I Finally Finished CJ Miller’s “In His Own Words: The Essential Speeches of Adolf Hitler”

And it’s great.

This saga took quite some time, didn’t it? My first piece was written on May 19th of this year. My last piece was on July 23rd. Now, over two months later I have finally finished the book. And yet, despite taking so long to finish, I’m saying it’s excellent, bordering on a must read. How do we reconcile these two seemingly contradictory facts?

It’s not particularly complicated. I’m a very fast reader, but writing is a time consuming process. Additionally the book was far too quotable. There were many parts of the chapters I’ve already written about where I wanted to quote the book in full, especially the parts written by CJ Miller which provide context. I don’t always have anything to add, especially since Miller is obviously far more familiar with the material than I.

I kept having an issue where I would cheat and read a chapter ahead, and then another. Then I would get somewhat annoyed, as I would forget the mental notes I had made by the time I circled back to actually write about the previous chapter. And I felt compelled to write about each chapter, since the book has very little fat on it, and everything is important. I guess that’s the problem with doing a review of curated works.

Nevertheless, I set my mind to finishing the book over this weekend trip that I embarked upon. I’ll have more on the trip on Friday, but my plan was to read the book on the flight over. 

On the flight there I decided perhaps it was not the best idea to break out my Hitler book midflight. But then I decided not to be such a wuss and I cracked it out on the return trip, almost finishing it. Coming down with the Waifu Flu gave me the opportunity to curl up and knock out the last thirty pages or so after I had landed. Having read the entire thing, I have some more overarching thoughts.

My only real complaint is that there simply isn’t enough of it. The book hits its absolute high point with the chapter on the Knight of the Long Knives, with Miller’s commentary and Hitler’s speech being equally gripping. I actually read the entire chapter over, and that chapter more than any other made me wish I had the time to write a screenplay documenting the rise of the rise and fall of the NSDAP. It truly is the greatest story never told.

But then we entirely skip over the burning of the Reichstag. It’s difficult to think of what to sacrifice, but I find it hard to believe that there were no interesting speeches from Hitler on this subject. It’s a classic slander of the NSDAP that they burned down the Reichstag, and I certainly felt it was a missing piece.

The only chapter I found difficult to read was the Address to the National Socialist Women’s League. I found Hitler’s speech, while pretty much common sense, to also be fairly platitudinal. I guess I’ll have much to say on it when I get to that point in the main review series, but even that chapter had one particular gem that spoke to me.

But in light of this, we must also understand that the search for and finding of this life companionship cannot be commanded or ordered, that this too is ultimately a problem not only of reason, but of the heart. And it is therefore understandable that for many people, and especially for women, the solution to this problem of finding a life companion might fail, because the heart cannot always follow reason. We must have the greatest compassion for this, for there is still the second great work, namely the work for our community.

I have three older sisters. One of them is married and has a child. The other two are single. Frankly I fear for them that they may never find someone, especially with our broken and intentionally atomized society. Societal problems require societal solutions, and we have critical numbers of lonely men and women who are quickly aging out of reproductive age.

An understated effect of the damage to our society is the social decay, and not just garbage on the streets. Any serious government needs to find a way to have these people find someone, and, barring that, find some way to be productive members of society. 

Like I said earlier, I find the book to be borderline required reading, if you’re at all interested in the history of the man who is arguably the most important man in all of human history. I wasn’t the only one in the meetup over the weekend who had read the book, and the reviews were universally positive. 

I found the book inspiring, and it made me want to get a move on with all of the political projects that I’ve been putting off for various reasons. I was filled with an energy and passion that I haven’t felt for a long time. Then I got Covid-19, which pretty much sapped my inspiration and even will to do much of anything other than sleep. 

I’ll get some sleep, you get the book.