MEIN KAMPF 32 MEIN KAMPF and editing myself. I thought I would get a translation, then have it edited and viola, a new Mein Kampf . I had no idea this quick project would turn into a major endeavor. Some of the problems we re errors in the translation, errors in older translations that confused the issue, vari ous versions of original German versions, having parts checked and rechecked by different German speakers, inding an editor who was competent and could understand how sentences it together and led one into the other, and who could correct punctuation and grammar instead of mess them up. I still have found no such person. I had to do my own editing. I went through a number of editors and, even though they had impressive resumes they could not edit to my satisfaction. The inal editor I hired changed artisans t o artists instead of craftsmen. She frequently made a sentence grammatically correct but the m eaning had disappeared into an eloquent sequence of words. I had to go back through the work and ix all of her mistakes while verifying the original German translation. It wa s a dificult and long road but in the end I believe I produced a new piece of history. The irony is t hat this entire project started when I was looking for an audio book version to avoid reading Mein Kampf , but in the end, when I saw what a mess older translations were and that there was no audio version, I wound up reading several versions, researching the history, talking to historians, and ultimately editing my own translation. Sometimes I had to spend a full day iguring out as little as 2 or 3 pages at a time, hours tracking down what s ome obscure reference meant, and then having it veriied by a native German speaker to make sure I had not misinterpreted anything. I wanted a simple audio program to save myself time and trouble and ended up on a two year long journey to produce the inal Ford translation. Well, it was worth it in the end because this translation is without a doubt t he best ever produced and will inally allow people to read and understand Mein Kampf . One of the many advantages the Ford translation had was time. Past transla tions were rushed to press but we wanted to produce the best, most accurate, and the most true to the original work that could possibly exist, and we were able to do it even though it took almost two years and a large staff. Hitler said that ultimately one person is responsible and that is the leader; this proved true because in the end, after the staff members had completed their translations, their edits, their fact checks, ultimately it was me, the leader, who had to go through every line, every word, and verify it was as accurate in both translation and overall meaning. This version takes into account the many updates and changes and corrections made throughout the printing history of the original German version. There were passages which were made clearer, some were omitted for various reasons (if they were import ant then they are preserved in this edition, if they were unnecessary restatements the y were omitted to match the oficial version). The line by line mechanical translations of the past lack the original pa ssion that drove Hitler and swayed the emotions of the German people. The older translations, w hich were translated in a mechanical way, clearly missed the point of many passa ges in Mein Kampf . They mistranslated references, and even edited out jokes because they failed to realize Hitler was making a joke. MEIN KAMPF MEIN KAMPF 33 We had to make some decisions to generate the inal edit. One decision w as to omit the italicizing of words from the original. The italics often made no sense in re gard to the meaning. It did not always highlight important points, and was often used to highlight certain words, that when re-arranged into English, no longer should have been italicize d because they did not carry the weight of the sentence once it was translat ed. Ultimately,