Polish-Jewish Relations: 1,300 Keyword-Phrase-Indexed Book Reviews (by Jan Peczkis)

My New Order, by Adolf Hitler, Raoul De Roussy De Sales (Editor). 1973

Hitler Contradictory. A Profusely-Indexed Source on Hitler’s Speeches (1918-1941). 1939 Pretexts For Attacking Poland Were Not Even Internally Consistent

Of all the works I have read on the subject of the Fuhrer, this one is the most profusely cross-referenced and indexed. In fact, it has five indexes–one on Hitler’s Major Policies and Ideas, one on Treaties, Pacts, and Pledges, one on Arguments and Justifications, one on Speeches in Crucial Moments, and, finally, one a General Index. The time period spanned is 1918 through mid-late1 941 (soon after the start of Operation Barbarossa, when the hoped-for rapid collapse of the Soviet Armies failed to materialize.)

This extensive indexing enables the scholar to gain easy access to Hitler’s views on many different subjects. Besides obvious themes, this includes arcane information, such as Hitler’s mentions of Manchuria, or Queen Elizabeth of England. Relative importance of topics is also evident. For example, there are only four entries on Freemasonry against dozens of entries on Jews.

Owing to the breadth of information presented in this work, I touch only on a few subjects.

THE GERMANS FREELY SUPPORTED HITLER

Hitler was no marginal “mad leader”. In the plebiscite of August 19, 1934, Hitler got 88.1% of the German people’s votes. (p. 286). [The reader must remember that many of those who voted against Hitler did not disagree with his policies. They disliked his person or his socio-political background.]

NAZISM LEFTWING NOT RIGHTWING: NATIONAL SOCIALISM WAS INDEED A FORM OF SOCIALISM

As a National Socialist, Hitler wanted there to be no social classes among the German people. (p. 23, 764). The Nazis observed May Day. (p. 765). Although it at times received aid from both rejected systems, National Socialism was both anti-Communist and anti-capitalist. Nor was this just a veiled form of anti-Semitism. Hitler scorned capitalists, explicitly whether they were Jewish capitalists or Christian capitalists. (p. 16, 765). In common with Communists and other socialists, Hitler dismissed the western democracies as ones where the real rulers are “gigantic capitalists”, as represented by “bourgeois parties”, and where the common people were sought for votes but otherwise disregarded. (p. 881). Hitler asserted that the social-welfare and workers’-protection provisions under National Socialism were hated by the western capitalists because they might give ideas to the west’s working classes. (pp. 764-765).

HITLER REVERSED HIS EARLIER PRAISE FOR POLAND

When Hitler attacked Poland in 1939, he and the other Nazis vilified Poland as the puppet of England, the illegitimate child of Versailles, a seasonal state, a nation of incompetents ruled by corrupt leaders, a people whose only achievement was the copying of German culture, etc.

Earlier, however, Hitler had implicitly praised the resurrection of Poland as an example for Germany to follow (p. 178, 312), reiterated the fact that Poland and Germany must peacefully coexist (p. 234), and (with reference to the Polish Corridor) affirmed that Poland was populous enough to expect, and possess, access to the sea. (p. 520).