Through aggressive marketing the publisher pressured the public, German institutions, and Nazi organizations to purchase copies. That year alone more than 850,000 copies were sold. By late 1932, almost 230,000 copies had been sold.įollowing Hitler's appointment as German chancellor on January 30, 1933, Mein Kampf's popularity soared and made the author a multi-millionaire. Sales of Mein Kampf increased accordingly. In 1930, they captured 107 seats, and in summer 1932, 230 seats, becoming the largest political party represented there. In 1928, the Nazis held only 12 seats in the German parliament ( Reichstag) out of almost 500. This quickly changed in 1930, when the Nazi Party made huge gains in the parliamentary elections. The first edition of 10,000 copies largely sold out and a second edition was published, but sales quickly slackened thereafter. Mein Kampf was not an immediate best seller. The Rise of the Nazi Party, Mein Kampf, and Propaganda The text was not discovered until 1958 when the typed manuscript was discovered in the US National Archives among the millions of pages of documents seized by the United States after the end of World War II. In the summer of 1928, Hitler wrote a second book in which he further outlined his foreign policy views, but it was never published. The second volume appeared the following year. In 1925, the Nazi Party's publishing house (Franz Eher Verlag) issued the first volume. A Reckoning), but ultimately it was shortened to Mein Kampf. Eine Abrechnung (4 ½ Years of Struggle against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice. He originally titled the book 4 ½ Jahre Kampf gegen Lüge, Dummheit und Feigheit. With his political career at an all-time low, he hoped that publishing the book would earn him some money and serve as a propaganda platform to air his radical views and attack those whom he accused of betraying him and Germany. The court sentenced him to five years imprisonment, of which he served less than 9 months.

Largely unknown before this event, he gained immediate notoriety in the German and international press. Although his coup failed, Hitler used his trial as a pulpit to spread Nazi propaganda. Hitler began writing Mein Kampf in 1924 in Landsberg prison, following his conviction for high treason for attempting to overthrow the German republic in November 1923 in the so-called Beer Hall Putsch. When and Why Did Hitler Write Mein Kampf? Mein Kampf (which means 'My Struggle') promoted the key components of Nazism: rabid antisemitism, a racist world view, and an aggressive foreign policy geared to gaining Lebensraum (living space) in eastern Europe. What is Mein Kampf and What Does It mean?Īdolf Hitler's Mein Kampf was part autobiography and part political treatise.

Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler