book — a very thick book. Its title is: “My Fight, or My Struggle.” His fight (or his struggle) takes about 140,000 words.
“As concerns the external history of this book, it was written at the time when Hitler was in prison, after the failure of the putsch in Munich, the so-called Beergarten putsch. On the eve of the putsch, Hitler promised that the following day he would either be dead or dictator. The following day he was neither dead nor dictator. He chose instead to go to prison. But it was not a prison such as communists are sent to. It was a very comfortable prison and it offered him best opportunities for writing the above mentioned book in comfort.
“Then, for the next seven years, the book was distributed by the National-Socialists with the aid of a propaganda such as Germany had never seen before, and with all the pressure that party means could bring to bear. In these seven years, and by such means, the book achieved a circulation of 200,000 copies. In half this time and without propaganda, “All Quiet on the Western Front,” the book by Remarque, the most violent opponent of Hitler’s ideas, achieved a circulation in Germany of 1,200,000 copies.
“As concerns the inner form, it contains, as I have said, about 140,000 words. And, therefore, it contains, if one were to make a list of the offences against German grammar and style about 140,000 mistakes.
“I hope that this statement does not sin against the new edict, but even Professor Edward Engel, the leading National-Socialist Philologist, could scarcely arrive at a lower figure. To speak with absolute exactness, the book contains only 139,900 mistakes. For, in the earliest editions, there were about 100 words which were quite correct both as to subject and form. In these former editions, namely, Herr Hitler said: ‘If you wish to win the sympathy of broad masses, then you must tell them the crudest and most stupid things’. But from the twentieth thousand on, Herr Hitler deleted this statement.
“I am afraid that the ordeal of talking about Herr Hitler even only as a writer is indeed a little dangerous for a Jewish author who was educated in the spirit of Weimar. I mean, of course, the Weimar of Goethe, not the Weimar of today, where a National-Socialist cabinet minister of education could in his first speech last September issue the following program: ‘The German child must be educated in such a way that he will have more respect for the lowest street cleaner in Germany than for the greatest inventor in England and America’.
“I must say that the whole National-Socialistic literature is distinguished by a vast verbosity. They try to replace quality by quantity.
“If you wish to inform yourselves about Hitler, the writer, I ask you, I urge you, to read his book, his 140 thousand word-long “Struggle”. Please read it in an English translation even if you understand German well. Any translation is necessarily better than the original. This enterprise also takes patience, I admit, but you will find a great deal to astonish you and a great deal to amuse you in these sad times.
“Be that as it may, you will in the next few weeks read a good many reports from Germany which will be, let me say, a little colored. The official representative of the National-Socialists in Washington, for instance, a few days ago broadcast from America over all the stations controlled by the German government, the following: ‘The whole American press is jubilant about Hitler’s rise. The American people envy the German nation for having a leader like Hitler. The American people longs for a man like Hitler.’ So much for the National-Socialist spokesman.
“I do not know whether you got the same impression from the American press and atmosphere as he did. But I think it a piece of good fortune that the Jewish Telegraphic Agency exists and that it has the means to communicate to the English speaking world reports which will be, so to speak, less subjective than those of the National-Socialists!”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.