Contemporary Criticisms
Mein Kampf, due to its racist content and the historical effect of Nazism upon Europe during World War II and the Holocaust, is considered a highly controversial book. Criticism has not come solely from opponents of Nazism. Italian Fascist dictator and Nazi ally, Benito Mussolini, was also critical of the book, saying that it was "a boring tome that I have never been able to read" and remarked that Hitler's beliefs, as expressed in the book, were "little more than commonplace clichés."
One direct opponent of National Socialism, Konrad Heiden, observed that the content of Mein Kampf is essentially a political argument with other members of the Nazi Party who had appeared to be Hitler's friends, but whom he was actually denouncing in the book's content — sometimes by not even including references to them.
In The Second World War, Winston Churchill wrote that he felt that after Hitler's ascension to power, no other book deserved more intensive scrutiny.
The American literary theorist and philosopher Kenneth Burke wrote a rhetorical analysis of the work, The Rhetoric of Hitler's "Battle", which revealed its underlying message of aggressive intent.
Read more about this topic: Mein Kampf
Famous quotes containing the words contemporary and/or criticisms:
“Why is it that many contemporary male thinkers, especially men of color, repudiate the imperialist legacy of Columbus but affirm dimensions of that legacy by their refusal to repudiate patriarchy?”
—bell hooks (b. c. 1955)
“I have no concern with any economic criticisms of the communist system; I cannot enquire into whether the abolition of private property is expedient or advantageous. But I am able to recognize that the psychological premises on which the system is based are an untenable illusion. In abolishing private property we deprive the human love of aggression of one of its instruments ... but we have in no way altered the differences in power and influence which are misused by aggressiveness.”
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)