back to article Furtive ebook readers push Hitler's Mein Kampf up the charts

Only neo-Nazis and painfully self-conscious pseudo-intellectuals actually want to be caught reading a copy of Adolf Hitler's anti-Semitic diatribe Mein Kampf - which might explain why the book is riding high on ebook charts. Screen shot of Mein Kampf on Amazon.com's bestseller list In a trend first noticed by Chris Faraone …

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        1. This post has been deleted by its author

        2. RobHib
          Headmaster

          @Tom Welsh -- Re: Depends which parts you are reading

          Really, the Bible has something for everyone.

          Perhaps so. But even if one leaves aside or disbelieves its content, the King James Bible of 1611 is a wonderful read. Anyone with even the vaguest interest in prose and literature has to be mightily impressed.

          That the King James edition of the Bible was actually produced by a committee and turned out so well is, to my mind, even more remarkable. [Duh, perhaps the Divine intervened.] ;-)

          [BTW, those modern Bible incarnations--'The Good News Bible' etc.--translations in modern prose/idiom (if you can call that translation at all) are made especially for Americans who don't or can't understand words such as 'thy' or 'thou', really are ugly and horrible. ...And, they really do read as trite fairy stories!

          Well, perhaps it's understandable knowing the intended target audience.]

          1. Don Jefe

            Re: @Tom Welsh -- Depends which parts you are reading

            I always felt that the Bible being designed by committee and so widely appealing for a vast array of religious and non-religious purposes said a lot for the editors. They knew their audience so well they were able to target every sector of the population, over and over and over. The audience was so enthralled they not only donated money and resources, they formed armies and died to spread the story. Obviously there were some awful practices and manipulations that took place, and that sucks, but just ignore that for a minute.

            Without tracking every move you made or prying into your private lives and charting it all out to determine how to manipulate you, a bunch of semi-literate guys managed to get complete buy-in from huge swaths of the population, cutting across social and economic barriers and not giving you anything tangible in return.

            That's one hell of an accomplishment! I used to think it was simply a function of simpler times, but the Bible itself and other extant histories of the time go into staggeringly in-depth detail of daily life then. It wasn't simpler, just different and with fewer flashing LED's.

            Every modern business person owes it to themselves to examine the Bible, if for no other reason than as a study in mass messaging.

            The various modern versions of the Bible aren't so much an attempt to dumb down the KJV, they are attempting to correct the absolutely atrocious original translations and horribly incorrect emphasis on many points. Unfortunately, they run into the same problems as the KJV as so much of the Bible is in a context that hasn't existed for well over 1,000 years. There's more than a little guessing going on in every translation.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              @ Don Jefe

              For the third time in this thread alone, your vacuity is staggering.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      re:

      or an aircraft.... keep an eye on your rucksack!

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Comic Book Version??

    Or perhaps Manga.

    I own a copy of "The Iron Dream" and "Spock Must Die"; believe it or not, there are WORSE books out there.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Holmes

      Re: Comic Book Version??

      "The Iron Dream" .... believe it or not, there are WORSE books out there.

      Are you sure you are on the level?

      Seriously, how much stylish cover can you take?

  2. Rufus McDufus

    I worked for Amazon early on and can remember the consternation when a certain book went to the top of the bestseller list. It was 'A Hand in the Bush: The Fine Art of Vaginal Fisting'. They tweaked the listing so it didn't appear. Most disappointing.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Even worserer

    "What's the worst book you can imagine getting caught with?"

    The Koran, or. for that matter, any religious rule book.

    1. JDX Gold badge

      Re: Even worserer

      I'm not sure the Koran is a rule book, but the Torah and Bible aren't so I'm going to assume you're just a lazy troll.

  4. Can't spell Sysadmin without sadism

    People in operations jobs reading A+ review material.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The worst book ever?

    What's that one Judge Pickles did that won the worst sex ever award? Probably that.

    Mein Kampf should be required reading in debate classes. It's full of textbook examples of all the logical fallacies you can imagine. Plus when people invoke Reducto ad Hitleram you can correct them that he never actually believed that at all.

    Hitler was very much an antidisestablishmentarian.

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: The worst book ever?

      Is that worse than an Edwina Currie book? I found a copy of her first novel just after she'd revealed that she'd been having her end away with John Major. Seeing as I wasn't going to buy her autobiography, I read the first 50-odd pages of it, and it had the young, ambitious female MP, new to Parliament. Who has a steamy affair with her handsome whip, Roger (fnarr, fnarr!) with his big blue pants.

      No one else seems to have suspected, but I guess John Major must have known she'd be outing him soon. I don't know if he was assigned her, when he was a junior whip, so maybe it wasn't all that obvious.

      On the subject of getting caught with embarrassing books... Oops what have I done! It was bloody awful, but the writing (apart from the sex scenes) was probably slightly better than The Da Vinci Code.

      Getting back to bad writing, I could never finish Mein Kampf. I was doing Nazi history at the time, so I had a reason for reading it. I don't recall seeing any other book in a university librabry with writing all over it. It seemed to be a particular vehicle for un-funny cartoons for some reason.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      What do I find more annoying

      than logical fallacies (online, anyway)?

      People correcting people on logical fallacies.

    3. Colin Wilson 2

      Re: The worst book ever?

      "Hitler was very much an antidisestablishmentarian"

      Yes - but surely that doesn't entirely floccinaucinihilipilificate him?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The worst book ever?

        Germans no doubt look on our attempt to use long words and think "That's cute."

  6. Blofeld's Cat

    Not forgetting...

    Any Harry Potter book with the adult binding.

    1. 's water music

      Re: Not forgetting...

      > Any Harry Potter book with the adult binding.

      wait wat?

      There's a porn version of HP /without/ a dissembling cover?

      1. Mister_C

        Re: Not forgetting... @Handel

        Just in case you go looking - don't bother searching on HP Lovecraft

  7. Neil Barnes Silver badge

    There's a missing option on the list:

    (o) All of the above.

    1. Kubla Cant
      Headmaster

      Re: There's a missing option on the list:

      There's a missing option on the list:

      (o) All of the above.

      The question is Which book would you least like to get caught reading?. "Least" requires a single selection. If you dislike them all equally, the logically correct, though misleading answer is "None of the above".

      Actually, I agree entirely with the opinion you're expressing, but I can't resist the chance to annoy the AC above who doesn't like to see logical fallacies corrected.

      1. Nigel 11

        Re: There's a missing option on the list:

        Other missing options are "none of the above" and "it all depends on who catches you".

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A lot of bored/dissapointed people out there.

    I read Mein Kampf whilst studying politics.

    Apart from being the writings of a man who's impact on 20th century history was to be so tragic, its quite frankly rather boring.

    I suppose most of the appeal is to be able to say you've read it, so you must be fully imbibed with the spirit of old funny tache.

    Mainly I'm surprised that the sort of people who'd t0ss themselves off to this crap can actually read.

    Maybe the ebook is a big breakthrough as perhaps it has text to audio enabled, furthering the cause of the lunatics to an illiterate audience?

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: A lot of bored/dissapointed people out there.

      I couldn't be arsed to finish it. I didn't think it was telling me anything about Hitler that I was going to learn without years of concentrated study, and probably lots of cod psychology. So I read Joachim Fest instead. Who's an excellent historian.

      I read the book in a quiet university library, so didn't get spotted with it. Everyone else was probably at the pub. But I do remember mentioning having read it, to a german colleague. To the response of shocked silence. At which point I remembered that it's banned in Germany. Although I'd assume that there'll be copies in university libraries, it's just a question of who gets access.

      1. pklausner

        Re: No, it's not banned

        > At which point I remembered that it's banned in Germany.

        >

        Which is not true: it is legal to have. It's just that the owner of the copyright is the state of Bavaria. And they suppress it by simply not publishing it. In 2016 the copyright will expire. The Bavarian government any republication then will face trials for nazi propaganda, cf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mein_Kampf#Republication_in_Germany_after_2015

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: A lot of bored/dissapointed people out there.

        The Germans and Austrians still don't quite seem to have twigged.

        In the 1930s it was illegal to say anything good about the Jews, and compulsory to praise the Nazis.

        Nowadays it's illegal to say anything good about the Nazis, and compulsory to praise the Jews.

        The concept of free speech has completely eluded them. The State still decides what is good and what is bad, and commands and prohibits accordingly.

        1. Androgynous Cupboard Silver badge

          Re: A lot of bored/dissapointed people out there @Tom Welsh

          Tom Welsh, you're veering into David Irving level bullshit. There's no requirement to "praise the jews", a ridiculous statement - how is this diktat enforced, pray tell? Two minutes of cheering every day after breakfast or 30 days reeducation? There is a requirement not to glorify the Nazis, not unreasonable given their history and I think you'll find the rest of Europe had no problem with this policy in 1945.

          Free speech is not the ne plus ultra of human rights, not in any country even your (presumed, I think safely) native US. Google fire in crowded theatre if you have trouble with this concept.

          1. Nigel 11

            Re: A lot of bored/dissapointed people out there @Tom Welsh

            Agree mostly.

            Nevertheless, people hold politicians in sufficiently low regard that politicians telling them what not to read may actually elevate the banned or merely deprecated material in certain people's minds. (Especially, I fear, in the minds of people who lack the intellectual capacity to read for themselves, anything longer than one column in a down-market newspaper).

            So bans are counterproductive, even if well-intentioned.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: A lot of bored/dissapointed people out there @Tom Welsh

            > how is this diktat enforced, pray tell?

            By social pressure. Far more effective than any law...

      3. Don Jefe

        Re: A lot of bored/dissapointed people out there.

        Mein Kampf does do a pretty good job of illustrating that Hitler had no actual 'plan' at time of writing. He had anger, and was steadily working his way towards assigning blame, but Mein Kampf was no more a strategy book than the inside flap of a cereal box.

        Read through the eyes of history, Hitler's ramblings in Mein Kampf seem to have deeper meaning, but there isn't one there. You could take nearly any soldier from a vanquished army who tries, and fails at politics and is publicly humiliated through arrest, add a pinch of lunacy, and you'd get a Mein Kampf. You can find literature airing out emotionally charged grievances at any University and it's likely to be better edited as well.

        Other than its novelty factor, the only thing really interesting thing about the book is that, knowing what we know now, it shows how quickly general anger and dissatisfaction can evolve into full blown hatred (Yoda knew what he was talking about).

    2. Peter2 Silver badge

      Re: A lot of bored/dissapointed people out there.

      What I don't understand, is why people say "yeah, that was on the reading list at uni" and then say "I don't understand who would read it" apparently without making any connection between the two.

      I have a sneaking suspicion that far more uni students read it than neo nazi's.

  9. Cliff

    50 Shades of Grey

    It marks you out as both illiterate and mental.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      My Inner Godess

      Smiled when I read this comment.

      1. Swarthy

        Re: My Inner Godess

        Sadly, or humorously, I hear any quote from 50 Shades in Gilbert Gottfried's voice; owing to a youtube clip of a spoof add of a version of the audio book read by him.

  10. auburnman

    99p version

    That's probably the main reason for the surge. It's a book of definite historic significance, so a bunch of curious people have said 'it's only 99p, why the hell not?'* and it's had enough interest to be featured as 'people recently purchased' and it's snowballed a bit. I would imagine the Reich worshipping nutjobs already have their leather bound hard copy to biff off over.

    *The (potential) stigma of owning Mein Kampf can also be downplayed when you can say it was a cheap impulse buy.

    1. Don Jefe

      Re: 99p version

      I think you're largely correct that the .99 version is driving up sales, and so is the shift in education focus and the general 'old' factor.

      With the education component, at least here in the States, geopolitical interest has moved toward the Middle East, as that's where today's events are happening. Europe is 'old news', which leads me to my next point.

      Most of the people who aren't familiar with Mein Kampf either through their own reading or conversations like this, are quite young. Chances are high that they don't have any living family members who fought in the war. WWII was something that might as well have been fought on Jupiter for all the connection students have to it.

      Once you are removed far enough from something it is easier to investigate it without the social stigma previous generations had with the issue. Nazis, concentration camps, quests for domination, the words make sense to younger generations, but they don't mean anything to them, if that makes sense.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Worst books ever...

    ... would have to include any fiction written in the form of a diary;

    I still have nightmares about having been forced to read and study such drivel as "The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole" and "Z for Zachariah" when I was at school!

    Even tripe like "A Kestrel for a Knave" was better than those, and that was another book I thoroughly despised.

  12. Ralph B

    Free Mein Kampf

    Why would anyone pay 0.99 for Mein Kampf when Project Gutenberg has if for free?

    1. John Arthur

      Re: Free Mein Kampf

      Have an upvote for saying what I was about to say!

  13. Jemma

    50 Shades of Grey

    http://sniffpetrol.com/2012/07/02/4327/

    Couldn't resist...

  14. hammarbtyp

    Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand or any book by Jeremy Clarkson (These may well be connected).

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Some of Clarksons stuff is good

      That is, the stuff about cars. His recounting of the experience of being on an aircraft carrier in I Know You Got Soul was pretty interesting. And somewhat worrying!

      Similarly, Ayn Rand seemed to have a decent central idea (deal fairly with everyone, stay true to your word, those who despise money have received it unjustly, there should be no such thing as 'too big to fail', the rich and influential can be utter shits or can be good, etc) but was a terrible author.

      She's also been ridden into the dirt by the Americans using her as an idol for "I'm rich and therefore awesome, you're poor and so a scumbag" faux-capitalism, which is the opposite of what she stood for.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      http://xkcd.com/1049/

  15. Fihart

    Worse, Dan Brown ?

    Seen the film and that was embarrassing enough.

    Actually read (well, tried) Mein Kampf -- and Das Kapital.

    Not really recommended.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Trollface

      Re: Worse, Dan Brown ?

      The good thing is you can justify BOTH as an impulse buy.

      Depending on your bus ride, either one or the other will get you thrown off at the next brownred light.

    2. Nigel 11

      Re: Worse, Dan Brown ?

      Lighten up!

      Dan Brown book not un-enjoyable if you picked up the book in a charity shop out of curiosity, and have time to kill at an airport and in a plane. You do have to park your critical facilities and intellect in neutral, maybe some people can't do that. But isn't that true of most fiction?

      A week later gave it back to the charity shop to sell again.

  16. Sebastian Brosig

    Lolita

    My dad claims his colleague (he worked as a grammar school teacher) read "Lolita" covered in a "Bible" dust jacket back in the 60s when travelling to school on the tram, but I'm fairly sure it was him really.

    1. Kubla Cant

      Re: Lolita

      "Lolita" covered in a "Bible" dust jacket back in the 60s

      I know which one I'd be more embarrassed to be seen reading (though the Penguin Classics edition that I read had a slightly disturbing cover).

      Lolita was regarded as a significant piece of literature in the 60s - in 1962 there was a feature film directed by Stanley Kubrick. If it's unacceptable today then that's probably a consequence of recent paedophilephobia.

  17. Nick Ryan Silver badge

    Not a common or easy to find book (may even be out of print now), but there's a great book you need to read in dead-tree format n public: "how to make love to a black man".

    Apparently it's a good book, from the technical / creative point of view, and absolutely nothing to do with what the title may suggest.

  18. Tony Green

    It can be enlightening

    Understanding the demented mind of a man like Hitler can be useful in countering the demented ideas of those who still idolise him.

    And it's useful in other ways. Religious groups often try to portray atheists as monsters, "because Hitler was an atheist". Which is rather disproved by, "And so I believe to-day that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator. In standing guard against the Jew I am defending the handiwork of the Lord."

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