Hitler's Second Book: The Unpublished Sequel to Mein Kampf by Adolph Hitler, Gerhard L. Weinberg (Editor), Krista Smith (Translator)

From the Publisher

The first complete and annotated edition of the book that Adolf Hitler dictated just before his rise to power but never wanted to publish. Contains startling and revealing ideas that drove him once in power but that he didn’t want made known.

The New Republic - Omer Bartov

Must we read another ranting book by Hitler? This book is certainly as close to the heart of darkness as a book can be. But it should have been read in its time, and it should be read now.... This is a book that should be read... by contemporary journalists, political observers, and all concerned people who have the stomach to recognize evil when they confront it.

Publishers Weekly

In 1958, while directing the microfilming and organization of a trove of archives that the U.S. forces had taken from the Nazis at the end of WWII, historian Weinberg (A World at Arms) discovered the manuscript of a second book that Hitler had written but never published. The manuscript was published in German in 1961, accompanied by Weinberg's annotations, but this is the first authoritative English version (a pirated and poor translation appeared in the 1960s). The text bears all of Hitler's hallmarks: rambling thoughts, half-baked ideas, pedantic writing-along with a terrifying, sustained belief in war and violence as the means to ensure that Germans would flourish. Compared to Mein Kampf, there are fewer pages devoted to Jews. Nonetheless, what comes across most strongly is Hitler's abiding commitment to the principle of race and his identification of Jews as the enemy that threatened to undo all that Germans had created. Hitler dwells at length on foreign policy, and outlines a strategy of alliance with Fascist Italy and Great Britain. (He actually believed that Britain would accept a German-dominated European continent so long as Germany did not challenge the overseas British empire.) He also foresees an inevitable clash with the United States. This provides solid historical background on Hitler's thinking in the late 1920s, when his party was nothing more than a tiny, radical sect. Weinberg provides helpful notes and a very informative introduction. 20,000 first printing. BOMC, History and Military Book Clubs main selection. (Oct. 10) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Weinberg (A World at Arms) is a respected historian of the Nazi period who discovered the original text of this book, dictated in 1928 but never published, in the captured German archives now housed at Alexandria, VA. In 1961 it was published both in German and in an unauthorized and now out-of-print English translation as Hitler's Secret Book. This new edition provides a smooth translation, a thoughtful preface, and extensive, useful scholarly annotations and notes. This scholarly care does not blunt Hitler's verbose and meandering style or the vileness of the thoughts presented here in all their stultifying ugliness. For the general reader who has already encountered Hitler's ideas in Mein Kampf, most of the contents of this book will be chillingly familiar. For the scholar or student, there is some additional information touching on Hitler's opportunistic approach to the nationality question in the case of Italy and the South Tyrol, as well as acknowledgment of the importance of dealing with the United States. But, except for the notes and scholarly apparatus, Hitler's Second Book extends the ideas of Mein Kampf in only a limited fashion. This book has been picked up by the Military and History Book clubs; so demand may lead to purchase. Suitable for academic libraries and for public libraries striving for completeness.-Barbara Walden, Univ. of Wisconsin Lib., Madison Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Product Details

• ISBN: 1929631162
  
• ISBN-13: 9781929631162
• Format: Hardcover, 249pp
• Publisher: Consortium Book Sales & Dist
• Pub. Date: September 2003
• Sales Rank: 193,791

• Table of Contents

Table of Contents