The Only Exception: "Old men with young hearts"

In these sections of "Mein Kampf," Hitler effectively describes his "folkish" concept and the subsequent plans under his philosophy. By effectively, I mean he rambles constantly and conveys his point through long-winded tirades.

Hitler assures to his readership that the most important quality that a state must possess to succeed politically, economically, and culturally is blood purity of the highest valued race. Of course, for Hitler, the dreaded internal enemy is forever the Jew and the race the Lord hath bore of his highest image is that of the Aryan. He asserts that race is much more important than nationality or religion, and as a result, completely rejects the idea of "Germanization". He claims that in his youth, the term "Germanization" "led to incredibly false preconceptions." Completely disgusted by the idea of a "Negro or Chinese" learning German, hence "becoming" a German, he is convinced that "Germanization" is ill-conceived and in reality, a "de-Germanization" (389). Because, as everyone knows, or as Hitler is about to teach you: nationality does not lie in language, but in blood, and you can not teach someone to swap his or her blood to become a German citizen. And if you may have been thinking that through marriage or "blood mixture" Germanization could be achieved, you could not be more wrong, because that will lower the level of the highest race. Hitler comes full circle with his theory, and it is difficult to dispute as he is fully prepared with evidence of fallen nations, inefficient governments, and cultural degradation that he believes are due to "poor quality of race." This is just such an insane argument that race overshadow's all other national problems! The world is not that simple, but I guess that's what Hitler was going for in his elementary propagation: Jews bad, true "pure" Germans good.

After playing his racial card to the fullest extent, Hitler proceeds to distinguish National Socialists from all other political parties. The NSDAP is not just another party, but an overarching, infallible philosophy which will "lead its idea to victory only if it unites the most courageous and energetic elements of its epoch and people in its ranks, and puts them into the solid forms of a fighting organization" (455). The National Socialist philosophy is unwavering and uncompromising, not like those other sissy parties who will collaborate with the evil Marxists or go back on their initial views. Though Hitler "promotes" free thinking through education, he states that "it is not necessary that every individual fighting for this philosophy should obtain a full insight and precise knowledge of the ultimate ideas and through processes of the leaders of the movement" (456). He knows the power in mobilizing a massive, blind army.

As far as foreign policy goes, Hitler confirms that France is Germany's external enemy, and establishes Russia as the only nation which Germany could form an alliance with at this time. He states that Germany will never be a world-power if its racial situation is not in check and if it does not gain massive amounts of land.

Hitler is extremely self-aware and knows what will get to the public. Offering up a "philosophy" instead of a political party, guaranteeing national success through simple "racial logic" any uneducated, even kind of anti-semitic German could understand & support, and assuring that Germany will become a world-power through Eastward expansion. While reading, I realized that no one could argue with any of Hitler's opinions in the 1920s. With the force of the far right behind him, and political assassinations pretty commonplace, who would have the guts to? Anyone with as much gusto as Hitler speaking in support of the republic would have been taken care of promptly. Propaganda is truly all powerful when used to mobilize the masses.