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“On April 1, 1924, I entered upon my prison term in the fortress of Landsberg am Lech, as sentenced by the People's court in Munich on that day” (Hitler, 1927, p. vi) And thus begins Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf. It was not a book that he wrote so much as dictated to two colleagues, Emil Maurice, his chauffeur and all-around lackey, and then to Rudolf Hess, who would one day head the Nazi Party.
Early on in this distorted and reimagined memoir, Hitler addressed the issue of the Jew. “Today, it is difficult if not impossible, for me to say when the word ‘Jew’ first gave me ground for special thoughts.” Not too much further along, he seemed to have found his answer, “Once as I was strolling though the Inner City, I suddenly encountered an apparition in a black caftan and black hair locks. Is this a Jew, was my first thought.” Hitler went on, “Ever since I had begun to concern myself with this question and to take cognizance of the Jews, Vienna appeared to me in a different light. Wherever I went, I began to see Jews and the more I saw, the more sharply they became distinguished in my eyes from the rest of humanity.” Hitler described his researches into this question before he announced his epiphany, “To my deep and joyful satisfaction, I had at last come to the conclusion that the Jew was no German!” (p. 51) All this Hitler professed to have discovered before the age of twenty while still living in Vienna.
Several things are of interest. First there is ample evidence that Hitler's “epiphany” came to him in a very different form than the one he relates, that his “insights” were more of a reaction to on-going events than a sudden “awakening,” that his reconfigured autobiography was not in the service of self-awareness