My Struggle with My Struggle: Germany, History, Hatred, Cultural Appropriation

    In German it is called "Mein Kampf". I checked it out earlier this summer; I have been reading it. It is not easy. I had heard stories for years, how it was somewhat thick, or rambling, or crazy, or hateful. I see the logic in it, and where the author is coming from. He wrote this at a relatively young age, in a politically and militarily awful time. The Reichstag was new, Germany was a newly unified nation, and found itself after the terrible world war where the former Austrian-Hungarian Empire had been dissolved, pulled apart to no longer show its might as a unified power. It leaves questions and poses post-analysis.

    Looking back and investigating. Understanding, trying to understand how things progressed or digressed into what would be. And, what is now, a long generation later. Into the 21st century.

    He r- [wrote this last night, forgot my train of thought. Maybe I was going to refer to Adolph, the culminating victimizer in the whole Holocaust, as we have called it. Thinking about that title now, it is rather insulting in a way, because the holocaust of the Bible was a holy ordinance.]

    I am 70 pages in a tome of some 600. I am determined to finish it. So far, it is off and on a struggle. It can be thick, or vapid, or esoteric, based on understanding the times and perspectives of him and his group as Germans upset with their plight at the time, he being persecuted or imprisoned by his own German authorities and governing officials.

    This is "his struggle", which he thrusts upon the millions of his fellow Deuchen of the times of the 1920s into the 1930s, which then becomes the burden of the millions upon millions who had to take on the German and his axis war machine. Or, genocide, or both.

    The Jewish people were so devasted that multiple generations later, the Jewish people of Israel are as of this year are fighting tooth and nail against the Gazans and other Palestinians, and now certain Lebanese, or Syrians, or Iranians. Israel is taking the initiative to combat and strike aggressively against its existential enemies. 

    I have issues with the settling of Palestinian territories over the decades by Jewish and other non-Palestinian peoples, which is inherently wrong. I am not sure of the justification that Israelis give for this, other than the extreme stance of the Zionist Eretz Israel, which involves removing or marginalizing millions of Arabs that have been based in the Holy Land for centuries, based on their birthlands.

    Yet, again, going back to this book criticizing the Jewish people, now from one hundred years ago, speaking ill of them in Europe, and ultimately being used as a precipitor of a tool of genocide, which was certainly horrific, devastating, psychologically traumatizing on individual and collective levels. I believe these traumas and past occurrences have pushed into our times today.

    I know Palestinians who do not wish to take the blame or bear the brunt for what the Germans did to the millions of victims of Europe of the 1930s and 1940s. Yet, the traumas continue on.

    Germany is a very successful country in the 21st century; it has been making its way very well as an engine of productivity and freedom in the modern world, post-World War II. They are still, however, dealing with the nightmare legacy of what happened during the so-called Third Reich, and the erstwhile legacy of Mein Kampf. Where the author, again, explicates his issues with what Germany and Europe were then, what their problems were, and where he thought the Germans would unite and excel, and perhaps eventually conquer. (I have many pages to go, but I am filling in gaps in supposition.)

    Hatred is a part of the dialog, unfortunately and sadly, and it has had its effects. As the prologue or foreword explains, by critics who are either Jewish or historical scholars, or both, we need to keep this book in our midst for reasons. Never to ignore or forget what such arguments can mean, and have meant to our planet.

    Hatred, appropriation, even removal or elimination are not part of the equations that we in the world find as acceptable.

    It is unfathomable, but has happened, and happens in 2024, and will happen again if we do not truly understand the roots, valid statements, hateful dialogs, logical and illogical premises and propositions of such words and ideas.

    Ideas save and kill; we must examine and re-examine the ways that history has dealt us, and how we choose to engage realities and truths, lies and attacks, how we decide to form our policies and laws to better (or worse) govern our communities and polities.

    How can we not be the thieves and robbers of others? How do we protect one another? How do we not go down the paths of hatred and death once again? We have to struggle with these struggles, whether we find them palatable or not.