Mein Kampf

Adolf Hitler dictated the bulk of this two-volume work to Rudolf Hess while incarcerated at Landsberg Prison following the failed Beer Hall Putsch in November 1923. The first volume hit shelves on July 18, 1925, with the second arriving in December 1926 under the title Die nationalsozialistische Bewegung. Hitler viewed his nine-month sentence as a strategic pause to generate income for legal debts and articulate his worldview rather than a mere punishment.

The text blends autobiographical narrative with radical political theory, detailing Hitler's childhood in Austria-Hungary, his time as a vagrant in Vienna, and his service in World War I. He attributes his deep-seated antisemitism and hatred of Marxism to his experiences in Vienna before describing his entry into politics and the putsch attempt. Volume two shifts entirely to strategy, outlining the structure of the Nazi party, the necessity of racial purity, and the doctrine of Lebensraum which called for expanding German territory eastward.

Sales remained modest during the Weimar Republic with roughly 240,000 copies sold by 1933. Once Hitler became Chancellor, the regime distributed millions of copies and mandated it as required reading in schools. After World War II, the Bavarian state government took copyright ownership and banned new editions to prevent propaganda spread until 2015. That year, the Institute of Contemporary History released a critical annotated edition that expanded the text to nearly 2,000 pages with over 3,500 footnotes debunking historical claims. [edit]