Tag Archives: Mein Kampf

AN AFFRONT TO ENGLISH

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The “Russian” Civil Wars 1916-1926, Jonathan D. Smele, presents a fascinating subject. But it seems written in a language that has endings for specific congregations for its verbs and with many declensions for its nouns – languages like Russian, German or Latin.

The strength of English prose is verbs, actions directing nouns. Most well-written books and articles recognize this rule. Verbs are close to subjects; no one ever loses sight of that combination, or the purpose for which noun-verb was used. If a writer likes to discourse in a sentence, go on and on for 70 – 100 -120 words, an English sentence better have parallel structures. Logic dictates it. (It’s not the logic of the language, but logic – premise, minor premise, conclusion)

In Mein Kampf the translator observes,  

…mixed metaphors are just as mixed in one language as in the other

other. A lapse of grammatical logic can occur in any language. An

English language Title might be just a redundant as the German one;…

No non-German would write such labyrinthine sentences…I have

cut down the sentences only when the length made them unintelligible

in English…

The substantives are a different matter. Here it has been necessary

to make greater changes, because in many cases the use of verbal nouns

is singly incompatible with the English language…Hitler’s piling up of

substances is bad German, but the fact remains that numerous German

writers do the same thing, while this failing is almost non-existence in

English.

…much German prose, some not of thee worst quality, around in…

useless little words: wohl, ja, denn, schon, noch, eigentlich, etc. Hitler’s

sentences are …clogged with particles, not to mention such private

favorites as besonders and damals which he strews about…needlessly.

His particles have a certain political significance, for in the petit

bourgeois mind they are, like carved furniture, an embodiment of the

home-grown German virtues, while their avoidance is viewed with

suspicion as foreign and modernistic.

[Translator’s note, Mein Kampf, Boston, Mariner Books, 1999, p. xi-xii.]

Parenthetical words and terms at the beginning of an English sentence, or at the end, or sometimes the middle indicated by the use of parentheses indicate a lack of writing skills.

Let’s observe one demonstration: 

On the contrary, the events that took place in the period from

around  1989 to 1991 and their volcanic reverberations across

the former Soviet space have very greatly enriched, necessitated

and energized historical investigations, as they have made it

unchallengeably clear that any approach to the “Russian” Civil

War that places the Red and White struggle within the matrix too

starkly in its foreground is missing the point.

[Smele, The “Russian” Civil War 1916-1926, N.Y. Oxford, 2017, p. 6]

There’s a lot to chew on in that one sentence. The following sentences present a lot of gristle and fat, also. I noted this sentence was in the INTRODUCTION, and believed getting to Chapter One would break up and provide good sailing.

Alas, the first sentence of Chapter One reads, 

Despite what has already been noted above, the is also a very

strong case for the dating of outbreak of the “Russian” Civil War

on the extensive anti-Russian uprising in Central Asia during the

summer of 1916, as a large number of the tsar’s Muslim subjects,

in a rebellion that anticipated the Basmachi movement, resisted

the forced mobilization into labor battalions to serve the Russian

army and the armaments industry (although this was the most

overt assault on local sensibilities that had been repeatedly

affronted by the waves of non-Muslim settlers that had been moving

into the region for a half century.)

[IBID, p. 17.]

Note the hesitancy to tell anything in the text which is further emphasized by the third sentence of that same paragraph beginning with Moreover and goes on for 100 words or so; the last sentence begins with Thus. Blue pencil it all! Also note, the book defines the Busmachi movement as a term for Muslim bandits during Soviet times. This sentence attempts to expand and explain incidences in the nineteenth century as well as those occurring, perhaps at late as 1980.

The usual manner of writing history or even fiction is for a non-writer to write chronologically. This writer decides to put a flashback into parentheses while using Soviet terms indicating more recent events. The outcome is a whole series of unexplained events of one hundred fifty years.

I wanted to learn of the “Russian” Civil War, its battles, the philosophy, its politics, and how its effects might survive today. But reading such diversion makes the story overly complicated, suggests portions of that war arose from local circumstances, and demonstrates the historian does not have a the big picture in his head clearly. He could not communicate much. The writing reminded me of translator’s note from Mein Kampf.  

P.S. One way Hermann Boell was taught to write was editing Mein Kampf, editing to a third of its length. The text was readable. I believe The “Russian” Civil War could benefit from the same treatment and be vastly improved.

AMERICAN LITERATURE

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About a month ago I read a blog by a frustrated writer who would read no more. She had purchased a recently highly praised novel by a young American novelist. The blogger quoted the first paragraph of the novel; one sentence seem to run an entire paragraph. Obviously someone was trying to save on confusion and annoyances of periods.

I started the first sentence, an enormity of one disconnected sentence attached to another by commas and eventually the author or her editor, or the publisher who was paying by-the-word stopped printing the subject of each clause and frequently dispersed with the verb, leaving prepositional phrases abandoned, and floating adjectives and wandering adverbs heading off to the new planet in the solar system. Obviously, the adverbs and the adjectives don’t know where they’re going because no one knows where the new planet is. For the reader everything is as clear as mud.

I stopped reading. There is a literary movement afoot to make American more like Latin, German and Russian, without the excess declensions, specialized prepositions and multiple conjugations along with a fondness for the subjunctive where it’s not needed. In fact any language with declensions and conjugations up the wazoo provides a model for New York publishers and editors. Thereupon, all the authors pretend learnedness to be pretentious. Remember each of them have inked deals with Mephistopheles.

My analysis of the current American language in novels is correct. I did not appreciate it until reading Mein Kampf, this Spring. The translator, Konrad Heiden, observed about the German work,

Most of Hitler’s stylistic peculiarities represent no problem for the translator. The
mixed metaphors are just as mixed in one language as in the other. A lapse of
grammatical logic can occur in any language. An English-language Hitler might be
just as reductant as the German one; a half-educated writer, without clear ideas,
generally feels that to say a thing only once is rather slight.
There are, however, certain traits of Hitler’s style that are peculiarly German and
do present a problem in translation. Chief among these are the length of sentences,
the substantives, and the German particles.
A translation must not necessarily be good English, but it must be English such as
some sort of English author – in this case, let us say, a poor one – might write. On the
other hand, it would be wrong to make Hitler an English-speaking rabble-rouser,
because his very style is necessarily German.
No non-German would write such labyrinthine sentences. The translator’s last – often a feat of tightrope-walking – is to render the ponderousness and even convey a German flavor, without writing German-American sentences. In general I have cut down the sentences only when the length made them unintelligible in English. (The German language with its cases and genders does enable the reader to find his way though tangles which in a non-inflected language would be inextricable.) Contrary to the general opinion, the German text contains only one or two sentences that make no sense at first reading.
The substantives are a different matter. Here it has been necessary to make greater
changes, because in many cases the use of verbal nouns is simply incompatible with the English language. No pedant, no demagogue, no police clerk writes that way. I have used the construction where it seemed conceivable in English, elsewhere reluctantly abandoned it. German stylists may say that Hitler’s piling up of substantives is bad German, but the fact remains the most numerous German writers do that same thing, while this failing is almost non-existent in English.
In approaching Hitler’s use of particles, it must be remembered that he was at home in the Lower Bavarian dialect. Even without the dialect, much German prose, some not of the worst quality, abounds in those useless little words: wohl, ja, dean, schon, noch, eigentlich, etc. The South Germans are especially addicted to them, and half of Hilter’s sentences are positively clogged with particles, not to mention such private favorites as besonders and damals which he stews about quite needlessly. His particles even have a certain political influence, for in the petit bourgeois mind they are, liked carved furniture, an embodiment of the home-grown German virtues, while their avoidance is viewed with suspicion as foreign and modernistic. There are no English equivalents, and an attempt to translate them results in something like the language of the Katzenjammer Kids. Sometimes, however, it is possible to give a similar impression of wordiness by other means.

The translation follows the first edition. The most interesting changes made in the later German editions have been indicated in the notes. Where Hitler’s formulations challenge the reader’s credulity, I have quoted the German original in the notes. Seeing is believing.

Likewise, American novels, published recently, are actually translations drawn from more ancient, clumsy, illogical, word-favoring languages. That is the state of American literature today. Seeing is believing.

MEIN KAMPF – Reading & Art

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Adolph does not think much of persons who read, ponder, think and conclude. After going through all the words of this book, most of which are forgettable and destined for oblivion, the reader must conclude that Adolph had trouble reading; he did not like to read; he had a reading impairment; he had problems putting together the logical bases so German sentences would make sense. He was never able to take a book (and likely never this book) and distill its arguments into words of his own. Adolph was bewildered and frightened by those who could discuss ideas, and use books and facts as frames and as references to support an argument.

People who read “possess a mass of ‘knowledge,’ but their brain is unable to organize and register the material they have taken in. They lack the art of sifting what is valuable for them from that which is without value, or retaining the one forever, and if possible, not even seeing the rest, but in anywise not dragging it around with them as useless ballast.” [A] “ reader now believes himself in all seriousness to be ‘educated’ to understand something of life, to have knowledge, while in reality, with every new acquisition of this kind of education, he is growing more and more removed from the world until, no infrequently, he held up in a sanitarium or in parliament.” (page 35)

This paragraph suggests that Adolph believes all readers are like himself. Give a book dedication and great study, and the text sits in Adolph’s mind clogging it, and interfering with extraneous superficial chattering and false sentimentalities that Adolph wanted to hear, like eating cream topping pastries sprinkled with sugared cinnamon.

Adolph believes that a human being can be retarded and become a moron. But rather than use knowledge to his best benefit, Adolph derives new terms for being intellectual (the first, six pages earlier didn’t take):
[W]hat a difference between the glittering phrases about freedom…beauty, and dignity in the theoretical literature, the delusive welter of words seeming expressing the most profound and laborious wisdom, the loathsome humanitarian morality – all this written with the incredible gall that some with the prophetic certainty – and the brutal daily press, shunning no villainy, employing every means of slander, lying with a virtuosity that would bend iron beams, all in the name of this gospel of a new humanity. The one is addressed to the simpletons of the middle, not to mention the upper, educated, ‘classes,’ the other to the masses.(page 41)

It appears that Adolph is intimidated by “the glittering phrases about freedom…beauty, and dignity in the theoretical literature, the delusive welter of words seeming expressing the most profound and laborious wisdom, the loathsome humanitarian morality…” Adolph was incapable of reaching those levels in speech, and he was incapable of attaining them by other means.
Remove glittering phrases, dignity, beauty, profound wisdom and humanitarian morality from and language, and it becomes dead. There is no communication.

What became most amazing was the rush to Richard Wagner and a few other immortals expressing German culture [some of Wagner’s folklore was Celtic (Irish/Welsh) origin, a fact lost on Adolph]. Wagner was definitely mad enough for Adolph to love him without much alteration, although one wonders how many Nazi big-wigs actually made it through 4 1/2 hours of Goetterdammerung. Americans are forewarned by Mark Twain, “I’ve heard the first Act of each Wagner opera with pleasure.”

Adolph has failed to advance logic, reasons and conclusions why the finer points of language and writing ought to be neglected, all the while, wholeheartedly, endorsing the lyrical mediocrity of Richard Wagner.

MEIN KAMPF -General comments

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MEIN KAMPF, Adolph Hitler

There is no way to review this book at once. The author’s strength is speech, specifically oratory. The first thing to know, the purpose of oratory is not to be reasonable and sensical. It is directed to the emotions of human beings, as though humans are being entertainment and are captured by the art of the speech before them. Hence, this author purposefully avoids attempts to explain anything in English or German.
It is not unusual for the modern reader to find any more of interest in the text than I did: 6.5 pages of 686 pages, less than one page of interesting text out of 100 pages. One poignant set of sentences explains why Adolph believes in Catholic priest celibacy. (p. 432) Adolph also likes to talk about syphilis and prostitution. (pages. 251, 254-55)

How hard is it to upset emotional prejudices, moods, sentiments, etc. and to replace them by others, on how many scarcely calculable influence and conditions success depends, the sensitive speaker can just by the fact that even the time of day in which the lecture takes place can have a decisive influence on the effect. The same lecture, the same speaker, the same theme, have an entirely different effect at ten o’clock in the morning, at three o’clock in the afternoon, or at night. (page. 473)
Sunday morning at ten o’clock. The result was depressing, yet at the same time extremely instructive: the hall was full, the impression really overpowering, but the mood ice cold; no one become war, and I myself as a speaker felt profoundly unhappy at being unable….
This should surprise no one. Go to a theatre performance and witness a play at three o’clock in the afternoon and the same play with the same actors at eight at night,
encroachments upon man’s freedom of will…(p. 474)
 In the morning and even during the day people’s will power seems to struggle with the greatest energy against an attempt to force upon them a strange will and strange opinion. At night…they will succumb more easily to the dominating force of a stronger will.
…mysterious twilight in Catholic churches, the burning of lamps, incense,
goal of oratory is “illiterate common people.” (page 475)

Since organization in the text is lacking, I write what Adolph says why organization is not important – in books or in politics. His first point made a few hundred times throughout the book: Adolph does not want anyone suspecting it was written by anyone academic, intellectual or disciplined. It necessarily stands to reason that Adolph prizes the superficial, craves spontaneity and revels in the nonsensical.

I am an enemy of too rapid and too pedantic organizing. It usually produces nothing but a dead mechanism, seldom a living organization. For organization is a thing that owes its existence to organic life, organic development. Ideas which have gripped a certain number of people will always strive for a greater order, and a great value must be attributed to this inner molding. Here, too, we must reckon with the weakness of men, which leads the individual, at first at least, instinctively to resist a superior mind. If an organization is mechanically ordered from above, there exists a great danger that a once appointed leader, not yet accurately evaluated and perhaps none too capable, will from jealousy strive to prevent the rise of abler elements within the movement. That harm that arises in such a case can, especially in a young movement, be of catastrophic significance.
…it is more expedient for a time to disseminate (p. 579)

This poorly constructed paragraph has three topic sentences; none are developed; none are related. For instance while arguing with himself about the value of organizing, he calls it dead but preferably a living development. What is being developed, dead or alive, organic or inorganic is not explained.
He next complains about the weakness of men, “resisting superior men.” Adolph includes himself among the superior minds. He always complains about people who read to gain knowledge, stiff intellectual types. Instead the best knowledge comes through oratory.
It is impossible to use oratory to extend wisdom or intelligence. It should be pointed out that during his life time, no one in Germany believed it necessary or worth while to memorialize any of Adolph’s words in stone. And note, Adolph was an absolute dictator in a totalitarian system.
Adolph’s third topic sentence demonstrates the jeopardy of this non-organizational approach. If the group leader does not know why he is doing, if he’s not on the ball and he’s wet behind the ears, and he is likely not the leader.
This is the ever-present fear existing in a movement: Following one path without realizing a different path needs taking, is catastrophic.But if a leader does not have the mental, social and acuity to advance the movement, it is time to choose anew.
Adolph believes wrongly that organization can be achieved by propaganda – use slogans, express fears, advance wants. Solutions should seem simple, however impracticable Adolph gives pages of propaganda notes, most of it is ridiculous and simplistic, except to a German.
Yet most political organization cannot survive on propaganda – use slogans to support an entire party, express policies of fearsome offer and advance hope based upon hate. Adolph omits the germs of ideas which stick with people into the future. It is the future sale of politics that Adolph finds tedious, boring and completely unpredictable. That was the history of him and his party. The Nazis were never the majority. Circumstances let them take executive offices, and Hindenburg’s death allowed Adolph to take all power.

The text of the MEIN KAMPF and subsequent events should not be considered inevitable, yet the readers and students frequently look at each and consider the book prescient. At best the text shows the sort of crank Hitler was when he became involved in German electoral politics, and it projects how he played to a exceptionally unsophisticated political people.

A note about the text in English. I’ve seen two English translations, 1943, and the most recent published as late at 1999. In each Edition are 686 pages; pretty much the words from page to page and the pages are also the same. Hence the page numbers above and in subsequent comments are from the 1943 edition.

2016 CAMPAIGN: SOURCES

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2016 politics has revealed a candidate using methods of oratory to make himself a hero in the public’s eye. This storyline is easily plotted from two sources: Joseph Campbell’s How-to books and Adolph Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

Mein Kampf is one of the worst written books by anyone. Heinrich Boell, the German novelist, tells of exercises a school teacher mandated: Rewrite Mein Kampf. In class students reduced the book to one-third its length while preserving its hate and abortional shrills. Historians, politicians and literary persons have spotted one bit of brilliance in Mein. The Mad Mustacher knew how to sway the common people with oratory. A favorite line was, “Making Germany great again.” Mein is an excellent how-to book about persuasive, swaying oratory.

Chose issues or people and say outrageous, impolite, anti-social cliches about each one. Rich guys, bad people, and bad situations, mention them all. Talk like Kim Jong Un, North Korean Leader. When he speaks, he has to threaten war, this year a Sacred War. Claim the words spoken represent reality. Repeat, repeat, repeat, like a broken record; utter childish impulses and label anyone. Accuse anyone who disagrees is opposed to the truth. Hide behind the American flag. Anyone running for President wants the USA to be great in the future, not great once again. Personally attack anyone who mentions inconsistencies, dishonesties and depredations, always the fault and and shame of the orator but now the problem of all Americans. Monopolize the news media, always hot for dispute but lacking independent criticism and fairness, an acceptable result: Push the Orator’s name and recently used cliches. Everyone must follow the new trail.

Americans have never fallen for so simple a tactic as oratory and cliches. They want substance, beyond what they have learned from talk shows: They crave understanding in candidates beyond the use of cliches. The Constitution itself has a Preamble of cliches, but the remainder is meat and potatoes, which must be known, consumed and digested. Will the American people again chose someone in experience who is so uncomfortable and sensitive that he is frozen in office? Will the American people choose someone with a mind oriented to cliches? Or do Americans want someone appreciating the balance of faces affecting political power and who is capable of working within that system and producing results?

The Germans believed the oratory, and that it was communicated by a savior, the Mad Mustacher. He never got more than a third of the vote. Coming to power he dismantled structures of democratic government and quickly made Germany a totalitarian society. That would never happen in the United States. Americans own too many guns.

But some Americans and one group of broadcasters believe the Savior has arrived in the 2016 campaign. Late in 2015 newbie-broadcaster objected to the Savior being labelled a clown. Again and again the show guest repeated “clown,” and the newbie-broadcaster said, “He is not a clown.” On another show a guest said the appeal of the Savior was understandable but the messages were hogwash and shams. The program host decried none of it was hogwash or a sham. Preferably Americans would understand if the show hosts asked the reasons or facts behind the clown, hogwash/sham conclusions. Those broadcasters did not. Americans learned nothing.

What is the source to the incompetent existence allowing journalists and politicians to survive? Joseph Campbell. Let’s the the record straight. Campbell’s learned from Mein Kampf, the Nazis, German philosophy and the Germans. All his books were published after World War Two. Campbell knew Nazis and fascism were not marketable. He said his books had everything to do with myths. Anyone historically knowledgable know the Nazis were big myth resurrectors, and looking for myth, Old Joe C. copied Nazi ideology.

All right, I concede Americans live in an age of myths – Harry Potter, Star Wars, Vampires and the Undead. It’s a scary world, but don’t be deceived.

Old Joe C. was an academic who believed he had discovered a how-to-write-a-compelling story. Hero, make the protagonist a hero. The reader and movie audiences will fawn over him. Old Joe listed the ingredients [elements]. [steps], [manifestations], [parts], [units] and discussed many of them. Other writers have picked up these lists which comprise their interpretation of Old Joe’s work. It is therefore easy to conclude that Old Joe’s books are not well-written (because a lot of other authors make much more money explaining Old Joe myths things).

From the standpoint of literature Old Joe’s work is pure crap. However less refined and less rigorous media like movies and TV, have accept Joe’s methods. The quality and the quantity of each has declined. More frequently the audience is presented with characters in impossibly human situations, parakeets running wild, and deep sea adventures which end in outer space. The players are supposed to work through each scenario: A myth! How does a favorite actors handle it? It does not matter. It’s a myth! Don’t make it real, the myths of reality TV shows.

The American audience has lost the idea and the appreciation that forms of art in TV and movies can reflect human existence on Earth. What is offered to Americans? Rote and routine from Old Joe’s myth’s, hero, savior, everyone will be all right if one follows blindly because no one can ever see a Savior let alone understand speech of an orator, now a mad tyrant.

Indeed, the 2016 campaign one candidate presents his myth fitting Old Joe’s compendium: There have been no claims of his being born in a manger or found floating among the bulrushes. But suppressing underlings and deriding the poor is his stamp, and his greed, extravagance and profligacy are trump cards he loves to play.

Some hero elements used in 2016 are off Old Joe’s list, but indoctrinated, ignorant audiences are ready to overlook oversights and incongruent addenda: Producing far more harm and hardship to thousands of people than the orator has ever had himself. Making misjudgments that cost thousands of people employment. Having a sense of entitlement and privilege feeding the most extreme forms of narcissism and opportunism. A physical inability to portray himself as a human being, but as a piece of plaster of paris statuary on display at a Carnival. An unwillingness to expose himself to danger, hoping surrogates will carry that lead. An imprudent mouth not controlled by temper, judgment or reason. Lies, deceptions and tergiversations are primary communications.

The public relations make for an incoherent, uncogent campaign. Pick an issue out of the blue, and sky is the only common connection it has to Americans. Many of the comments are ill advised, infantile, ignorant or poorly put – make up the words, which ever words meet whim. Sentences don’t have to make sense, just bombastic, revealing emotion, irrationality and the intuition matching that of an ape, pounding the chest, hitting the ground and truly wondering what to do next.

This is 2016, time for Americans to get beyond the oratory, and search for a human being who understands issues beyond cliches.