Lot 246

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Description:

WEDDING EDITION OF MEIN KAMPF WITH DEFEATIST INSCRIPTIONS
A most unusual example of Nazi Germany''s most popular book, a wedding edition of "Mein Kampf", by Adolf Hitler (Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP. Frz. Eher Nachf.), 1936, 782pp. 8vo., presented to Heinz Kronen and his bride, identified only by her maiden name "Enge", by the "Burgermeister" of the Rheinhausen district of Duisburg on the occasion of their wedding, March 25, 1937. Although this edition of "Mein Kampf" was presented to bless and honor the newlyweds, by the end of World War II the mystique must have worn off. Kronen adds a lengthy German inscription in blue ink to the half-title page, in part: "Adolf Hitlers ''My Struggle'' found his end on the first of May 1945. Never before have such a leader and his people been betrayed... Hitler forsaken from his closest comrades, the people betrayed and at the edge of the abyss, destroyed by inhuman terror from the air, exterminated in his home, broken from his soul by misery... Quo Vadis Deutschland? The Fuhrer said: ''Give me ten years'' time and you will not recognize Germany again.'' Oh how true this is; Germany is one big graveyard!" Kronen signs vertically along the edge of the page, adding the date May 5, 1945. Kronen further reflects on Hitler''s suicide beneath the dictator''s frontispiece portrait, and on the title page adds the sarcastic notation: "Volume III, ''Germany in the Abyss'': Written by Destiny". Kronen further adds two more inscriptions within the text itself, including on the final page: "Look at Germany in 1945. Shattered and enslaved, left alone by his leadership at the hour of greatest disaster. Sweet words evaporated. German leadership were traitors." The book is housed in its original brown cardboard slipcase, and bears the coat of arms of Rheinhausen on the front cover. Shows bumps to the corners and slight wear overall, else very good. At most other points during the war, such defeatist thoughts were illegal and liable to result in the death penalty or deportation to the concentration camps. By the point that these inscriptions were recorded, however, interest in enforcing these laws had waned.

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April 17, 2018 10:00 AM EDT
Chesapeake City, MD, US

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