this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2025
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Memes

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[–] comfy@lemmy.ml 8 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

You should unironically read Mein Kampf though, at least once

The funny thing about that book is if you tell a neo-Nazi you've read it and have a criticism, they'll immediately ask which translation and claim most of them are a "Jewish trick".

Olivier Mannoni, who translated the 2021 French critical edition, said about the original German text that it was "An incoherent soup, one could become half-mad translating it", and said that previous translations had corrected the language, giving the false impression that Hitler was a "cultured man" with "coherent and grammatically correct reasoning". He added "To me, making this text elegant is a crime." [snip]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mein_Kampf#Criticism_by_translators

[–] Photuris@lemmy.ml 5 points 4 days ago

previous translations had corrected the language, giving the false impression that Hitler was a “cultured man” with “coherent and gramatically correct reasoning”.

Very interesting. That’s exactly what the media (even the traditional “liberal” media) does with Trump’s ramblings.

Today we call that “sane-washing.” And yes, it is a crime against humanity, and one we don’t complain about nearly enough.

Anyway, apparently I need to look into which translation I read.