GERMANY'S FOREIGN POLICY AS STATED IN "MEIN KAMPF."
London: Friends of Europe, 1936. Item #42908
1st edition. Original Printed Paper Wrappers, 8vo, 21 + [3] pages. 22 cm. In English.
Translated extracts, with commentary, from Hitler’s Mein Kampf. Part of the series, Friends of Europe" publications, no. 38.
Holocaust-era publication of Antisemitic propaganda with a critical explanation by the Anti-fascist Friends of Europe with opens with a five-page Foreword by the Duchess of Atholl, M.P., the first female Scottish Member of Parliament. She gives the publishing and distribution history of Mein Kampf (which she calls the “Nazi Bible”) up to 1936, and suggests reasons why its contents have stayed relatively unknown by non-German speakers. In particular, she is critical of the 'severe expurgation' of the October 1933 English version entitled My Struggle.
The remainder of the work highlight quotes from 1936 edition of Mein Kampf where Hitler lays out his views on foreign policy; these are grouped for the reader under the followingn categories: German Arms and Methods; A Pan-German Policy; The Conquest of Territories - Old and New; Alliances Essential for the Overthrow of France; Views on Peace and Pacifism.
“Editions in English of Mein Kampf have had a chequered history,” writes the journalist Donald Watt. “The first, the famous 'bowdlerised' version of 1934, was never intended to be such. The translator was the husband of Blanche 'Baffy' Dugdale, Arthur Balfour's daughter, a determined opponent of appeasement and one of the foremost Gentile Zionists in Britain.
Captain Dugdale shortened the book, but an odious Nazi, Dr Hans Thost, then the London correspondent of the Nazi Volkischer Beobachter, insisted on further abridgement. The destruction in the Blitz of the files of the publisher, Hurst and Blackett, means that we can no longer tell who was responsible for which omission.
Not that it mattered much. The Foreign Office circulated its own translation of the most ominous sections. And Kathleen, Duchess of Atholl, with Foreign Office help, published them as a Friends Of Europe pamphlet in 1936” [in The Guardian (London), Feb. 13, 1992]
In their 1980 work, Hitler's Mein Kampf in Britain and America: A Publishing History 1930–39, James and Patience Barnes note that the series of pamphlets published by the Friends of Europe included four which consisted of excerpts from Mein Kampf. The first dealt with biographical information, and the other three contained quotations on race, religion and foreign policy.
The latter pamphlet was originally "extracted and translated" by Rennie Smith, however, the pamphlet's "guiding spirit" quickly became the Duchess of Atholl. She contacted the Foreign Office and was given the excerpts that had been prepared by Weizmann. Further inquiries from her convinced the British foreign ministry to compose an in-house translation of some of the passages.
The 11-page document, Central Germany, 7 May 1936 – Confidential – A Translation of Some of the More Important Passages of Hitler's Mein Kampf (1925 edition), was circulated among the British diplomatic corps, and a private copy was also sent to the Duchess of Atholl, who may or may not have used it in what was ultimately her translation of Mein Kampf in the Friends of Europe pamphlet (Barnes, James J.and Barnes, Patience P. (1980), Hitler's Mein Kampf in Britain and America: A Publishing History 1930–39, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 28–32, 36–37)
The objects of the Friends of Europe are: “1. To encourage effective co-operation for the prevention of war and the establishment of peace. 2. To provide accurate information about Nazi Germany for use throughout Great Britain, the British Empire, the USA, Europe and wherever the English tongue is known,” all part of a goal of getting to the public "reliable information on the racial ideas, the religious struggle, the new militarism, new education and foreign policy in Nazi Germany."
SUBJECT(S): Diplomatic relations. Politics and government. Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter-Partei. Germany -- Politics and government -- 1933-1945. Germany -- Foreign relations -- Allemagne -- Politique et gouvernement -- Relations exte´rieures. OCLC: 13085478. Our colleague offers their copy for over $1000.
Very Good Condition. (HOLO2-141-35-XX-CC).
Price: $225.00