Immigration and Mein Kampf

The whole issue of immigration has got me thinking about its parallels with the book, Mein Kampf written by Adolph Hitler. I had never actually read the book, but came to an understanding that it is an outline of his vision of a socialist movement in pre-WWII Germany. I got into a debate with someone of the fact that studying the holocaust, one should weigh the arguments of both sides - Jews and Germans to see what each sides was doing and their philosophies before forming opinions on the matter. This lead me to browse over Mein Kampf to see Hitler's ideas and logic behind his agenda to capitalize power in Germany. I still have not read its full text, but plan to do so in the future.

Either way, I browsed through the chapters and sections of the book and came to Volume II, Chapter III: Subjects and Citizens. It describes his account of how things were at its writing and how he thought they ought to be. I saw it as strikingly parallel to the current immigration situation arising in the US, and all it would take is one leader to take hold of this ripe opportunity to become another Hitler. Perhaps it is being designed this way by forces to achieve this goal, but I don't have information to back this up.

Here are some excerpts of that chapter:

In most cases nowadays a person acquires civic rights by being born within the frontiers of a State. The race or nationality to which he may belong plays no role whatsoever. The child of a Negro who once lived in one of the German protectorates and now takes up his residence in Germany automatically becomes a 'German Citizen' in the eyes of the world. In the same way the child of any Jew, Pole, African or Asian may automatically become a German Citizen. Besides naturalization that is acquired through the fact of having been born within the confines of a State there exists another kind of naturalization which can be acquired later. This process is subject to various preliminary requirements. For example one condition is that, if possible, the applicant must not be a burglar or a common street thug. It is required of him that his political attitude is not such as to give cause for uneasiness; in other words he must be a harmless simpleton in politics. It is required that he shall not be a burden to the State of which he wishes to become a citizen. In this realistic epoch of ours this last condition naturally only means that he must not be a financial burden. If the affairs of the candidate are such that it appears likely he will turn out to be a good taxpayer, that is a very important consideration and will help him to obtain civic rights all the more rapidly.
The question of race plays no part at all.

I realize fully that nobody likes to hear these things. But it would be difficult to find anything more illogical or more insane than our contemporary laws in regard to State citizenship.
At present there exists one State which manifests at least some modest attempts that show a better appreciation of how things ought to be done in this matter. It is not, however, in our model German Republic but in the U.S.A. that efforts are made to conform at least partly to the counsels of commonsense. By refusing immigrants to enter there if they are in a bad state of health, and by excluding certain races from the right to become naturalized as citizens, they have begun to introduce principles similar to those on which we wish to ground the People's State.

The whole chapter is here:

Mein Kampf Volume II Chapter III

The whole book is here:

Mein Kampf

This particular chapter has a striking resemblence to our current US situation of the debate over protecting our borders and the status of peoples living in the US, naturalized or not. Do any of you think this is going to be a precursor for some US politician writing our version of "My Country"??

Is he wrong? Perhaps the U.S. was (and is) right?

I would hate to see people vilify something just because Hitler agreed with it.

Hitler seems to make the case (at least in Chapter 3), that they had a serious immigration problem and that the US was a better model then than they had, by the statements that the US did not allow certain races, the unhealthy, etc. into the country.

I am not sure, since I have never really studied immigration in the 1930's-40's, but if this is true, then the US has gotten more relaxed on immigration policy since then. I think it is apparent (maybe) that there is a percieved benefit to have a certain population of immigrants to perform labor that no one else wants, in order to run the lower levels of the economy for the benefit of everyone else in higher classes.

What seems strange to me is that Hitler believed that these immigrants were one of Germany's problems and therefore developed a solution but it does not present the impact of how taking away lower classes would benefit Germany. I can see the reasoning behind ridding the nation of peoples who caused trouble in one way or another, although not by his methods. It seems to me that if the lower classes were dispensed of, then a gap would need to be filled by the citizens remaining in their class structure. I had also read that the Jewish citizenship also had a lot of economic power within the state and maybe Germans felt envious or jealous about this - I am not sure. Either way, with the confrontation with radical Islam becoming more and more widespread in the media, if new attacks occur within the US, it may become a reality that our nation may develop the same sentiment towards Muslims as Hitler did towards all the peoples he considered impure races. Of course these are just thoughts and ideas, but history usual repeats itself.

Originally posted by ben91069
I think it is apparent (maybe) that there is a percieved benefit to have a certain population of immigrants to perform labor that no one else wants, in order to run the lower levels of the economy for the benefit of everyone else in higher classes.

I think these percieved benefits are inherently racist. Why should immigrants be limited to rubbish jobs noone else wants to do. Immigrants should be as free in their chosen country as those who were born there.

We have a similair problem as you have described with America. As England is a member of the EU which advocates free movement between EU members there are worries that the new members residents (who's countries have a lower standard of living) will all flood england looking for work. I could see someone in England writing 'My Country' and finding support from many people.

Personally I would like to see all borders removed and the free movement of everyone to anywhere. As this is most probably some way off I think we must stand under the banner of tolerance as did those who fought Nazi Germany. But as you pointed out, history repeats itself, so in answer to your question, we probably will have people in the UK and US attempting to undermine the rights of immigrants and free movemengt but these should be fought in order to honour those who gave there lives 60 years ago.

posted by ben91069

Hitler makes the case in Chapter 3, that they had a serious immigration problem and that the US was a better model then, than they had, by the statements that the US did not allow certain races, the unhealthy, etc. into the country. [Edited by Don W]

In the period 1880-1920, Germans left Europe in large numbers to come to the US, second only to the Irish. 24 million people altogether came to the US. Ellis Island rejected only 2%. In 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act became law, until 1940,when it was repealed. In 1891, the Bureau of Immigration was established. Now it is the ICE. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in the DHS.

In 1917, Wilson’s veto of a restrictive immigration policy was overridden by Congress. That law established a quota system based on the number of people of that origin already in the US. It was 3%, based on the 1910 census. In 1924, that law was made permanent and more restrictive. The quota was reduced to 2% and now based on the 1890 census. This favored northern Europe over southern and eastern Europe.

The current immigration law was enacted in 1990, and limits immigration to 700,000 per year. However, that same law allows for exceptions, so that in the year 2000, 849,000 immigrants were admitted. Of course, I have no statistics on the illegal or undocumented immigrants. We hear 11 and 12 million bandied about rather freely. As if the illegals would submit to a census?

I believe Hitler’s favorable mention of United States immigration policy was probably based on the 1917 and 1924 Acts of Congress which did begin to discriminate on a country of origin basis. The current word is "ethnicity."

What seems strange is that Hitler believed that immigrants were one of Germany's problems and therefore developed a solution but it does not present the impact of how taking away lower classes would benefit Germany. Of course these are just thoughts and ideas, but history usual repeats itself.

Seriously, since “Immigrant” and “Emigrant” are pronounced the same in English, I wonder if Hitler was worried about an out-bound migration from Germany rather than in influx of strangers into Germany? If the latter, I’d wonder where the new-comers originated? Germany’s economic conditions by the mid-1920s were probably the worst in Europe - save the new USSR. People don’t usually migrate from bad to worse. It would never occur to me to quote A. Hitler, except tin some diabolical setting. www.path.coe.uh.edu...
www.path.coe.uh.edu...

FYI: US Population: 1790, 3.9 m. 1820, 9.6 m. 1860, 31.4 m. 1880, 50.2 m. 1910, 92.2 m. 1940, 132 m. 2010, 299 est. already exceeded. 2030, 351 m. est. 2050, 403 m. est. 2100, 570 m. est. www.wisegeek.com...



[edit on 11/5/2006 by donwhite]

Originally posted by donwhite
Seriously, since “Immigrant” and “Emigrant” are pronounced the same in English, I wonder if Hitler was worried about an out-bound migration from Germany rather than in influx of strangers into Germany? If the latter, I’d wonder where the new-comers originated? Germany’s economic conditions by the mid-1920s were probably the worst in Europe - save the new USSR. People don’t usually migrate from bad to worse. It would never occur to me to quote A. Hitler, except tin some diabolical setting.
[edit on 11/5/2006 by donwhite]

I had never thought of that, and surely it is plausible, but at the same time Hitler was making plans to expand their empire into adjacent regions which would have to include new populations or peoples who could otherwise become Emigrants into Germany if they remained static in their geographic boundaries.

If this scenario were true, which would be interesting to know, then what would occur if the US were doing the same thing by tightening its policy while at the same time getting ready to expand its empire within the western hemisphere? I think this idea is out there, and I don't believe that is what is going on really, but what if??