Conference at Boston College, April 25-26, 2019: "Hitler's Mein Kampf: Prelude to the Holocaust." (Please forward to a Colleague or Student). Prominent scholars from Germany & around the world gather on April 25 deliberating the question of how Hitler's MEIN KAMPF set the stage for the Holocaust. A few places are left to participate in this groundbreaking meeting that deepens our understanding of anti-Semitism, the Holocaust and World War II. Through the generosity of Boston College, fees have been waived. To hold a place, simply send an email to Prof. John J. Michalczyk at michalcj@bc.edu with the message, "I would like to register to for the Conference." Space is limited. Please respond immediately
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Abstract: Hitler claimed that Jews were unable to devote themselves to a nation. Jews were condemned—not for their physical defects—but for their way of being in the world. Jews symbolized the inability—or refusal—to attach and devote themselves to a national community. In forty years of research, I never heard either Hitler, Himmler or Goebbels say a single word about the "look" or physical characteristics of Jews. They hated Jews because of what they perceived as a characterological defect, which acted to spoil the purity of the national community. The Jewish tendency toward selfish individualism--seemed to mock the Aryan tendency toward devotion and self-sacrifice. It was “beside the point,” Hitler said, whether particular Jew was “decent” or not. It wasn’t a question of this or that Jew—because the Jew “carried within himself those characteristics which nature has given him.”

Hitler theorized that civilization was based on self-sacrifice: the capacity of human beings to abandon individualism and the pursuit of self-interest in the name of the larger community. The Aryan was the culture bearer par excellence. What was most strongly developed in the Aryan, Hitler said, was the self-sacrificing will to “give one’s personal labor and if necessary one’s own life for others.” He willingly "subordinates his own ego to the life of the community.”

The Jew by contrast, Hitler claimed, represented the “mightiest counterpart to the Aryan.” Whereas the Aryan willingly sacrificed himself for the community, in the Jewish people the will to self-sacrifice did not go beyond the individual’s “naked instinct of self-preservation.” The Jew completely lacked the most essential requirement of a cultured people: the “idealistic attitude.”

The following judgment by the Cologne Labor Court (January 21, 1941) denied the claim of Jewish employees to a vacation (Noakes & Pridham, 2001):

The precondition for the claim to a vacation—membership of the plant community—does not exist. A Jew cannot be a member of the plant community on account of his whole racial tendency, which is geared to forwarding his personal interests and securing economic advantages.

According to this judgment, Jews could not be members of the plant community on account of their racial tendency toward “forwarding personal interests and securing economic advantages.” This proclivity toward selfish individualism was biologically given.

Hitler claimed that Jews were unable to devote themselves to a nation. The Jews were condemned—not for their physical defects—but for their way of being in the world. Jews symbolized the inability—or refusal—to attach and devote themselves to a national community.

In forty years of research, I never heard either Hitler, Himmler or Goebbels say a single word about the "look" or physical characteristics of Jews. They hated Jews because of what they perceived as a characterological defect, a defect that spoiled the purity of the national community. The Jewish tendency toward selfish individualism seemed to mock the Aryran tendency toward devotion and self-sacrifice. 

Hitler called Jews the “demon of disintegration” of peoples, symbol of the “unceasing destruction” of their life. Jews were a “ferment of decomposition,” meaning that the Jew “destroys and must destroy.” Jews could not help themselves. According to Hitler, Jews were driven to destroy nations.

It was therefore “beside the point,” Hitler said, whether or not any particular Jew was “decent” or not. It wasn’t a question of this or that Jew—because the Jew “carried within himself those characteristics which nature has given him.” The characteristic of Jews was to seek self-interest and economic advantage at the expense of the community. This Jewish trait, Hitler believed, was biologically given.

Nazi scholarship declared (Aronsfeld, 1985) that the peculiar characteristic of Judaism was its “hostility to human society,” which is why there could be “no solution to the Jewish question.” A true understanding of Jews and Judaism “insists on their total annihilation.”

Jewish hostility toward society was expressed as selfish individualism: the refusal to abandon egoism in order to fuse with a national community. By their very nature, Jews acted to disintegrate nations. In seeking to annihilate Jews, the Nazis sought to annihilate individualism, that is, the will to abandon the nation-state.