Hitler

destruction of ‘Jewish Bolshevism’, the concept of a war for ‘living space’ – an idea which Hitler would repeatedly emphasize in the following years – rounded off his ‘world-view’. Thereafter, there would be tactical adjustments, but no further alteration of substance. Landsberg was no ‘Jordan conversion’ for Hitler. In the main, it was a matter of adding new emphases to the few basic
idées fixes
already formed, at least in embryo, or clearly taking shape in the years before the putsch.
    The modifications in Hitler’s ‘world-view’ that were already forming in the year before the putsch are clearly evident in
Mein Kampf
. Hitler’s book offered nothing new. But it was the plainest and most expansive statement of his ‘world-view’ that he had presented. He acknowledged that without his stay in Landsberg the book which after 1933 (though not before) would sell in its millions would never have been written. No doubt he hoped for financial gain from the book. But his main motivation was the need he felt, as during his trial, to demonstrate his own special calling, and to justify his programme as the only possible way of rescuing Germany from the catastrophe brought about by the ‘November Criminals’.
    Hitler was already at work on what would become the first volumeby May 1924, building upon ideas formed during and immediately after his trial. He called his book at that time by the scarcely catchy title ‘Four and a Half Years of Struggle against Lies, Stupidity, and Cowardice’, which gave way to the more pithy
Mein Kampf (My Struggle)
only in spring 1925. By then, the book had undergone major structural changes. The initial intention of a ‘reckoning’ with the ‘traitors’ responsible for his downfall in 1923 never materialized. Instead, the first volume, which appeared on 18 July 1925, was largely autobiographical – though with many distortions and inaccuracies – ending with Hitler’s triumph at the announcement of the Party Programme in the Hofbräuhaus on 24 February 1920. The second volume, written after his release and published on 11 December 1926, dealt more extensively with his ideas on the nature of the
völkisch
state, questions of ideology, propaganda, and organization, concluding with chapters on foreign policy.
    The presumption, widespread at the time and persisting later, that Hitler at first dictated the indigestible prose to his chauffeur and general dogsbody, Emil Maurice, later to Rudolf Heß (both of whom were also serving sentences for their part in the putsch), is wide of the mark. Hitler typed the drafts of the first volume himself (though some of the second volume was dictated to a secretary). Badly written and rambling as the published version of
Mein Kampf
was, the text had, in fact, been subjected to innumerable stylistic ‘improvements’ since the original composition. The typescript was read by the culture critic of the
Völkischer Beobachter
, Josef Stolzing-Cerny, and at least parts of it by the future wife of Rudolf Heß, Ilse Pröhl. Both made editorial changes. Others were by Hitler himself. According to Hans Frank, Hitler accepted that the book was badly written, and described it as no more than a collection of leading articles for the
Völkischer Beobachter
.
    Before Hitler came to power,
Mein Kampf
, brought out in the party’s own publishing house, the Franz Eher-Verlag, run by Max Amann, was scarcely the runaway bestseller he had apparently expected it to be. Its turgid content, dreadful style, and relatively high price of 12 Reich Marks a volume evidently deterred many potential readers. By 1929, the first volume had sold around 23,000 copies, the second only 13,000. Sales increased sharply following the NSDAP’s electoral successes after 1930, and reached 80,000 in 1932. From 1933, they rose stratospherically. One and a half million copies were sold that year. Even the blind could read it – should they have wished to do so – once a brailleversion had been published in 1936. And from that year, a copy of the people’s edition of both volumes bound together was given to each happy couple on their wedding day. Some 10 million copies were sold by 1945, not counting the millions sold abroad, where
Mein Kampf
was translated into sixteen languages. How many people actually read it is unknown. For Hitler, it was of little importance. Having from the early 1920s described himself in official documents as a ‘writer’, he could well