……Yeats’ “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold” poem
A comrade and donor in Australia wrote me:
Are you familiar with the poem by the Irish poet Yeats called “The Second Coming”? Though written one hundred years ago, it sums up what is happening right now before our own eyes.
I am, and this Guardian article shows why it is so resonant a century later: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/30/things-fall-apart-the-apocalyptic-appeal-of-wb-yeats-the-second-coming
***
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Things that especially stood out to me were:
*** 1)
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
*** 2)
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
*** 3)
What rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
……Michael Ford translation of Mein Kampf is eye-opening, and finally an enjoyable read!
In fact, Mein Kampf, written just a few years later than “The Second Coming,” deals with all three issues:
1) the best lacking conviction (and to NOT be “fanatic” about stopping the jews once you realized what the jews have planned for us all and have done to others already for three millennia, is literally insane)
2) A Second Coming is needed, meaning a new spiritual FORCE that transforms zeroes into heroes
3) A rough beast is barbaric war — both their rough beast (bolshevism) and ours, as rough or rougher even….a wolf age cometh, as the Norse sagas prophesy.
Mein Kampf can shed amazing insight IF the translation is not turgidly terrible, as has been case until now.
It so happens a comrade sent me three books from the www.eliteminds.com website in Kilgore, Texas:
This is translator “Michael Ford”‘s (is this name a pseudonym?) justified skewering of the (((Manheim))), Murphy and even Stalag translations, demonstrating why his is far better — and I agree, having read Mein Kampf twice in German. Ford also explains two key MK facts:
- its never-stated main goal was to keep his followers behind him even after a) the disastrous failure of his Munich putsch (in view of its defeat, its 16 dead, and amateurish mistakes that were committed like not seizing the train station, the newspapers, the post offices, the telephone/telegraph offices — not to mention NOT neutralizing the police stations and army barracks; the brilliant The Nameless War shows how the jews always bribe key individual police and army officials to stand down during the putsch), b) despite his imprisonment, c) in the face of the banning of his political party, which later was ended, but d) in Prussia — which was two-thirds of Germany — Hitler, the key attraction and organizer, was banned himself from giving any speeches!
- It was basically Hitler dictating speeches to Rudolf Hess and Emil Maurice, hence the long sentences, but these were eloquent, persuasive sentences in the original German!
Finally, a great book gets translated — by an American — into equally great English!
Except for two things:
- the anti-Russian (not just anti-bolshevik) part, and
- its avoidance of all transcendental themes (he leaves people to be agnostics or Christians, whatever they are, thus fleeing all religious themes such as God, the soul, the afterlife, why we are even here, why a just God would allow evil to win, or let children suffer, etc.)
…most of it is, well, genius. 🙂
And some of it is humorous. The translator is rightfully proud of having “gotten” the jokes and then explaining them to modern readers.
Few know that Hitler used to do yiddish accents when he was portraying the words of jews, and he had the audiences rolling in the aisles. In fact, the Munich jewspapers began referring to him derogatorily as “the comedian” (der Komiker).
I do a Yiddish accent here myself:
.https://johndenugent.com/images/VIP-Pedophiles.mp4.mp4
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While some claim that many Germans never read MK, that is because they had heard the content already in his speeches — and MK is basically his speeches put on paper, dictated (as stated) to Hess or Maurice.
Volume one originated here:
My cell in Landsberg prison
Emil Maurice and Rudolf Hess (top row) took dictation
Volume two was dictated in this cabin on the Obersalzberg near Berchtesgaden:
I will add that, having visited South Tyrol, a German-speaking area now in the Italian Alps (and having honeymooned there in 1976, on the Seiser Alm), one can see why the Germans and Austrians were outraged that Hitler was willing to let the Italians keep it.
Italy was supposed to be an ally of Germany and Austria in WWI, but they switched sides, called it “a sacred betrayal,” in order to grab South Tyrol. In Mein Kampf, Hitler explains that fascist Italy is the only possible ally for the future Third Reich, but this alliance will never happen if Italy is badgered to give up territory that cost it 650,000 Italian lives.
What this shows is that Hitler was not just a politician anxious to please the masses of his time but also a visionary who was thinking ahead in 1924 to a second world war (the one that came in 1939).
In this second war which the jews would force on Germany, Germany would need at least some allies (like Italy and the fascists in France, Belgium, Spain, Greece and Portugal, or the faraway Japanese) in order to have any chance at all of winning.
His view, like that of all national socialists today, is that war is horrible but a bitter reality, and when the war is over, vae victis — woe to the defeated. The problem today is the jewspapers vilify entire peoples as monsters, so the peace terms are never just, always harsh, punitive and even outrageous. “Unconditional surrender” is what the Allies demand. As defeated scum, you have no rights.….
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Outrageous American WWI recruiting poster depicting Germans as raping gorillas
Knowing this vae victis, Hitler said:
Better an alliance with Italy than another certain defeat when the jews yet again send all their many puppet nations against us.
For all six peacetime years, 1933-39, this Hitlerian policy of letting South Tyrol go to “make nice” with Mussolini did pay off.
Mussolini let Hitler take back the Rhineland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia; he let it leave the League of Nations and the Versailles Treaty; and he allowed it to rebuild its magnificent army.
As a war partner, Mussolini was less valuable, of course, but this was because the king and aristocracy, anti-fascists themselves, even Freemasons, controlled the Italian officer corps, as Léon Degrelle explained.
The genuine fascist troops from Italy in WWII (especially the Italian 29th division of the Waffen-SS) fought with great skill and bravery (just as did the fascist Spanish, French and Belgian troops, btw.)
Italian Waffen-SS soldier (wearing the distinctive Italian helmet) is decorated by a German officer.
In Italian: “Our honor is loyalty”
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Sadly, what Mussolini did, unlike Hitler, was to let his enemies control the army. This is bad in peace — and it proved catastrophic in war. THIS is why Italian troops surrendered in WWII — not cowardice, but their officers WANTED to lose so as to get rid of Mussolini!
And so national socialism was right — we must have full power over every vital institution of the nation, or we can never radically change the nation to something more noble and dynamic, nor can we successfully defend it if war comes, the supreme test.
And all this truth Mein Kampf laid out. I warmly recommend the Ford translation. Someone wants me to record it as an audiobook. If only I had time…..I do kinda know the material. 😉
Btw, here is Dalton on the content and goals of Mein Kampf and why he (obviously) prefers HIS translation:
https://inconvenienthistory.com/8/1/4033
I find both Dalton and Ford good. Ford is more folksy; Dalton is an intellectual. Both did a fine job.
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According to the writers at The Barnes Review, the Stalag edition of Mein Kampf (which they sell) is the best and easiest-to-read version. But you say that the Ford edition is better? Who to believe? And where can I get the Uncensored Edition of Mein Kampf as shown in the last photo above? Also, does the “Uncensored Edition” in the title mean that there are versions of Ford’s translation of Mein Kampf that HAVE been censored?
I am to believe. 🙂
The thin book gives actual comparisons of the various translations, and every time the Ford translation is the most readable and accurate. TBR pushes the Stalag version (a knock-off of the bad Murphy translation) because it is so old, so it is free for them to reprint. The Ford translation is much more recent and costs something, as it should.
The Murphy translation is the one I read. Murphy was an Englishman who was a professional translator who lived in Germany during the 14 years of Hitler’s rise to power. Murphy was contracted by the Hitler government to translate Mein Kampf into English. Relations with the Hitler government broke down for some reason, but Murphy managed to get his translation published in England despite German opposition. I personally trust Murphy, and history would indicate that he was an excellent translator.
I respond here:
https://johndenugent.com/the-pitch-black-side-of-the-scepterd-isle/
Although I am not one who can know for sure I would contend that the newest translation from Thomas Dalton would be the best and most accurate English translation currently available. All evidence does support before this that indeed the Ford translation was the best available and with you confirming it John, there is certainly no doubt about that.
Dalton sells versions that include both the original German and his translation of it.
John, you can see a lengthy beginning part of Dalton’s translation at the link below and perhaps you can share your view about the claimed improved accuracy of this translation?
https://www.thomasdaltonphd.com/mein-kampf-vol-1-english
Thanks. Dalton is good. But I am not aware how he handles instances of humor and references to then current events. Ford complains that almost all translators miss the humor and fail to explain the people and events to which Hitler referred.
I read MK twice, in the 1970s and 1980s, in German.
So did you ever read MK in English or just those two times in German?
Now that I think of it, I did read MK in the horrible Manheim translation in 1962 during a two-month summer camp at Camp Tokhomeupog in East Conway, New Hampshire. I was nine at the time.
I have always found MK, Hitler and all that boring. Been there and done that, and I was angry at myself that we semi-lost (surviving in the Antarctic and Andes underground, and awaiting WWIII to re-emerge), that it had such a German coloration, and that it avoided all the big questions like the plague. Yes, we did amazing things, but the Hellstorm has haunted me for decades.
What consoles me is that I have been honest with myself, and so something even better is possible!
I have read Murphy’s 1934 book _Adolf Hitler_. Here Murphy presents a generally positive picture of Hitler. Herein he also describes many aspects of the Germany of the post-war times that I was unaware of, such a tension existing between the large German states of Bavaria and Prussia. In his translation of _Mein Kampf_ Murphy makes Hitler speak in an educated type of English, even while he tells us in his _Adolf Hitler_ book that Hitler spoke in a very simple German, but I think the reason for this is he wanted the thought of Hitler to be grasped by educated English speakers.