fying, because he never tells us whom he is arguing against, but sets up every political expedient as a universal principle.This personalization makes Hitler a poor observer. His style is without color and movement. Images are rare, and when they do appear, they tend to be purely verbal and impossible to visualize, like the' cornerstone for the end of German domination in the monarchy " or forcing' the less strong and less healthy back into the womb of the eternal unknown.' The mixed metaphor is almost a specialty of modern German journalism, but Hitler, with his eyes closed to the visual world, was an expert in his own right. Pohner, for example, was' a thorn in the eyes of venal officials.'A non-German of Hitler's intellectual level would in some ways write quite differently. Germany was a land of high general culture, with the largest reading public of any country in the world. In the lower middle class, there was a tremendous educational urge. People who in other countries would read light novels and popular magazines devoured works on art, science, history, and above all philosophy. Certain philosophical phrases became journalistic cliches. Hitler is forever speaking of' concepts,' of things' as such' (an sick). Moreover, he is constantly at pains to show that he, too, is cultured. Hence the long, intricate sentences in which he frequently gets lost; hence such sententious bombast as the opening lines of Chapter Ten.The absence of movement and development in Mein Kampf is surely connected with Hitler's lack of concern for the objective world. But his stylistic expression, the militaristic command over verbs, again shows the influence of German journalism. Many German writers, including some academicians, seem to feel that the substantive is the strongest and most impressive part of speech. This tendency is found even in German police.Here and there, amid his ponderous reflections, Hitler is suddenly shaken with rage. He casts off h...
