says: "Hitler believed that the United Kingdom's refusal to end the war was based on the hope that the United States and the Soviet Union would enter the war against Germany sooner or later." - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II So I am not sure it is really "out of…

The prescience of Orwell's comment is that "Russia's turn would come" rather than any semantics about exactly what "England is out of the picture" meant. Germany and Russia were in a military alliance and were dividing Poland between them when Orwell wrote that. So yes, it was very prescient.

I am not a historian of course, but by that time I don't think serious politicians had illusions about the upcoming war between Russian and Germany.

Russia was not in alliance with Germany. The Non-Aggression pact with Russia was similar to the pacts Germany had with other countries. For example, Germany had a Non-Agression pact with Poland, and Poland took pieces from Czechoslovakia when Hitler took Sudetenland in 1938. This didn't prevent Hitler from attacking Poland.

The Soviet-German pact was just buying time in preparation to the future war.

The Soviet Union had been seeking to create a collective security military alliance with France and Britan against Germany, because it considered the war with Germany inevitable. But after the negotiations failed, Soviets made the pact with Germany. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pac...

We should remember, this Orwell's text is a newspaper article, so may be a propaganda to a degree. For example, Orwell himself multiple times called his work for BBC a propaganda - see his resignation letter to BBC and the famous quote from his diary:

> Our radio strategy is even more hopeless than our military strategy. Nevertheless one rapidly becomes propaganda-minded and develops a cunning one did not previously have. Eg. I am regularly alleging in my newsletters that the Japanese are plotting to attack Russia. I don’t believe this to be so, but the calculation is: ...

https://orwelldiaries.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/14-3-42/

In this article what is interesting to me is how he explains that Hitler poses as a Christ or Prometheus, a self-sacrificing heroic victim. (Because I am not familiar with Mein Kampf and Hitler's rhetoric in general).

The rest - not a revelation. BTW, he attributes the "Better an end with horror than a horror without end" to Hitler, but that's wrong, the phrase has a different author.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#584

Post by WillPostForFood »

anigbrowl wrote: post #345
WillPostForFood wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would certainly kill him if I could get within reach of him Hard to get more black and white than that.

Gp is referring to the redaction, not the language.

So am I - point being the article is plenty black and white, even with the redaction.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#585

Post by thrown_22 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #578
thrown_22 wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no evidence Hitler was at all involved with the execution of the holocaust either. Funny how you're holding one responsible for the crimes of their regime and the other was a figurehead. The moral of the story is don't lose a world war if you've committed genocide.

> There is no evidence Hitler was at all involved with the holocaust either. There's considerable evidence he was, actually. > Funny how you're holding one responsible for the crimes of their regime and the other was a figurehead. It's almost like a head of state and a combined executive head of government and head of state are different things.

There is evidence he wanted the Jews out of Germany and he didn't much care if they left in a boat to Madagascar or on a train to an extermination camp. There isn't evidence that he was involved with either attempt.

If we applied the standards of the Nuremberg trials to the British Empire during the Boer war Queen Victoria would have been hung.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#586

Post by [deleted] »

thrown_22 wrote: post #585
dragonwriter wrote: post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no evidence Hitler was at all involved with the holocaust either. There's considerable evidence he was, actually. > Funny how you're holding one responsible for the crimes of their regime and the other was a figurehead. It's almost like a head of state and a combined executive head of government and head of state are different things.

There is evidence he wanted the Jews out of Germany and he didn't much care if they left in a boat to Madagascar or on a train to an extermination camp. There isn't evidence that he was involved with either attempt. If we applied the standards of the Nuremberg trials to the British Empire during the Boer war Queen Victoria would have been hung.

[deleted]

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#587

Post by hackerlight »

imtringued wrote: post #570
hackerlight wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, if anything it's over-appreciated in public consciousness. The Russian revolution and the Great Depression were also crucially important events that explain the rise of the Nazis.

It's more like the depression before WW1, the hyperinflation in 1923 and the great depression all combined resulted in Nazis gaining power.

I'm familiar with these two things:

- The Great Depression was the acute and proximate cause behind the rise in support for the Nazis. Their popularity went up by ~20-30% due to this one event.

- The Russian Revolution and the attempts of communist revolutionaries in Germany in 1919 was the defining event of Hitler's psyche, according to historian Ian Kershaw

> depression before WW1, the hyperinflation in 1923

I'd be interested to read more about this.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#588

Post by dragonwriter »

thrown_22 wrote: post #585
dragonwriter wrote: post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no evidence Hitler was at all involved with the holocaust either. There's considerable evidence he was, actually. > Funny how you're holding one responsible for the crimes of their regime and the other was a figurehead. It's almost like a head of state and a combined executive head of government and head of state are different things.

There is evidence he wanted the Jews out of Germany and he didn't much care if they left in a boat to Madagascar or on a train to an extermination camp. There isn't evidence that he was involved with either attempt. If we applied the standards of the Nuremberg trials to the British Empire during the Boer war Queen Victoria would have been hung.

> There isn't evidence that he was involved with either attempt.

This simply isn't true. There's plenty of evidence of that. (There's one specific kind of evidence—an documented order—that doesn't exist, but there is plenty of other evidence, including a series of public statements stating intent to exterminate the Jews stretching back to 1922, and a statement in 1942 referring back to those anticipatory statements and claiming to have silenced those who would have laughed at them, among other anticipatory and inculpatory statements.)

> If we applied the standards of the Nuremberg trials to the British Empire during the Boer war Queen Victoria would have been hung.

There might be an interesting argument for that, but the assertion is not the argument, and since no person similarly situated to the British Monarch was tried at Nuremberg, such an argument would require something much more specific behavioral analogy to make.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#589

Post by soperj »

advisedwang wrote: post #563
soperj wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When economic exploitation didn't work (the americas) they killed off the populace and replaced it with workers they could exploit (africans). What is that other than racial replacement?

The difference is ideological. They brought slaves from Africa because they believed it was the best way to make money, not because they had any kind of belief about what race should be where. Both of the ideologies and outcomes are heinous, but if you want to understand history and stop it from repeating you have to look deeper than lumping all evil together.

>The difference is ideological

And yet the result is the same.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#590

Post by doetoe »

hackerlight wrote: post #519
dalbasal wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. There are spots where Orwell gets convoluted. His famous and impactful (on me, lol) essay "On Nationalism" includes a confusing/backtracking carve-out for (presumably) Churchillian patriotism. But I think this is the nature of such ideas. They aren't absolute, falsifiable, scientific ideas. Just observations about people.

Why did you see this as confusing and convoluted? My interpretation is that he's saying the human psyche requires this and if a tame and healthy version of patriotism and national pride isn't provided by the centrist elements in society, then that vacuum will be filled by a populist demagogue who weaponizes it. It seems debatable but highly plausible.

I am not the person you are reacting to, and while I guess your interpretation of Orwell's intent is correct, Churchill's patriotism can at most be considered tame and healthy when directly compared to Hitler's. It was deeply rooted in a sense of superiority that not only nowadays is considered extreme, but even then (not by all obviously).
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