What do you think?
Rate this book
Review of Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
Literary Thoughts edition
presents
Review of Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler by George Orwell
------
George Orwell published his critical review of Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler in 1940.
All books of the Literary Thoughts edition have been transscribed from original prints and edited for better reading experience.
Please visit our homepage literarythoughts.com to see our other publications.
presents
Review of Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler by George Orwell
------
George Orwell published his critical review of Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler in 1940.
All books of the Literary Thoughts edition have been transscribed from original prints and edited for better reading experience.
Please visit our homepage literarythoughts.com to see our other publications.
18 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1940
5 people are currently reading
144 people want to read
About the author
George Orwell
1,319 books51.5k followersEric Arthur Blair was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to all totalitarianism (both fascism and stalinism), and support of democratic socialism.
Orwell is best known for his allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945) and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), although his works also encompass literary criticism, poetry, fiction and polemical journalism. His non-fiction works, including The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), documenting his experience of working-class life in the industrial north of England, and Homage to Catalonia (1938), an account of his experiences soldiering for the Republican faction of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), are as critically respected as his essays on politics, literature, language and culture.
Orwell's work remains influential in popular culture and in political culture, and the adjective "Orwellian"—describing totalitarian and authoritarian social practices—is part of the English language, like many of his neologisms, such as "Big Brother", "Thought Police", "Room 101", "Newspeak", "memory hole", "doublethink", and "thoughtcrime". In 2008, The Times named Orwell the second-greatest British writer since 1945.
Orwell is best known for his allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945) and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), although his works also encompass literary criticism, poetry, fiction and polemical journalism. His non-fiction works, including The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), documenting his experience of working-class life in the industrial north of England, and Homage to Catalonia (1938), an account of his experiences soldiering for the Republican faction of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), are as critically respected as his essays on politics, literature, language and culture.
Orwell's work remains influential in popular culture and in political culture, and the adjective "Orwellian"—describing totalitarian and authoritarian social practices—is part of the English language, like many of his neologisms, such as "Big Brother", "Thought Police", "Room 101", "Newspeak", "memory hole", "doublethink", and "thoughtcrime". In 2008, The Times named Orwell the second-greatest British writer since 1945.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
February 27, 2022
Read bc it showed up suggested on my Kindle and I’ve heard it quoted before.
What don’t we understand about Putin? Why aren’t economic sanctions a legitimate deterrent? Well Putin is no Hitler, but it seems we’ve been here before in what the West misunderstands:
“Also he has grasped the falsity of the hedonistic attitude to life. Nearly all western thought since the last war, certainly all "progressive" thought, has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security and avoidance of pain. In such a view of life there is no room, for instance, for patriotism and the military virtues. The Socialist who finds his children playing with soldiers is usually upset, but he is never able to think of a substitute for the tin soldiers; tin pacifists somehow won't do. Hitler, because in his own joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that human beings don't only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags and loyalty-parades. However they may be as economic theories, Fascism and Nazism are psychologically far sounder than any hedonistic conception of life. The same is probably true of Stalin's militarised version of Socialism. All three of the great dictators have enhanced their power by imposing intolerable burdens on their peoples. Whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a more grudging way, have said to people "I offer you a good time," Hitler has said to them "I offer you struggle, danger and death," and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet.”
What don’t we understand about Putin? Why aren’t economic sanctions a legitimate deterrent? Well Putin is no Hitler, but it seems we’ve been here before in what the West misunderstands:
“Also he has grasped the falsity of the hedonistic attitude to life. Nearly all western thought since the last war, certainly all "progressive" thought, has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security and avoidance of pain. In such a view of life there is no room, for instance, for patriotism and the military virtues. The Socialist who finds his children playing with soldiers is usually upset, but he is never able to think of a substitute for the tin soldiers; tin pacifists somehow won't do. Hitler, because in his own joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that human beings don't only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags and loyalty-parades. However they may be as economic theories, Fascism and Nazism are psychologically far sounder than any hedonistic conception of life. The same is probably true of Stalin's militarised version of Socialism. All three of the great dictators have enhanced their power by imposing intolerable burdens on their peoples. Whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a more grudging way, have said to people "I offer you a good time," Hitler has said to them "I offer you struggle, danger and death," and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet.”
Read
February 18, 2026It is not a book, it’s not really a review either, but well worth the 15 minutes it’ll take you to read.
August 6, 2025
“I should like to put it on record that I have never been able to dislike Hitler.”
That should be enough to discredit “George”, but I have more.
“...in 1921, Eric had tried to rape Jacintha. Previously the young couple had kissed, but now, during a late summer walk, he had wanted more. At only five feet to his six feet and four inches, Jacintha had shouted, screamed and kicked before running home with a torn skirt and bruised hip. It was "this" rather than any gradual parting of the ways that explains why Jacintha broke off all contact with her childhood friend, never to learn that he had transformed himself into George Orwell.”
- Kathryn Hughes. (2007). Such were the joys
“ George Orwell's novella remains a set book on school curriculums ... the movie was funded by America's Central Intelligence Agency.
The truth about the CIA's involvement was kept hidden for 20 years until, in 1974, Everette Howard Hunt revealed the story in his book Undercover: Memoirs of an American Secret Agent.”
- Martin Chilton. (2016). How the CIA brought Animal Farm to the screen
“[F]ighting with the loyalists in Spain in the 1930s... he found himself caught up in the sectarian struggles between the various left-wing factions, and since he believed in a gentlemanly English form of socialism, he was inevitably on the losing side.
The communists, who were the best organised, won out and Orwell had to leave Spain... From then on, to the end of his life, he carried on a private literary war with the communists, determined to win in words the battle he had lost in action...
Orwell imagines no new vices, for instance. His characters are all gin hounds and tobacco addicts, and part of the horror of his picture of 1984 is his eloquent description of the low quality of the gin and tobacco.
He foresees no new drugs, no marijuana, no synthetic hallucinogens. No one expects an s.f. writer to be precise and exact in his forecasts, but surely one would expect him to invent some differences. ...if 1984 must be considered science fiction, then it is very bad science fiction. ...
To summarise, then: George Orwell in 1984 was, in my opinion, engaging in a private feud with Stalinism, rather that attempting to forecast the future. He did not have the science fictional knack of foreseeing a plausible future and, in actual fact, in almost all cases, the world of 1984 bears no relation to the real world of the 1980s.”
- Isaac Asimov. Review of 1984
That should be enough to discredit “George”, but I have more.
“...in 1921, Eric had tried to rape Jacintha. Previously the young couple had kissed, but now, during a late summer walk, he had wanted more. At only five feet to his six feet and four inches, Jacintha had shouted, screamed and kicked before running home with a torn skirt and bruised hip. It was "this" rather than any gradual parting of the ways that explains why Jacintha broke off all contact with her childhood friend, never to learn that he had transformed himself into George Orwell.”
- Kathryn Hughes. (2007). Such were the joys
“ George Orwell's novella remains a set book on school curriculums ... the movie was funded by America's Central Intelligence Agency.
The truth about the CIA's involvement was kept hidden for 20 years until, in 1974, Everette Howard Hunt revealed the story in his book Undercover: Memoirs of an American Secret Agent.”
- Martin Chilton. (2016). How the CIA brought Animal Farm to the screen
“[F]ighting with the loyalists in Spain in the 1930s... he found himself caught up in the sectarian struggles between the various left-wing factions, and since he believed in a gentlemanly English form of socialism, he was inevitably on the losing side.
The communists, who were the best organised, won out and Orwell had to leave Spain... From then on, to the end of his life, he carried on a private literary war with the communists, determined to win in words the battle he had lost in action...
Orwell imagines no new vices, for instance. His characters are all gin hounds and tobacco addicts, and part of the horror of his picture of 1984 is his eloquent description of the low quality of the gin and tobacco.
He foresees no new drugs, no marijuana, no synthetic hallucinogens. No one expects an s.f. writer to be precise and exact in his forecasts, but surely one would expect him to invent some differences. ...if 1984 must be considered science fiction, then it is very bad science fiction. ...
To summarise, then: George Orwell in 1984 was, in my opinion, engaging in a private feud with Stalinism, rather that attempting to forecast the future. He did not have the science fictional knack of foreseeing a plausible future and, in actual fact, in almost all cases, the world of 1984 bears no relation to the real world of the 1980s.”
- Isaac Asimov. Review of 1984
April 18, 2022
This drew my attention as one of the few things Orwell ever wrote on fascism. His 1944 article "What is Fascism", resolved that it had become a term you called people who disagreed with you and was best used as a synonym for "bully". Even 1984 was directed at totalitarianism in general despite Orwell fighting against Franco in the Spanish Civil War.
So to find a book review of Mein Kampf written at the very start of the war was intriguing. As always, his understanding of people and of totalitarianism provided a very unique insight. Including a showpiece of English understatement, "Then suddenly it turned out that Hitler was not respectable after all. "
There are two things that gripped me about this book review, both are things that no one has really discussed in my lifetime. First, people need more than ease and the avoidance of pain. Orwell points out that Hitler promised pain, suffering and death and the entire nation threw itself at his feet.
This continues to gnaw at my mind today. As I write this Australia is in an election and both major parties are trying very hard to bribe us with our own money. Both are also faced with such low primary votes that it is speculated neither will be able to form power by itself. We still have yet to learn the lessons of history. People will dedicate themselves to a national goal that they believe is worth achieving.
The second point is that in 1940 Orwell still could not bring himself to dislike the guy. Before he started on the Nazi "European tour" Orwell, like many others, had found him to be totally irrelevant, underlining even further just how prescient Churchill was to be warning against him. However, Hitler had very expertly painted himself as a man suffering under the burden of great wrongs, a martyr destined to lose his battle.
This calls into question one of the least spoken about failings of Orwell, his marked antipathy towards Jews. Something Christopher Hitchens spoke of as a passing phase. That may or may not have been an issue, but it warrants further investigation.
Regardless, this book review is a brilliant time capsule for opinions and thoughts of the time and the always unique views of George Orwell.
So to find a book review of Mein Kampf written at the very start of the war was intriguing. As always, his understanding of people and of totalitarianism provided a very unique insight. Including a showpiece of English understatement, "Then suddenly it turned out that Hitler was not respectable after all. "
There are two things that gripped me about this book review, both are things that no one has really discussed in my lifetime. First, people need more than ease and the avoidance of pain. Orwell points out that Hitler promised pain, suffering and death and the entire nation threw itself at his feet.
This continues to gnaw at my mind today. As I write this Australia is in an election and both major parties are trying very hard to bribe us with our own money. Both are also faced with such low primary votes that it is speculated neither will be able to form power by itself. We still have yet to learn the lessons of history. People will dedicate themselves to a national goal that they believe is worth achieving.
The second point is that in 1940 Orwell still could not bring himself to dislike the guy. Before he started on the Nazi "European tour" Orwell, like many others, had found him to be totally irrelevant, underlining even further just how prescient Churchill was to be warning against him. However, Hitler had very expertly painted himself as a man suffering under the burden of great wrongs, a martyr destined to lose his battle.
This calls into question one of the least spoken about failings of Orwell, his marked antipathy towards Jews. Something Christopher Hitchens spoke of as a passing phase. That may or may not have been an issue, but it warrants further investigation.
Regardless, this book review is a brilliant time capsule for opinions and thoughts of the time and the always unique views of George Orwell.
July 27, 2024
Orwell reviews "Mein Kampf" in The New English Weekly, March 21, 194, by saying:
"Also he has grasped the falsity of the hedonistic attitude to life. Nearly all western thought since the last war, certainly all ‘progressive’ thought, has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security and avoidance of pain. In such a view of life there is no room, for instance, for patriotism and the military virtues. The Socialist who finds his children playing with soldiers is usually upset, but he is never able to think of a substitute for the tin soldiers; tin pacifists somehow won’t do. Hitler, because in his own joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that human beings don’tonly want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags and loyalty-parades. However they may be as economic theories, Fascism and Nazism are psychologically far sounder than any hedonistic conception of life. The same is probably true of Stalin’s militarised version of Socialism. All three of the great dictators have enhanced their power by imposing intolerable burdens on their peoples. Whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a more grudging way, have said to people ‘I offer you a good time,’ Hitler has said to them ‘I offer you struggle, danger and death,’ and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet. Perhaps later on they will get sick of it and change their minds, as at the end of the last war. After a few years of slaughter and starvation ‘Greatest happiness of the greatest number’ is a good slogan, but at this moment ‘Better an end with horror than a horror without end’ is a winner. Now that we are fighting against the man who coined it, we ought not to underrate its emotional appeal.”
"Also he has grasped the falsity of the hedonistic attitude to life. Nearly all western thought since the last war, certainly all ‘progressive’ thought, has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security and avoidance of pain. In such a view of life there is no room, for instance, for patriotism and the military virtues. The Socialist who finds his children playing with soldiers is usually upset, but he is never able to think of a substitute for the tin soldiers; tin pacifists somehow won’t do. Hitler, because in his own joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that human beings don’tonly want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags and loyalty-parades. However they may be as economic theories, Fascism and Nazism are psychologically far sounder than any hedonistic conception of life. The same is probably true of Stalin’s militarised version of Socialism. All three of the great dictators have enhanced their power by imposing intolerable burdens on their peoples. Whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a more grudging way, have said to people ‘I offer you a good time,’ Hitler has said to them ‘I offer you struggle, danger and death,’ and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet. Perhaps later on they will get sick of it and change their minds, as at the end of the last war. After a few years of slaughter and starvation ‘Greatest happiness of the greatest number’ is a good slogan, but at this moment ‘Better an end with horror than a horror without end’ is a winner. Now that we are fighting against the man who coined it, we ought not to underrate its emotional appeal.”
February 6, 2026
I don’t feel like I understand what’s in Mein Kampf (but maybe that’s for the best). Orwell writes a few scathing lines on the rigidity of Hitler’s mind and the horrible brainless empire he envisioned. Orwell hasn’t written a book review so much as he’s written a personal review of Hitler and what he knows about him publicly at that point in history.
Orwell’s book review is worth reading because he surfaces the particular cult of personality of the underdog illusion which appears to give rise to demagogues (particularly relevant in America 2016-present).
I wish he’d gone into more detail about the brief points he brings up about boredom from a hedonistic life and a lack of greater meaning, and I wish he’d explored on a deeper level why this emotional appeal to the underdog delusion exists.
But I guess it’s a start at confronting two big reasons. If we take time to examine those reasons more fully and deal with them, maybe at some point humanity will reach a historical point where they’ll say no to evil dictators.
Orwell’s book review is worth reading because he surfaces the particular cult of personality of the underdog illusion which appears to give rise to demagogues (particularly relevant in America 2016-present).
I wish he’d gone into more detail about the brief points he brings up about boredom from a hedonistic life and a lack of greater meaning, and I wish he’d explored on a deeper level why this emotional appeal to the underdog delusion exists.
But I guess it’s a start at confronting two big reasons. If we take time to examine those reasons more fully and deal with them, maybe at some point humanity will reach a historical point where they’ll say no to evil dictators.
May 5, 2025
"Whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a more grudging way, have said to people ‘I offer you a good time,’ Hitler has said to them ‘I offer you struggle, danger and death,’ and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet. Perhaps later on they will get sick of it and change their minds, as at the end of the last war. After a few years of slaughter and starvation ‘Greatest happiness of the greatest number’ is a good slogan, but at this moment ‘Better an end with horror than a horror without end’ is a winner."
One of the few people in England at the time to have understood the man. Orwell, brilliant as always
One of the few people in England at the time to have understood the man. Orwell, brilliant as always
Want to read
June 17, 2019This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 9, 2024
¿Como un ensayo tan corto a principios de la segunda guerra mundial pudo dilucidar el final de esta y la podrida composición del Reich de forma tan precisa?Solo Orwell lo sabe
January 31, 2026
does this count as a book? read it on a daily panic walk around campus and found it’s actually kinda based
February 23, 2026
When one compares his utterances of a year or so ago with those made fifteen years earlier, a thing that strikes one is the rigidity of his mind, the way in which his world-view doesn’t develop. It is the fixed vision of a monomaniac and not likely to be much affected by the temporary manoeuvres of power politics. Probably, in Hitler’s own mind, the Russo-German Pact represents no more than an alteration of time-table. The plan laid down in Mein Kampf was to smash Russia first, with the implied intention of smashing England afterwards. Now, as it has turned out, England has got to be dealt with first, because Russia was the more easily bribed of the two. But Russia’s turn will come when England is out of the picture—that, no doubt, is how Hitler sees it. Whether it will turn out that way is of course a different question.
January 24, 2024
“[Hitler] has grasped the falsity of the hedonistic attitude to life. Nearly all western thought since the last war, certainly all ‘progressive’ thought, has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security, and avoidance of pain. In such a view of life there is no room, for instance, for patriotism and the military virtues. The Socialist who finds his children playing with soldiers is usually upset, but he is never able to think of a substitute for the tin soldiers; tin pacifists somehow won’t do. Hitler, because in his own joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that human beings don’t only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags and loyalty-parades. However they may be as economic theories, Fascism and Nazism are psychologically far sounder than any hedonistic conception of life. The same is probably true of Stalin’s militarised version of Socialism. All three of the great dictators have enhanced their power by imposing intolerable burdens on their peoples. Whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a more grudging way, have said to people ‘I offer you a good time,’ Hitler has said to them ‘I offer you struggle, danger and death,’ and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet. Perhaps later on they will get sick of it and change their minds, as at the end of the last war. After a few years of slaughter and starvation ‘Greatest happiness of the greatest number’ is a good slogan, but at this moment ‘Better an end with horror than a horror without end’ is a winner. Now that we are fighting against the man who coined it, we ought not to underrate its emotional appeal.”
March 1940
(c.f. George Steiner, In Bluebeard’s Castle)
March 1940
(c.f. George Steiner, In Bluebeard’s Castle)
July 22, 2024
George Orwell's review of Hitler's Mein Kampf. A one page review given in March 1940 before the atrocities of World War II were known to the west.
Orwell sees the appeal in Nazism as a motivating force for Germans, but he also sees that Hitler is a menace that must be stopped and Germans will eventually tire of him.
Orwell sees the appeal in Nazism as a motivating force for Germans, but he also sees that Hitler is a menace that must be stopped and Germans will eventually tire of him.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews