Antisemitism in Mein Kampf Essay Example for Free

Antisemitism in Mein Kampf Essay Mein Kampf is a book of two volumes authored by Adolf Hitler. The first volume was written whilst dictated to Rudolph Hess and Emile Maurice in Landsberg prison where Hitler was sentenced to following the failure of an attempted coup d’etat of the Bavarian government in 1924. Mein Kampf is significant amongst historiography as it is thought to be an insight into the mind of Adolf Hitler. This book is not only autobiographical but full of memoires and political ideologies, which have subsequently sparked debate as to whether this piece of primary historical evidence can be regarded as the blue-print for Hitler’s future ambitions. An intentionalist view by Historians’ such as Lucy Dawidowicz, argues that the Holocaust was the result of Hitler’s long term plan, whereas the functionalist perspective by Historians’ such as Christopher Browning is of the result of a competing agents within the Reich to answer the Jewish question. Chapter 11 of Mein Kampf: Nation and Race, shows to comprehend with the intentionalist interpretation that this did indeed set the foundation for Holocaust as a propaganda medium. Chapter 11 of Mein Kampf is a race rhetoric that advocates social-Darwinism in favour of the German Aryan race and even justifies war with the ‘racially lower’. This chapter refers to natural selection within humanity as the will of nature and of God. The word ‘Nature’ is emphasised being mentioned 20 times within the passage purveying it as a natural process. The mixing of genes with ‘lesser’ races are referred to as a sin against God, in which context Jews are included. Language used in this passage has been described as using metaphors to enforce racial prejudice, although evident is how the use of language has not only been used for easily digestible comparisons, but also as graphic and horrifying, such as ‘blood poisoning’ when describing breeding with a ‘weaker race’. Also described are the consequences of the integration of races and given examples of how this would be catastrophic for humanity. In regards to the book as a whole, anti-Semitism is consistent throughout Mein Kampf and is evident of Hitler’s hatred of the Jewish people, with quotes of ‘real’ Germans surviving in the war if a great number of Jews had been killed with poison gas. Mein Kampf was written at a time when Hitler was banned from public speaking. This indicates that the production of Mein Kamp as composed as a method in which Hitler could communicate with the public legitimately. Volume 2 of Mein Kamp is also said to be written in plain spoken language. This indicates it was written for all people to be able read, proving it as a propaganda tool. After Hitler’s Chancellorship in January 1933 Mein Kampf was eventually introduced into schools, placed on trains and presented to every bridal couple. The mass circulation of this book again proves only t o show it as a propaganda medium. Anti-Semitism was not unique to Mein Kampf and was a keen topic of Hitler’s in many political statements given in meetings. Hitler exclaims in September 1919 that the Jewish people are a race and not a religious community, and how this race are corrupt and disliked by a large section of ‘our people’ through emotion. A year later he states that a German citizen can only be one of German blood. As head of the Nazi party Hitler placed Joseph Goebbels as the head of Nazi propaganda, who wrote in the anti-Semitic newspaper ‘Der Angriff’ from 1926. In here is written how Jews’ are destroying the German community and how they must be removed from the community or they will ever corrupt it. Hitler’s ‘last will and testament’ written hours before his suicide tells of a hatred for Jews and also blaming the Jews for the war. These sources prove that Mein Kampf was not just a unique rant of anti-Semitism, Hitler believed in this hatred of the Jews’ evident here as early as 1919, days after his first attendance at a DAP meeting. This reinforces Mein Kampf as weapon of anti-Semitic propaganda at a time when Hitler could not address the public in person. Another element that points to this being a blue-print for the Holocaust was that Hitler wrote (or dictated) Mein Kampf with the intention of becoming a fascist style leader, but not only a leader, the chosen one and almost messiah-like. The failed Beer-Hall Putsch in Munich was directly influenced by the success of Benito Mussolini’s March on Rome which had immediately led to his appointment of Prime Minister of Italy; proving Hitler’s ambitions before he authored Mein Kampf. This shows Hitler always had the ambition of become a fascist style leader in Germany who would have had the power, with support from the nation, via propaganda, to eliminate the Jews from Germany. Although the ‘chosen one’ notion comes into play when in Mein Kampf it states that â€Å"Fate will someday gift the nation with a man endowed with the purpose of leading the nation out of a great depression and elimination of a bitter distress†. The elimination of a itter distress can only be regarded to ‘the Jewish problem’ as anti-Semitism is a recurring theme in the book, but Fate sending this man who is made for the job sounds messiah-like, which with Hitler’s proven ambition to become this leader would mean that if this propaganda was effective, he would become the ‘chosen leader’ and his book of propaganda regarding anti-Semitism and social-Darwinism would almost become a gospel. Joseph Goebbels exclaimed in 1941 that one of his notable achievements in propaganda was giving the nation complete confidence in Hitler by giving him a metaphoric halo of infallibility. An edition of Der Angriff from 1935 entitled Der Fuhrer’ by Joseph Goebbels states of how the Fuhrer is divine as â€Å"all of his actions stand under the power of a higher power† and Fate has provided the German people with Adolf Hitler. Again here it is evident of Adolf Hitler being propagandised as divine, and a divine leader would command the subordination of his subjects who would in return strive to please him. Mein Kamp is an intentional method of propaganda to be used at a time when Adolph Hitler was unable to communicate verbally with a gathering of people. Mein Kampf advocated Anti-Semitism, and Chapter 11: Nation and Race with a dramatic use of language strongly advocates social-Darwinism and justifies a war with the ‘lower races’ of peoples. Hitler always had, before and after Mein Kamp, an ambition to become a fascist style leader in which he had total control, which was propagandised during the construction of Mein Kampf as being appointed by higher powers and made out as messiah-like. This reinforces the intentionalist view of the Holocaust to be a result of Hitler’s long term plan. Historian’s in future research may want to consider the ‘divine leader’ messages propagandised by Hitler, in regards to the intentionalist/functionalist argument. This analysis of Chapter 11 of Mein Kampf has evaluated the context of the chapter within the book, the message within as well as examined the language used. The significance of the document as well as the purpose of it has been considered, as well as having reinforced a current historiographical debate.

Essay --

Located in central Java in present day Indonesia, The Great Stupa of Borobudur is the world’s largest Buddhist monument. It was constructed sometime around AD 800 as a way of displaying visual teachings of Mahayana Buddhism. The Great Stupa of Borobudur is essentially a symbolic form of both a stupa, a sacred mound of earth with holy relics of the Buddha buried beneath, and a mandala, a mystic Buddhist symbol of the universe. Or as Catherine Albanese describes it â€Å"†¦the mandala meant a circle which signifies the wholeness of the self.† The architectural design of this stupa was different from anything that had come before it and every part of it had some significance in the world of Buddhism. The overall structure of Borobudur is made up of a square foundation along with a total of nine platforms. Of those nine platforms six of them are squared while the remaining three are circular. The structure can be further divided into three main levels: a base, a body, and the top. Each of these levels symbolize the three realms of Buddhist cosmology. The base symbolizes the realm of Kamadhatu; the six squared platforms symbolize the realm of Rupadhatu; and the three circular platforms at the top symbolize the realm of Arupadhatu. The realm of Kamadhatu is also known as the world of desires and it is the lowest level of the three realms. This is where ordinary sentient individuals live out their lives with desires and suffering. The next realm, the realm of Rupadhatu is known as the world of forms and it is the second level of the three realms. This realm is accessed by those who have gotten rid of their desires through meditation, but still have a name and form. It is said that you have to advance up through multiple stages in thi... ...design of Borobudur and the ritual that it entails. The reliefs located on the base and body were there in order to teach initiates the sacred texts as the ascended the mountain in Pradakshina. The elliptical and circular terraces represented the summit of Mt Meru and the central stupa located in the center represented the center of the universe. Through this ritual the state of Nirvana is attained through gradual processes and transitions, not drastic jumps. The architecture of Borobudur would also signify a gradual process as it starts off square in the lower terraces, transitions to elliptical with the first two upper terraces and finally becomes circular in the third upper terrace. People may only speculate as to what things may mean or represent, but one thing for certain is that The Great Stupa of Borobudur was designed and built the way it was for a reason.

Absurdity in Camus’s The Plague

Albert Camus tried to make sense of plague's challenge to the human spirit in this novel set in North Africa. It is a chronicle of human suffering. â€Å"But what does that mean – ‘plague'? Just life, no more than that.† (Camus, Gilbert 1948 : 307).The old asthmatic, who spends his days transferring peas from one pan to another, summarizes the overarching theme of Camus's narrative: life and death, in a world that does not seem to care for us. The Plague is a powerful literary work, despite its many logical and other shortcomings, which we will be looking into. Camus is obviously trying to stimulate the reader to think about the problems of life and ways to confront life in a seemingly absurd and cruel world — although how far he succeeds in this attempt is doubtful.Over the course of a few days in sometime in the 1940s, in the Algerian city of Oran, thousands of rats emerge into the streets in dying conditions. At this point begins the outbreak. Absurdity creeps into Camus’s story in more ways than one. Dying rats and the spread of bubonic plague is not an unprecedented phenomenon in human history. In the mid 14th century, the devastating black plague exterminated nearly one third of the population of Europe. Spanning three years, it was a disaster of colossal proportions.A major episode of Bubonic plague occurred in ancient Greece, as well as in the late Roman period, killing people in hundreds of thousands. The narrator of the story himself acknowledges the fact of a ten thousand people dying every single day in Constantinople. Therefore, on the first sign of rats dying en masse, all the nations and international authorities would be alerted, not just the city officials. But that does not strangely happen in Camus’s account. No action is taken at all for a long time, though much hullabaloo goes on.The Plague recounts a specific (albeit fictional) epidemic taking place in a particular location at a particular time, alt hough the year is not clearly specified. Therefore historical and practical questions are important in making sense of the story.Camus’s novel was published in 1947, in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. It is reasonable therefore to assume that the Oran episode might have occurred towards the end of the war or in the first years of peace. Towards the end of the First World War, a massive outbreak of Influenza pandemic killed an estimated 40 million people worldwide.No one would even remotely want such a disaster to happen all over again at the end of the Second World War, and therefore no one would have taken the matter lightly. The moment the news is in the media, it would have sent shivers across the national capitals all over the world. By no stretch of imagination, Bubonic plague can be considered a local issue.One cannot possibly conceive any city authorities to be complacent over such a grave matter, thereby delaying action and letting the infection take hold in the populace. Leave alone the local authorities, national and international authorities would immediately jump into the scene taking all possible action to contain the burgeoning plague. That a plague is on its way is clear as day from the first deaths of rats to anyone who is least educated, however the city officials go on merely debating, discussing and hesitating.In 1994, a case of pneumonic plague, a deadlier air-borne version of bubonic plague, broke out in the Northwestern India. The word plague was in the air, and hundreds of thousands of people immediately started evacuating their houses, even before the authorities could rush into action. In the end, few people died of the actual infection, more people must have perished in the stampedes to catch trains and buses.In Camus’s novel that seeks to question the very meaning of human life and existence, however, no such commonsensical, logical measures are taken.Common people behave meaninglessly, authorities beha ve absurdly, international authorities do not even figure in – all this in spite of the narrator, Bernard Rieux, being a doctor himself. Even when the doctor starts worrying, he worries about his own city, not the continent and the world, as if plague knows any city limits. Region-specific infectious diseases such as Ebola infections which break out in West African countries from time to time are called endemics, not epidemics.According to the novel, one is given to understand that Bernard Rieux is preoccupied with his wife’s impending trip to a sanitarium and is therefore at first not alarmed by the rats dying on the streets with blood spurting from their muzzles.Doctors are always preoccupied with something or other, yet any doctor spotting a number of rats dying in such a ghastly manner would have issued red alert instantaneously. Rats dying by coughing up blood are strangely viewed by every one concerned as a sanitation issue! This is a preposterous way of telling a story.

Diversity Within The Organization Workforce Diversity...

The term â€Å"diversity† usually refers to individual characteristics such as gender, ethnicity, culture, age but as time has advanced, it is now also known to defer between those of sexual orientation and physical or mental abilities. Through time, not only the notion of diversity has become more broad but it has also been more focused on. Due to its ability to provide benefits such as improved morale, contrasting perceptions and strategies, enhanced teamwork and mutual understanding within the organisation, workforce diversity management has evolved to become an increasingly significant unit of human resource management in organisations. However, through each advantage there are challenges which may range from legal, moral to ethical. By incorporating contrasting personas into a corporation, there are several benefits however the main advantage is the greater and broader viewpoints that are available. â€Å"The variety of experiences and perspective which arise from differences in race, culture, religion, mental or physical abilities, heritage, age, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and other characteristics†. These differing perceptions and interpretations, businesses are able to mimic the hundreds of contrasting clients they may have or want and thus alter their product or service to better fit their clientele. Through Bertone and Leahy’s studies (Bertone, Leahy, 2002), they distinguished that only a small percentage of corporations recognised that employingShow MoreRelatedManaging Diversity Within An Organization1674 Words   |  7 PagesManaging Diversity is often defined as a â€Å"management philosophy of recognising and valuing heterogeneity in organisations with a view to improve organisational performance† (Ozbilgin and Tatli, 2011). Hence recognising the wide variety of qualities possessed by people within an organisation and creating an environment that understands, values and utilises the differences within people. Due to the rapidly growing trends of a more diverse workforce, diverse market and globalisations of businesses,Read MoreWorkforce Diversity1507 Words   |  7 PagesINTRODUCTION Workforce diversity addresses differences among people within an organization. Workforce diversity means that organizations are becoming a more heterogeneous mix of people from different categories. 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