Politics | 04/22/2009 3:00 pm

Hitler's Mein Kampf Inspires Indian Students Looking for Management Skills

By The Staff at wowOwow.com

Though most readers regard Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf as testament to the Nazi leader’s hateful ways, Indian business students have been buying up copies to help them learn management skills.

The Daily Telegraph reports that the book has become more popular in recent years and, despite its vitriol, has become known as a "success model."

Via The Huffington Post:

Several said the surge in sales was due to demand from students who see it as a self-improvement and management strategy guide for aspiring business leaders, and who were happy to cite it as an inspiration.

‘Students are increasingly coming in asking for it and we’re happy to sell it to them,’ said Sohin Lakhani, owner of Mumbai-based Embassy books who reprints Mein Kampf every quarter and shrugs off any moral issues in publishing the book.

‘They see it as a kind of success story where one man can have a vision, work out a plan on how to implement it and then successfully complete it.’

That is, in a word, frightening.

Read more about: Adolf Hitler, Books, Business Students, India, Mein Kampf, News, Politics

18 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

‘They see it as a kind of success story where one man can have a vision, work out a plan on how to implement it and then successfully complete it.’

I hope the students realize the story didn’t have a happy ending.

By Marjorie C. on 04/22/2009 3:20 pm

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lololol in more ways that one Marjorie

By f p on 04/22/2009 6:01 pm

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Well, yes. He left Deutschland AG in infinitely worse shape than he found it… tangible assets totally destroyed, skills pool severely depleted, goodwill nil, hostile takeovers in progress, you name it.

Also, he only made 50% of the target for the Jewish project, not an impressive figure in any area of activity, and, in the case of an extermination project, totally useless.

I personally would not have voted the man any kind of bonus when he left.

By Anne Talvaz on 04/23/2009 8:03 pm

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Please tell me this is a joke!

By My Kids Rock N on 04/22/2009 3:20 pm

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There are many, many, self-help books out there. Wonder why these students are picking this one. Hopefully, they can take out the "work out a plan" part without implementing it in any way to the same conclusion Hitler did.

By Judy K. on 04/22/2009 3:32 pm

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I read that book years ago, I admit I don’t remember much about it any longer. I am trying to think of how it could be used as a guide to management skills…….strange indeed.

By Mel Berg on 04/22/2009 3:40 pm

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As a German American, my father (and my mother, who is also German American) encouraged us to read Mein Kampf. I have also read Nietsche, Marx, the Koran, Jane Austin, Jackie Collins, Rush Limbaugh’s books, Howard Stern’s two books, Der Niebelungenlied, The Odysey, Martha Stewart’s Living, the list could go on for days!

My point? While I have an exceptional distaste for anything written by Adolf Hitler (who was Austrian!), reading his diatribe written while in prison following a war he was bitter about losing is not in and of itself bad. In fact, it’s essential. Only by knowing why people would even buy into this idiot’s ideology can we hope to avoid it in the future.

BTW: these kids should really be reading "Inside the Third Reich" by Albert Speer if they want to learn about Nazi management styles and how (not) to succeed. Speer is adamant that it was the lack of good management styles that eventually took Hitler down. I’d rather think it was because he was an evil man, but it never hurts to get another opinion.

By nanchan u on 04/22/2009 3:46 pm

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Or Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer—still a classic book.

By f p on 04/22/2009 6:02 pm

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so scary and sad that there is a whole generation, a whole part of the world, that doesn’t know the atrocity well enough to know this book is poisonous…

nanchan - yes, students should study this part of our world history, but to understand it so as to not let it happen again or be part of not repeating it ever - not using it as a guidebook, sick

By Chips AHoey on 04/22/2009 3:57 pm

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Ironically, Indians invented the swastika, although for them it is a positive symbol.

By Rudi G. on 04/22/2009 5:09 pm

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Rudi, yes, I saw them embossed on the palace doors in Nepal!

By Lila Kuh on 04/22/2009 5:13 pm

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doesn’t the Indian swastika go the opposite direction?

By macwoof woof on 04/22/2009 7:59 pm

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All the Trekkies out there will find this familiar territory. An episode from the Star Trek television series used the same scenario of Nazi efficiency and structure as a plot for one of their programs. I wonder how old the professor is who is leading this study?

By Bonnie Oliver on 04/22/2009 5:11 pm

Given the deep and violent ethnic divisions in India, this is really disturbing.

By Lila Kuh on 04/22/2009 5:12 pm

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I wonder if they’re teaching the history of Nazi Germany in the Indian schools. Because I cannot imagine knowing the legacy and history of Adolf Hitler and then taking his book so lightly.

By DeBúrca obj on 04/22/2009 5:31 pm