Dietrich Eckart (* 23. März 1868 in Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz; † 26. Dezember 1923 in Berchtesgaden) war ein Publizist, Verleger, früher Anhänger des Nationalsozialismus und Ideengeber Adolf Hitlers.
Obwohl Eckart zu den frühesten Gestalten der Deutschen Arbeiterpartei bzw. Nationalsozialistischen Deutschen Arbeiterpartei gehörte, war er nie formales Partei-Mitglied. Er prägte 1919 als Mitbegründer der NSDAP den nationalsozialistischen Kampfbegriff „Drittes Reich“, womit vor allem eine Verbindung von chiliastischer Esoterik und politischem Ziel gemeint „Im deutschen Wesen ist Christ zu Gast – drum ist es dem Antichristen verhaßt.“
Im August 1921 wurde Eckart Chefredakteur des Völkischen Beobachters, nachdem er das Geld für dessen Übernahme im Dezember 1920 beschafft und Hitler gegen innerparteiliche Kritiker in Schutz genommen hatte. Gegen Eckarts Haftbefehl wegen Beleidigung des Reichspräsidenten Friedrich Ebert schrieb Hitler sofort an den bayerischen Ministerpräsidenten Ritter von Knilling die Forderung, „den Haftbefehl zu inhibieren, da andernfalls die Kampforganisation Widerstand gegen die Verhaftung leisten würde.“
Eine Woche nach dem “Hitlerputsch” in München verhaftet, wurde er nach schweren Herzanfällen am 20. Dezember 1923 aus dem Gefängnis entlassen und erlag am 26. Dezember in Berchtesgaden im Alter von 55 Jahren einem weiteren Herzschlag.
Written in a Platonic dialectic format, this book begins with an analogy of an astronomer that tries to find hidden forces to discover new planets. In 1846, Neptune was discovered by mathematicians who calculated the perturbations of Uranus. On the other hand, historians rarely try to find the hidden forces behind historical events.
Eckhart and Hitler begin the dialogue with an exegesis of the Old Testament showing how the Jews subvert, plunder, or completely exterminate gentile nations. They investigate all aspects of the Jewish question, including the works of Otto Hauser, Werner Sombart, and Benjamin Disraeli. The Jews as a scapegoat myth, which is often employed by the "charmers" and "wizards" of the age, is also addressed in this book.
Great discussions on Martin Luther and the Talmud, and introduces the reader to the less familiar Jewish book called the Schulchan Aruch, which advocates for the complete extermination of the gentiles off the face of the planet.
The book also describes the Jews and their cuckoo eggs. This could have been the origin of the political usage of the word "cuck". This book also has lots of footnotes.
At the end of the book, it goes into the psychology of the Samson Option, and this was 20 years before the invention of nuclear weapons. It is ultimately the tragedy of Lucifer.
Back in the early 1990s when I first read it I found it to be interesting, if somewhat esoteric. Since then and particularly over the last 13 years since the nonsense called "the global war on terror" I find the book to be prophetic.
The 4.0 rating is not an endorsement of the book by any means just the insights into Hitler's thoughts - although some of his remarks on religion seem odd as Catholicism is viewed in better light than Protestantism its a good overall quick read on the topic - anyway if you are fluent with ancient Aramaic and Hebrew like I am you will see blatant lies in the English translation (i am excluding things taken out of context - which also is issue) - would like to read the German version one day to see if all the lies came from Dietrich or some came from Pierce's attempt at propaganda.
This is a short work and a lot of it seems unoriginal at first glance, until you take note of the fact that Dietrich Eckart was one of the principal ideological influences on the NSDAP and specifically on Adolf Hitler. Here he draws a through line from the Hebrews of the Old Testament and "Saint" Paul to the contemporary Bolsheviks and other Marxists. The philosophy summarized here would be expanded by Eckart's disciple Alfred Rosenberg and was a major wellspring of thought into the mainstream of the Germanic National Socialist state.
This text is an early and distilled expression of pure national socialist thought. Esoteric in its character, it etches the corresponding features between Bolshevism in the early 20th century and the narratives surrounding Jewry presented in the books of the Old Testament. One must bear in mind that Dietrich Eckhart, the architect of the text, died in 1923, shortly after the Munich putsch. Thus, the text was written some decade before the National Socialists eventually rose to power. Its main theme is a deep exploration of German anti-Semitism, drawing on the Old Testament as a revelation of the Jewish spirit.
Within the text we are greeted with numerous references to historical figures, from Cicero to Luther, from Dostoevsky to Jesus Christ. The purpose is to excavate the hidden hand of Jewry in all world events; therefore, the opening paragraph presents the analogy of an astronomer viewing the behaviour of planets. He is perplexed by the peculiar behaviour of the bodies, assuming that there must be a hidden force governing their movements.
Eckhart then draws on this metaphor as comparable to the process of history, suggesting that the hidden force driving key events is Jewry. The rest of the text is his efforts—in dialogue with Adolf Hitler—to prove this thesis….
When I first read this book I was inclined to rate it one star, yet it has more than four out of five stars average out of 126 ratings on Goodreads as I write this review. My inclination was not simply due to the unremitting antisemitism of the book. Although I usually rate antisemitic books one star that is not always the case. For example I rated Mein Kampf and Hitler's Table Talk at three stars each. This is largely because each of these books were not unremittingly antisemitic; Table Talk for example had some interesting comments about Hitler’s views on vegetarianism. Jew's Mirror by Johannes Pfefferkorn I even dared to give five stars. While admittedly this was largely because of the excellent introduction and notes to that work, Pfefferkorn, while certainly antisemitic, is not nearly antisemitic as Luther or Eckart.
My initial disappointment with the book was that, despite the title, it seemed to barely talk about Bolshevism at all. Lenin, so it seemed to me, was not mentioned at all. The only substantive claim I noticed about Bolshevism was about the communist takeover of Munich in 1919. Eckart claims, rather bizarrely, "The murder of 75,000 Persians in the book of Esther no doubt has the same Bolshevik background." On a second read-through, however, I noticed references to Bolshevism in every chapter except two. In Chapter 3, we have "Before the Revolution, [Russia] was a downright sewer of violence, and the Jews there were the evident vermin in that sewer; now those same Jews are at the helm, and in a flash the selfsame country has become a 'great nation.'" In Chapter 4, "The Reds scream at us as reactionaries." In chapter 5, Hitler mocks the Jews: "All men are equal! Brotherhood! Pacifism! No more Privileges! And the Jews triumphed." In Chapter 6 "In Russia one Catholic priest after another is tortured to death by the Jewish beasts."
Chapter 7 was where I found an oblique reference to Lenin: "The Jew Eisner travelled to the Socialist Congress in Switzerland and laid the entire guilt of the First World War on Germany." This must refer to the Socialist Congress in 1915 where various left wing groups were represented, including Lenin's Bolsheviks. Lenin was present at this conference.
The book purports to be an extended dialogue between the author and Hitler, although no doubt this is a fiction. The dialogue sets up the opportunity for each protagonist to bring forth many antisemitic and other quotes, most of them made up. For example, "The printing press is the select tool of the Antichrist, more than gunpowder" was supposed to have been said by Otto von Bismarck. Thomas Aquinas supposedly compared Jews to sailing on a ship. "While the Christians are busy with sailing, the Jews plunder the storeroom and bore holes in the hull." Schopenhauer is claimed to have said that to understand the Old Testament, you must read it in Greek. I can find no evidence for this. Schopenhauer, according to Hitler called the Jew "the dregs of mankind," "a beast," and "the great master of the lie." According to Google AI the first two of these were never said by Schopenhauer. "The great master of the lie" is similar to an attribution Hitler made to Schopenhauer in Mein Kampf, which makes it suspect.
Hitler in this text claims that Goethe wrote (in Das Ahrmarktfest zu Plundersweiler according to the endnotes), "We tolerate no Jews among us," and "Their religion allows them to rob non-Jews." But Das Ahrmarktfest zu Plundersweiler is not a declaration of policy regarding the presence of Jewish people, but a parody of popular theater. Neither do the Goethe quotes "This crafty race has one principle: as long as order prevails there is nothing to be gained from them," and "I refrain from all acquaintance with Jews and their accomplices" appear to be genuine.
A few of the quotes, to my surprise, were genuine. Kant really did say that the Jews were a nation of swindlers, and Giordano Bruno really said that the Jews were "Such a pestilent, leprous, and publicly dangerous race that they deserved to be rooted out and destroyed before their birth." Disraeli did say that the mysterious Russian diplomacy is organized by Jews, and the mighty revolution that is in the making in Germany is evolving entirely under the leadership of the Jews.
Throughout Hitler and Eckart ridicule Jewish writings. Isaiah 19.2 appears twice. Hitler is portrayed as saying, "'And I will set the Egyptians against the Egyptians: and they shall fight every one against his brother, and every one against his neighbour.' What hatred! What demonic hatred! That's not human; what is it?" Discussing the Talmud, they ridicule the saying in the Talmud, "Rabbi Johanan said the penis of Rabbi Ishmael was as large as a six-kab wineskin; according to others, three kabs."
William L. Pierce, translator and editor of this volume, was also a notorious antisemite. He founded the National Alliance, which the Anti-Defamation League called "the single most dangerous organized hate group in the United States." He made sure there were plenty of antisemitic endnotes, for example:
"In volume two, chapter 16 (page 384 of the 1783 London edition) of his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon reports: 'From the reign of Nero to that of Antoninus Pius, the Jews discovered a fierce impatience of the dominion of Rome, which repeatedly broke out in the most furious massacres and insurrections. Humanity is shocked at the recital of the horrid cruelties that they committed in the cities of Egypt, of Cyprus, and of Cyrene, where they dwelt in treacherous friendship with the unsuspecting natives. … In Cyrene they massacred 220,000 Greeks; in Cyprus, 240,000; in Egypt, a very great multitude. Many of these unhappy victims were sawed asunder, according to a precedent to which David had given the sanction of his example. The victorious Jews devoured the flesh, licked up the blood, and twisted the entrails like a girdle round their bodies [Dion Cassius, l. lxviii].'"
This note contains some facts and some untruths. The massacres were part of the Kitos War, an uprising of the Jews that I am ashamed to say I had not heard of, in spite of studying this period of history, mostly as it pertains to early Christianity though, not Judaism. Modern historians believe these numbers to be exaggerated. Gibbon did mention that the Romans responded in kind, but of course Pierce does not mention that. Cassius Dio reports that 200,000 to 400,000 Jews were slain in the Kitos War. The idea that the Jews "dwelt in treacherous friendship with the unsuspecting natives" seems a bit silly to me. The pagans were just as suspicious of the Jews as the Jews were of pagans.
The idea that Jews sawed people in half or wrapped their entrails around themselves is just ridiculous propaganda. The idea that David sawed people in half comes from 2 Samuel 12.31, where the King James Version says that David put people "under saws," which is interpreted as torture, but modern versions including the New KJV say that David put people to work with saws.
Another interesting endnote was, "In the translation from the Hebrew of Exodus 12.38, the word rendered in the King James version as 'mixed multitude' appears in the German Bible as 'Pöbelvolk,' meaning 'rabble.'" This is true, and explains why "Pöbelvolk" is normally left untranslated by Pierce. But Hitler and Eckart use it in an antisemitic fashion, implying that Jews see all gentiles as rabble.
In his introduction, Pierce claims that this work is an "extensive, if not intensive, investigation of the Jewish question." It is hardly that. Basically it is just a propagandistic work of two antisemites talking back and forth about how awful Jews are. Although Eckart predated the antisemitic German Christian Movement, he anticipated it in his statement, "We want Germanism, we want genuine Christianity."
I learned of this book via Mikael Nilsson's excellent study on Hitler and Christianity. I highly recommend this book. This book, not so much. I have upgraded my initial rating of one star to three stars because it does give some good insight into the thinking of a notorious Nazi, even if the Hitler quotes are unreliable.
Certainly an interesting work if you want to study tendencies of thought in the early Nazi movement. While the co-authorship of Hitler is dismissed by most modern scholars, one can gain insight into the thinking of one of his most important mentors through this short, unfinished work. It also helps to highlight what Hitler might have thought about Christianity and other subjects in private, as some of the comments about early Christianity being an early form of Jewish Bolshevism match Hitler's views in the later "Table Talks" and "Monologues". It is speculated to have been intended to become the foundational work of theory for the Nazi movement that "Mein Kampf" later became, as it was written before Hitler's time in prison when he did not find the time to write a book himself.
Last but not least it should be mentioned that the book is actually a very funny read, if one can laugh despite the extremely aggressive antisemitism. Eckart was a good writer of extremely agitating polemics, which can also be seen in his magazine "Auf gut deutsch", which is rather inaccessible today. The man was Wilhelm II.'s favorite playwright for a while, after all.
Perhaps the most disturbing literature I'll read... especially in my capacity as a German historian.
In this short pamphlet by Dietrich Eckart (founder of the DAP) - Eckart delves into the ludicrous conspiracy that somehow the 'Jewry' have been the driving force to all of the world's major historical events. And the way he delves into it! A semi-formal conversational attitude mixed with an attempt at going about it through academic/intellectual means (which, fyi, fail miserably as academia and intellectual discussion shouldn't be influenced by or intended as propaganda and fearmongering).
FYI - review and rating given in a fairly unbiased, academic context. This pamphlet was just simply sh*te.
This is an example of the disturbing, rather extreme literature the Nazis promoted during their regime. It's depressing how some of the reviewers see it as 'prophetic' writing. Perhaps banning such texts does have a benefit to society?
I will be hopefully writing a research paper on the contrast between Eckart/Goebbels and what eventually became of the applied ideology. Will edit it into the review upon publication.
The only version I could get my hands on was the ‘Vanguard Audio’ (Audiobook Edition) and this while an absolute gem to have been put out on the internet for free does include very regular interruptions and editorialisations from the Narrator. It amounts to just under 3 hours and has some quality information on power through history.
I’d like to get my hands on a volume of Dietrich Eckarts poetry, with or without English translations so if anybody knows how or where to acquire something like this, that information would be much appreciated.
دیتریش اکهارت (Dietrich Eckart)، فرهنگنویس، نویسنده و یکی از اعضای پیشگام حزب نازی آلمان بود. او یکی از افرادی بود که هیتلر را به ایدئولوژی نازی معرفی کرد و در ترویج ایدههای این حزب نقش فعالی داشت. علاوه بر این، اکهارت در حزب نازی به عنوان رهبر فرهنگی و مسئول ترویج ایدهآلوژیهای نازی فعالیت میکرد.
اکهارت در دوران نوجوانی خود به فلسفه علاقه داشت و از نوشتن شعر و نمایشنامههایی نیز بهره برد. در دهه ۱۹۲۰ میلادی، او به عنوان یکی از اعضای بنیاد حزب نازی درآمد و در آموزش و پرورش نوجوانان و ترویج ایدئولوژی نازی فعالیت کرد. اکهارت به دلیل تاثیرگذاریاش در ترویج ایدئولوژی نازی و نقش فعالی که در بنیاد حزب نازی داشت، اغلب به عنوان یکی از اعضای مهم حزب نازی و در ساختار حزبی آن به یاد میماند.
Very Interesting perspective makes you wonder about the Banking Crash, Twin Towers, Housing Market Crash, Current Racial Issues, Number of Children missing a day, Hollywood scandals, Jeffrey Epstein.... and on it goes.
Perhaps more thoughts on Hitler wanting peace and the movement within the US to set him up as the bad guy, even when he loved the USA and was the trail blazer for individual freedoms, worker and women’s rights, education for all, housing and land for veterans....and on it goes.
Read 2x again just because! Anyone think we are still instituting what Hitler was attempting? If you think they were all new all his ideas read more then respond to me!
i do believe that in order to learn about history perfectly, you need to learn the story of each side.the book says a lot of sensible points about bolshevism and i believe, no one can explain the hamrs of bolshevism for our world better than its sworn enemy, fascism. it might seem a little extreme but is it wrong? no! totally recommended if you like to see the truth, spoken by someone who isnt a democrat