Mein Kampf is 100; still inspires hate

Hundred years ago, Adolf Hitler penned Mein Kampf while imprisoned after his failed Beer Hall Putsch of 1923.

- SANTHOSH MATHEW

What started as a bitter and self-justifying political tract went on to shape one of the most catastrophic ideologies in human history.

As the world marks the centenary of its publication, the book remains an unsettling reminder of how extremist thought can take root and flourish.

More disturbingly, the resurgence of neo-Nazi sentiments across the world raises questions about the durability of such ideologies and their insidious influence on contemporary politics.

Mein Kampf, first published in 1925, was largely ignored in its early years. However, once Hitler rose to power in 1933, it became a cornerstone of Nazi propaganda, with millions of copies distributed across Germany. By 1939, it had sold 5.2 million copies and had been translated into 11 languages.

The book detailed Hitler's vision of Aryan supremacy, anti-Semitic beliefs, and expansionist ambitions, laying the groundwork for the horrors of the Holocaust and World War II. So deeply embedded was it in Nazi Germany that newlywed couples were gifted a copy as a state wedding present, ensuring that its venomous ideology seeped into the private lives of ordinary Germans.