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.The man who has come to know this race has succeeded in removing from his eyes the veil through which hehad seen the aims and meaning of his Party in a false light; and then, out of the murk and fog of socialphrases rises the grimacing figure of Marxism.To-day it is hard and almost impossible for me to say when the word  Jew first began to raise any particularthought in my mind.I do not remember even having heard the word at home during my father s lifetime.Ifthis name were mentioned in a derogatory sense I think the old gentleman would just have considered thosewho used it in this way as being uneducated reactionaries.In the course of his career he had come to be moreor less a cosmopolitan, with strong views on nationalism, which had its effect on me as well.In school, too, Ifound no reason to alter the picture of things I had formed at home.At the Realschule I knew one Jewish boy.We were all on our guard in our relations with him, but onlybecause his reticence and certain actions of his warned us to be discreet.Beyond that my companions andmyself formed no particular opinions in regard to him.It was not until I was fourteen or fifteen years old that I frequently ran up against the word  Jew , partly inconnection with political controversies.These references aroused a slight aversion in me, and I could notavoid an uncomfortable feeling which always came over me when I had to listen to religious disputes.But atthat time I had no other feelings about the Jewish question.There were very few Jews in Linz.In the course of centuries the Jews who lived there had becomeEuropeanized in external appearance and were so much like other human beings that I even looked uponthem as Germans.The reason why I did not then perceive the absurdity of such an illusion was that the onlyexternal mark which I recognized as distinguishing them from us was the practice of their strange religion.AsI thought that they were persecuted on account of their Faith my aversion to hearing remarks against themgrew almost into a feeling of abhorrence.I did not in the least suspect that there could be such a thing as a32Mein Kampfsystematic anti-Semitism.Then I came to Vienna.Confused by the mass of impressions I received from the architectural surroundings and depressed by myown troubles, I did not at first distinguish between the different social strata of which the population of thatmammoth city was composed.Although Vienna then had about two hundred thousand Jews among itspopulation of two millions, I did not notice them.During the first weeks of my sojourn my eyes and my mindwere unable to cope with the onrush of new ideas and values.Not until I gradually settled down to mysurroundings, and the confused picture began to grow clearer, did I acquire a more discriminating view of mynew world.And with that I came up against the Jewish problem.I will not say that the manner in which I first became acquainted with it was particularly unpleasant for me.Inthe Jew I still saw only a man who was of a different religion, and therefore, on grounds of human tolerance,I was against the idea that he should be attacked because he had a different faith.And so I considered that thetone adopted by the anti-Semitic Press in Vienna was unworthy of the cultural traditions of a great people.The memory of certain events which happened in the middle ages came into my mind, and I felt that I shouldnot like to see them repeated.Generally speaking, these anti-Semitic newspapers did not belong to the firstrank  but I did not then understand the reason of this  and so I regarded them more as the products ofjealousy and envy rather than the expression of a sincere, though wrong-headed, feeling.My own opinions were confirmed by what I considered to be the infinitely more dignified manner in whichthe really great Press replied to those attacks or simply ignored them, which latter seemed to me the mostrespectable way.I diligently read what was generally called the World Press  Neue Freie Presse, Wiener Tageblatt, etc. and Iwas astonished by the abundance of information they gave their readers and the impartial way in which theypresented particular problems.I appreciated their dignified tone; but sometimes the flamboyancy of the stylewas unconvincing, and I did not like it.But I attributed all this to the overpowering influence of the worldmetropolis.Since I considered Vienna at that time as such a world metropolis, I thought this constituted sufficientgrounds to excuse these shortcomings of the Press.But I was frequently disgusted by the grovelling way inwhich the Vienna Press played lackey to the Court.Scarcely a move took place at the Hofburg which was notpresented in glorified colours to the readers.It was a foolish practice, which, especially when it had to dowith  The Wisest Monarch of all Times , reminded one almost of the dance which the mountain cockperforms at pairing time to woo his mate.It was all empty nonsense.And I thought that such a policy was astain on the ideal of liberal democracy.I thought that this way of currying favour at the Court was unworthyof the people.And that was the first blot that fell on my appreciation of the great Vienna Press.While in Vienna I continued to follow with a vivid interest all the events that were taking place in Germany,whether connected with political or cultural question.I had a feeling of pride and admiration when Icompared the rise of the young German Empire with the decline of the Austrian State.But, although theforeign policy of that Empire was a source of real pleasure on the whole, the internal political happeningswere not always so satisfactory.I did not approve of the campaign which at that time was being carried onagainst William II.I looked upon him not only as the German Emperor but, above all, as the creator of theGerman Navy.The fact that the Emperor was prohibited from speaking in the Reichstag made me very angry,because the prohibition came from a side which in my eyes had no authority to make it.For at a single sittingthose same parliamentary ganders did more cackling together than the whole dynasty of Emperors,comprising even the weakest, had done in the course of centuries.It annoyed me to have to acknowledge that in a nation where any half-witted fellow could claim for himselfthe right to criticize and might even be let loose on the people as a  Legislator in the Reichstag, the bearer ofthe Imperial Crown could be the subject of a  reprimand on the part of the most miserable assembly of33Mein Kampfdrivellers that had ever existed.I was even more disgusted at the way in which this same Vienna Press salaamed obsequiously before themeanest steed belonging to the Habsburg royal equipage and went off into wild ecstacies of delight if the nagwagged its tail in response.And at the same time these newspapers took up an attitude of anxiety in mattersthat concerned the German Emperor, trying to cloak their enmity by the serious air they gave themselves.Butin my eyes that enmity appeared to be only poorly cloaked [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]