Mein Kampf becomes bestseller in Turkey

"Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' sells 50,000 copies in Turkey in three months," from AFP, with thanks to all who sent this in:

ANKARA: Cheap cover prices and a rise in nationalist sentiment have made an unlikely best-seller in Turkey of Adolf Hitler's infamous autobiography, "Mein Kampf."...
But since January, the book has sold more than 50,000 copies and is number four on the best-seller list drawn up by the D&R bookstore chain.

"'Mein Kampf' has always been a sleeper, a secret best-seller," said Oguz Tektas of Mefisto editions, one of several publishing houses to re-release the book Hitler wrote while in jail in 1925. "We took it out of the closet for purely commercial reasons." His company's sole aim, he stressed, was "to make money," which they did by slashing the cover price.

"Mein Kampf," published by about a dozen companies over the years, always sold at a fairly steady annual rate of about 20,000 copies at some 20 New Turkish Lira ($15) a copy.

The Mefisto edition retails at YTL5.90 and sold 23,000 copies in two months....

"The times we live in have a definite impact on sales," Kilic said. "It is an astonishing phenomenon."

TigerHawk again has some dead-on observations (with links in the original):

Not surprisingly, The Jerusalem Post is more willing to see a trend than the Daily Star:
Filiba said the sales were part of a "worrying trend" with anti-Semitic publications - such as the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," a 19th-century anti-Semitic tract - on sale even in bustling department stores.

Fifty thousand copies sold in less than three months is a huge sales figure for Turkey, equivalent to 250,000 copies in the United States. I could not find U.S. sales figures, but I found one source that said that American sales averaged 15,000 copies per year.

History does not progress in a straight line. Racist fascism has tremendous appeal to the world's dark hearts, and it will emerge in some quarters whenever there is social distress and conflict, as there is today in Turkey. No such platitude should let us forget, though, that Islam and Nazism have close historical ties that could re-emerge at any time.

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14 Comments

Hugh | March 19, 2005 8:42 AM

"We took it out of the closet for purely commercial reasons." His company's sole aim, he [Oguz Tektas] stressed, was "to make money," which they did by slashing the cover price.

"Mefisto Editions" -- aptly named.

Mig | March 19, 2005 9:22 AM

I'm not at all surprised by this, given the common hatred of Jews that Muslims share with Nazis, but I continue to be amazed at what the mainstream press will ignore. And Turkey is touted as a model Islamic state by the loggerheads in our own State Department.

There's a bit of irony here too. In the years leading up to WW II, academics, intellectual elites, the left, and much of the media around the world were either ignorant or willingly ignored the truth about the Nazis. They are doing it again today with Islam.

Imagine how many copies of "Mein Kamp" would sell in the Islamic world if most Muslims could actually read.

Elephant | March 19, 2005 10:29 AM

Mein Kampf is one of the bestselling books in Arab countries such as Egypt.

In his book Hitler only mentions one place outside the German-speaking world, that is Mecca.

Geoff | March 19, 2005 11:31 AM

Hardly surprising. As pointed out above, Mein Kampf has done a brisk trade at all times in muslim nations. In the West, of course, it's also read, in the spirit of "Know your enemy". In other nations the spirit is more "Know thyself".

Geoff

Suzan | March 19, 2005 12:30 PM

Why wouldn't they like Mein Kampf? It resembles their own holy hate manual so closely! Probably makes 'em feel right at home.

cubed | March 19, 2005 12:33 PM

I'm not at all surprised by this, given the common hatred of Jews that Muslims share with Nazis, but I continue to be amazed at what the mainstream press will ignore.

Posted by: Mig at March 19, 2005 09:22 AM

Mig, you must not be surprised at the mainstream press. They are the children of a nihilist ("deconstructionist") philosophy, commonly known as Postmodernism. As such, they share with Islam the goal of destroying the West, and particularly the U.S.

This crap was imported from Germany by good American boys who studied in Germany between the mid-1800s and the early 1900s. Germany had long been heavily influenced by nihilism, primarily under the leadership of Kant, Hegel, Marx, and Engel. Nihilistic ideas gave birth to Communism, Fascism, Nazism and the current crop of Liberals in the U.S., along with their PC, multiculturalism, and "diversity."

The reason they were able to exert such great influence in our country was because these young men were so often from prominent families with great connections in high places. When they came back to the U.S., all "re-educated," they took positions in publishing, in politics, and in education.

The rest is history. It's no accident that so much of the "mainstream press" holds the views it does.

Islam, of course, is probably the most nihilistic philosophy around; its history branched off from the common philosophic ancestor of Islam and Liberals (that would be Plato) long before Kant and Co.'s crew went to work, but the end result is the same.

That end result is to try to destroy the Enlightenment thinking that gave us the U.S. Constitution, the most productive economy the world has ever seen, the end of slavery for the first time in human history, and incredible progress in all areas of knowledge.

All I have to say to our own home-grown nihilists is, "Be careful what you wish for; you might get it."

Of course, they won't listen.

Elephant | March 19, 2005 1:42 PM

Heinrich Himmler called Islam the 'perfect religion for war'.

RED | March 19, 2005 1:46 PM

Mein Kampf is the perfect companion book for the Quran.Full of hate.

cubed | March 19, 2005 2:56 PM

P.S.

"Mein Kamph" and the Koran were born of the same mother.

BigSleep | March 19, 2005 11:57 PM

"Jihad" can be translated as "struggle".

So the parallel is chillingly exact. Mohammad's personal call for Muslims to wage jihad would literally be: "My Struggle" or, in German: "Mein Kampf".

COMPARE:

Megalomaniacal warlord in 615 A.D. writes creed.

Megalomaniacal warlord in 1925 A.D. writes screed.

Contempt for all non-Muslims.

Contempt for all non-'Aryan'.

Global war begun.

Global war attempted.

The only crucial difference is that Hitler failed
by not being cunning and dogged enough.

Mohammad was not so impatient.

Nazi-ism is thereby relegated to random nutjobs in the boondocks playing with swastikas.

While Islam is on the march, globally, using the 'tolerance' subterfuge, various
Mafia-like 'protection racket' schemes, 'immigration' infiltration and high birthrates to perform a slow-motion invasion.

Despotism, without the panzer tanks and stukas, but with a Vengeful Deity, which is a far more deadly weapon, since it rots the mind to the point where it will even risk annihilating the world for its 'holy' ends- with the promise of a nihilistic Paradise to prod the gullible, power-mad, hateful and fatally naive.

Hitler was a mere man.

Mohammad was "God's prophet".

Making him (and his creed) a billion times more dangerous than quaint old National Socialism. The bloodthirsty philosophy is interchangeable, but when it is backed-up by a "God", you can't defeat it on any battlefield except that of the intellect.

And belief in Islam undermines the native human intelligence enough to make that prospect terribly daunting.

A struggle for the soul. And the heart.

Geoff | March 20, 2005 2:24 AM

Not so; some Turkish guides to the Gallipoli battlefield have been telling tourists that Allah made a "greenish mist" that swallowed ANZAC(Aussie, New Zealander) soldiers during WWI.

Of course, what they don't mention is that the Turks were bayoneted to death rather easily and that the ANZACs won the day handily. So, effectively, Western troops took on and beat Allah.

I guess he wasn't that tough after all.

Geoff

chevalier de st george | March 20, 2005 3:53 AM

It is the elitism of nazi philosophy which has so much in Common with Islam.
Whereas the nazis saw the aryans as the master race to whom all inferior races would bow to in quasi slavery, Islam has exactly the same philosophy towards non muslims and even a hierarchy amongst muslims im which arabs are at the top.
The hatred of Jews is also a common factor but one must remember that antisemetism is not the exclusive domain of Muslims and Nazis!
Nazism also had its roots firmly in SOCIALISM as "Mein Kampf " illustrates and it is ridiculous that it is regarded as extreme right ideology.It was a antionalistic socialist ideology.
The racism was drawn from many sources, including the legends of the teutotic gods, richard wagner, and the left wing socialist American researhes into eugenics, the "science of producing a "better race".
Hitler hijacked an elected government and turned it into a fascist tyranny. He destroyed European democracy. His minions persecuted Christians, murdered over six million Jews, and created an entire fascistic creed predicated on anti-Semitism and the myth of a superior Aryan race.
Typing Hitler+Bush on google yields over ONE MILLION MATCHES !
The stars of our modern culture know nothing of the evils of hitler's leadership " the execution of the intellectually didabled, the forced castration and sterilsiations of those deemed to be of inferior race. The starvation and execution of the "inferior " soviet POWs.
So0 like Prince harry they wear their ignorance on their sleeves and others follow like sheep!
Al gore calls internet Bush supporters "digital Brownshirts" showing to all (I hope) his total ignorance of who they actually were.Or perhaps he does not give a damn who they were!
every day this president who brings democracy to the middle east, is Slandered a thousand times by so called "celebrities" and compared to Hitler.
These pop celebs are the product of our instant culture created by a society that demands icons rather than in depth knowledge.
from George Soros to Sean Penn we are besieged by shallow idiotarians who if they had depth would hang their heads in shame!

smokem | March 20, 2005 4:42 AM

Mein Kampf records only one reference to "Mohammedanism," in reference to the cult's conversion successes in Africa, vs Christian evangelicals. As for liberation of colonized peoples, Hitler had this to say about colonized freedom fighters, "How hard it is to best England, we Germans have sufficiently learned. Quite aside from the fact that I, a man of Germanic blood, would in spite of everything, rather see India under English rule than under any other. Just as lamentable are the hopes in any mythical uprising in Egypt. The "jihad" can give our German Schafkopf players the pleasant thrill of thinking that now perhaps others are ready to shed their blood for us..."

Geoff | March 20, 2005 12:58 PM

Actually, another small note about Mein Kampf being a bestseller for Muslims in the Middle East (and the West, possibly): the viciously antisemitic tract the "Protocols of Zion" also does EXCEEDINGLY well in the Middle East. Every muslim I've debated online has heard of it, and it seems to be by rough estimate that probably 40% of them believe in it outright, with another 40-50% considering it to be 'probably' a forgery, but not incorrect - the usual comment appears to be "well, it wasn't real, but look how the Jews of today are following it". So, almost all muslims in my contact know about it and accept it's precepts of hate for the Jews and the existence of this mythical ZOG/Zion. Not terribly different from Naziism, is all I can say, really. There is also, interestingly, some peripheral commentary as I recall, saying instead that - ahem - 'lizards' are the ones behind this ZOG, the World Bank, and so forth. 'Lizards.' Now, given the reference to the same organism in the hadiths and the Quran, I wonder who that might be referring to.

ROP (Religion of Peace)?

ROPMA (Religion of Peace My Ass)

Geoff

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