Welcome to the History Extra podcast, fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History Magazine.

Published 100 years ago in 1925, Adolf Hitler's Mine Camp was one of the most consequential books of the 20th century.

It laid out Hitler's political ideology and future aspirations, as well as making the Nazi

leader a lot of money. In more recent times, Mindcamp has continued to influence neo-Nazis

and anti-Semites around the world,

and there have been passionate debates over whether it should still be published in the 21st century.

In this episode, Rob Atar speaks to Dr Lisa Pine, an expert on Nazi Germany, about the history

of the book and its dark legacy.

Lisa, could we begin with the genesis of Mindcamp?

What were the circumstances in which it was written?

The genesis or the origins of Mindcamp began in 1924 when Hitler was in prison at Landsberg,

following his conviction for high treason for attempting to overthrow

the German government in November 1923 in the infamous Beer Hall Pitch. At this point, his political

career was at quite an all-time low, and he hoped that writing and then publishing the book,

first of all, would earn him some money, and second, would serve as a propaganda platform

to air his views and to attack his enemies. It's believed that Hitler dictated an account of his

life and worldview to Emil Morris and

Rudolf Hess in 1924. And the book that he produced was published as Mindcamp, or My Struggle,

in 1925. And essentially, Mind Kampf set out Hitler's worldview. It was comprised of a variety of aspects

of Nazi ideology, the most central of which were anti-Semitism and anti-Bolshevism, also extreme

nationalism and racial myths as well. So there's a lot in there about the Germans as the Aryan race. There's a

lot about cultural contamination by what Hitler regarded as the Jews as inferior. There's a lot of

...