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"Hitler's Mein Kampf: Prelude to the Holocaust"
Conference at Boston College, April 25-26, 2019

Places are going fast as people from around the world register for this exciting conference that deepens our insight into the meaning of Hitler, anti-Semitism, the Holocaust and genocide. There is still time to attend and to participate in this groundbreaking event. Through the generosity of Boston College, fees have been waived.

To hold a place, send an email to Prof. John J. Michalczyk at michalcj@bc.edu with the message, "I would like to register to attend the Conference." Space is limited. Please respond immediately.

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN THE PAGE FOR THE CONFERENCE PROGRAM.

HITLER'S "RACISM"

Hitler's "racism" has been misunderstood. We are not dealing with a simplistic "biological" conception. Rather, a close reading of Mein Kampf reveals a philosophical, even metaphysical way of thinking. Hitler's idea begins with his fantasy of the German nation as an actual body, and Jews as parasitical organisms that invade national bodies.

Hitler claims that the Jew is a "parasite in the body of peoples." The Jew's spreading, he says, is a "typical phenomenon for all parasites;" he always seeks a "new feeding ground for his race." The Jew is the "typical parasite," a sponger who like a "noxious bacillus" keeps spreading "as long as a favorable medium invites him." The effect of the Jew's existence is that—wherever he appears—"the host people dies out."

Hitler's conception of the Jew was that of an organism that posed a threat to all nations. In Hitler's mind, however, it was Germany in particular that was in danger of "succumbing" to this threat. Hitler perceived "forces of decay" that in "truly terrifying numbers" began to "brush up and down the body politic, eating like poisonous abscesses into the nation." It seemed to Hitler as though a continuous "stream of poison was being driven into the outermost blood vessels of this once heroic body," inducing "progressively greater paralysis of sound reason and the instinct of self-preservation."

In these few passages from Mein Kampf, we discern the foundational idea that was the source of the Holocaust: the Jew was conceived by Hitler as a dangerous, parasitic organism that had invaded the body of the German nation, and was working toward its destruction. Unless checked, this parasite would cause the death of Germany. The Holocaust represented a "struggle" (Mein Kampf) to destroy Jewish parasites, lest they multiply and divide—and lead to the death of Germany.

It is evident to us that Hitler's conception is a fantasy. Germany was not a body, and Jews were not organisms who had invaded this body. Nevertheless, this fantasy led to the Holocaust. So the central question is the meaning of this fantasy, and why it seems to had "made sense" to so many people.

Hitler visualizes the impact of the Jew upon Germany during the period of 1919-1923. He states that the Jewish poison was able to "penetrate the blood stream of our people and to do its work." The state did not "possess the power to master the disease." In the laughable half-measures used against the poison, the "menacing decay" of the Reich was manifest.

The core of Hitler's "racism" was his fantasy that the German people were suffering as a result of being "contaminate" by Jewish blood. This poisonous contamination could be eliminated from the national body "only after centuries, or perhaps never." Racial decomposition was "debasing, in some cases even destroying," the "fundamental Aryan characteristics of our blood."

Hitler's fantasy articulated in Mein Kampf revolved around the "pestilential adulteration of German blood" by Jews. The idea was that Jewish organisms had entered into the bloodstream of the German nation, causing an infection.

The impact of the Jew, according to Hitler's Mein Kampf, was the effect that the Jewish people had upon the German character. The "pestilential adulteration" of the blood "systematically practiced by the Jew" was like a "drop of poison" that led to "spinelessness," burdening every future decision, become a "terrible lead weight," dragging the nation down into the "existence of a slave race."

The poison within the German blood stream led to a "lack of will power," preventing decisive action wherever risk had to be taken. Germany was like a "patient suffering from cancer who knows that death is certain if he does not undergo an operation." Given Germany's state of being, such a patient needs "no 51% probability of cure" before facing the operation. Rather, if the operation promised only half of one percent probability of success, a man of courage would risk it.


Hitler's Mein Kampf: Prelude to the Holocaust
Conference at Boston College, April 25-26, 2019; FREE REGISTRATION
Organized by Prof. John J. Michalczyk, Prof. Susan A. Michalczyk, and Prof. Michael S. Bryant
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN THE PAGE FOR CONFERENCE DESCRIPTION AND SCHEDULE

Free Registration

The conference organizers are offering a limited number of free registrations to attend this important meeting at BOSTON COLLEGE. Reservations have been coming in quickly—and the auditorium has a capacity of only 200. PLEASE REGISTER NOW. To reserve a place, send an email to Prof. John J. Michalczyk at michalcj@bc.edu with the message, "I would like to attend the Mein Kampf Conference." Space is limited. Please register immediately.

Co-Organizers of the Conference

John J. Michalczyk, Professor and Director of Film Studies at Boston College, an author and prolific filmmaker. Professor Susan A. Michalczyk, Film co-Producer with John for Etoile Productions and scripter for their Berlin Wall Film. Professor Michael S. Bryant, Professor of History and Social Science at Bryant University, have organized a groundbreaking conference. Co-sponsors of this exciting event include Boston College and Bryant University.
Conference Program
Thursday, April 25, 2019
7:00 p.m. Opening Session

Michael Bryant: "Mein Kampf and Early Steps Toward Genocide"

Karla Schoenbeck: "Focus Landsberg: A Bavarian Town and Its History Tied to Hitler"

Wolfgang Hauck: Exhibit—From Vilnius to Landsberg
Friday, April 26, 2019
8:30 a.m. Welcome & Opening Remarks
Consul General
9:00 a.m. Keynote Address

Magnus Brechtken: "Mein Kampf: The Critical Edition in Historical Perspective"

Othmar Plockinger: "Mein Kampf: Part of the Right-wing German Post-war Literature.

David Crowe: "Mein Kampf and the Evolution of the Nazi Concept of Jewish Bolshevism"

Melanie Murphy: "Marxism: Enemy of the People"

Richard A. Koenigsberg: "Hitler as the Robert Koch of Germany"
12:00 p.m. Lunch
1:00 p.m. Session I

Martin Menke: "Traces of Catholicism in Mein Kampf"

James Bernauer, SJ: "Jesuits, Jews and Holocaust Remembrance"

Nathan Stoltzfus: "Political Violence in Mein Kampf: Hitler's Tactics for Gaining and Exercising Power"
3:00 p.m. Session II

Ralf Gawlick: "Art and Its Perversion"

Paul Bookbinder: "The Nature of 'The People/Volk' and Qualities of a Leader to Help Create the Holocaust."

Tetyana Kloubert: "Holocaust Education and (Early) Signs of the Erosion of Democracy"
4:45 p.m. Candle Lighting Ceremony for Yom HaShoah
The conference organizers are offering a limited number of free registrations to attend this important meeting at BOSTON COLLEGE. Reservations have been coming in quickly—and the auditorium has a capacity of only 200. PLEASE REGISTER NOW. To reserve a place, send an email to Prof. John J. Michalczyk at michalcj@bc.edu with the message, "I would like to attend the Mein Kampf Conference." Space is limited. Please register immediately.