Main Kampf

Typo: Mein Kampf (literally translated: My Struggle/Fight)

A book by A. Hitler

• 182The struggle against international finance capital and loan-capital has become one of the

most important points in the programme on which the German nation has based its fight for economic freedom and independence*181 For the greater the work which a man does for the future, the less will he be appreciated . The great protagonists are those who fight for their ideas and ideals despite the fact that

they receive no recognition at the hands of their contemporaries. by his contemporaries. *156 The receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their understanding is feeble. On the other hand, they quickly forget. Such being the case, all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas. T

• 155 it must appeal to the feelings of the

public rather than to their reasoning powers.*155 Here the art of propaganda consists in putting a matter so clearly and forcibly before the minds of the people as to create a general conviction regarding the reality of a certain fact, the necessity of certain things and the just character of something that is essential.

• 155 Propaganda must always address itself to the broad The situation is the same in regard to what we understand by the word, propaganda.

The purpose of propaganda is not the personal instruction of the individual, but rather to attract public attention to certain things, the importance of which can be brought home to the masses only by this means. of the people. For the intellectual classes, or what are called the intellectual classes to-day, propaganda is not suited, but only scientific exposition. Propaganda has as little to do with science as an advertisement poster has to do with art, as far as concerns the form in which it presents its message.

• P37 On the other hand, one who has cultivated the art of reading will instantly discern, in a

book or journal or pamphlet, what ought to be remembered because it meets one's personal needs or is of value as general knowledge. What he thus learns is incorporated in his mental analogue of this or that problem or thing, further correcting the mental picture or enlarging it so that it becomes more exact and precise.

• P35- Reading is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. Its chief purpose is to help towards filling in the framework which is made

up of the talents and capabilities that each individual possesses. Thus each one procures for himself the implements and materials necessary for the fulfilment of his calling in life, no matter whether this be the elementary task of earning one's daily bread or a calling that responds to higher human aspirations. And the second purpose is to give a general knowledge of the world in which we live. In both cases, however, the material which one has acquired through reading must not be stored up in the memory on a plan that corresponds to the successive chapters of the book; but each little piece of knowledge thus gained must be treated as if it were a little stone to be inserted into a mosaic, so that it finds its proper place among all the other pieces and particles that help to form a general world-picture in the brain of the reader. Otherwise only a confused jumble of chaotic notions will result from all this reading.