Book Review - 1914 The Year The World Ended by Paul Ham

Haven't done a book review in quite some time. Truth is, I haven't read a book, or at least finished one, since just before Christmas. I bought Paul Ham's "1914 The Year The World Ended" as a Christmas present. Not that it was an uninteresting book by any means but I just got caught up doing other things. Perhaps the coincidental thing is that I finished reading the book on the 100th anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, June 28th 1914. Good timing I reckon.

Paul Ham actually delves into the history behind WWI which has its origins closer to 1871 when the German state was born. From then the powers that ruled were building for war. Well, Germany appeared to be looking for empire-building/expansion but continental Europe didn't have much spare space.

I learned that the assassination didn't spark the war but was a point that allowed the Austro-Hungarian empire to try to humiliate the Kingdom of Serbia and engage them in a regional conflict whereupon they wished to inflict a harsh lesson. Backed by Russia, Serbia didn't back down and amassed troops near the border. Germany had backed Austria with a blank cheque and France had an agreement with Russia to assist if she were attacked.

There is quite a bit of information, mainly centred on the British government, regarding diplomacy and France and Germany are dealt with to a lesser degree. Wonderful insight into the goings on behind the scenes including telegrams between cousins the Kaiser and the Tsar. Some amazing information that they don't teach you in school.

There's a few hundred pages regarding the buildup to the conflict, including the diplomacy to try to avoid it, and then a few hundred more on the actual fighting. Wonderful information regarding battles and the waste of human life. I had no idea of the importance of Belgium in WWI and was surprised that the Germans told them that they would respect their neutrality if the Belgians would stand aside and let them walk through to take on the French. If not, they were at war. I was able to see how important it was the Britain entered the war and why so many young men were sacrificed as Britain's safety and respect were at stake. War is so much more formal in nature than I previously thought.

1914 The Year The World Ended by Paul Ham

Fantastic read and worthy of historical study. More of the content should be in any school curriculum when dealing with WWI.

Book Review - the darwin Awards IV Intelligent Design by Wendy Northcutt

Picked this book up at the same time as volume III (see previous post). Three bucks also. Not worth full price which I'm assuming would be $16~$18. Worth a few days reading on the bus but, once again, too many near misses / honourable mentions instead of actual Darwin Awards. Bit of light-hearted reading.

the darwin Awards IV Intelligent Design by Wendy Northcutt

Book Review - the darwin Awards III Survival of the Fittest by Wendy Northcutt

Thought this book would be good as I love the emails regarding the Darwin Awards that come through from friends. The book isn't as high in quality as tidbits that come in emails as it seems that there are more honourable mentions than actual awards. So, I was a little disappointed. Interesting read for a few days though and some explanations were included into the verification conducted by the author, aka Darwin, before inclusion was granted. Alright for $3 from the Save The Children Fund Giant Book Fair.

the darwin Awards III Survival of the Fittest by Wendy Northcutt

Book Review - Plotting Hitler's Death by Joachim Fest

I purchased this book secondhand at the Save The Children Fund Giant Book Fair. It cost $12 which I thought was quite pricey but it was in mint condition. Retail price was $45. The German resistance to Hitler is not a subject that's been discussed too much in the West, I feel. So, I thought that it would make for some interesting reading.

You'd be forgiven to think that this book would be all about Colonel Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg and his assassination attempt that was depicted in the movie Valkyrie starring Tom Cruise. Stauffenberg isn't really spoken about until chapter seven. I have seen the movie but found it a little difficult to relate to or follow as I wasn't aware of the story behind it.

Apparently there were 16 assassination attempts on Hitler but not all of them are mentioned in this book. It focuses on the main proponents of the resistance, a term not coined until after the war, and their inability to agree on a plan to put an end to Hitler's rule over the years. For too long they waited for the right moment or for justification to launch their coup and also fought amongst themselves whether Hitler should become a victim of tyrannicide or not. Their Christian beliefs made it difficult for them to commit to assassination. The book is slow going to start with as not very much happened that was exciting between 1933 and 1944 in terms of assassination attempts. They were too busy planning, not obtaining enough support or too scared to carry through with a plan whilst their conscience pressured them. Can't say I blame them when living in a police state however.

The book makes it reasonably clear that the Allies did not assist the German resistance as their every move was considered to be treasonous. Hindsight tells us that one man's treason could be the whole world's saviour.

The most interesting point about the book is the incredible depth of research that has obviously taken place. It is written in such a manner as you can almost feel that you were in the meetings of the German resistance or in Hitler's Wolf's Lair at the time of Stauffenberg's assassination attempt. There is so much depth that it is almost like reading in real time. There's no jumping around to lose track of time. It is beautifully written and, I feel, an outstanding piece of work. Highly recommended for historically important events that haven't received the significance that is deserved. A fabulous book although quite slow in parts.

Two things slightly disappointed me. Firstly, the fact that my version was printed in the US and written with US English spelling. Minor gripe from a pedant though. And secondly, the captions on many of the photos revealed too much of the upcoming work that would have been better not to have been revealed a page or two too early.

Plotting Hitler's Death by Joachim Fest

Time for some quotes:

- Even more decisive, however, were Hitler's tactics, which quickly undermined the willingness of the republic's supporters to take action. They had always assumed that the Nazi leader would stage a coup and had prepared themselves exclusively for this eventuality. But Hitler's experiences during his long rise to power, especially the well-remembered failed putsch of November 1923, had persuaded him that it was best not to be seen seizing control through overtly violent means. Having risen to chancellor through constitutional channels, he was not about to stigmatise himself as a revolutionary.

- A coup achieved through legal channels was something thoroughly unknown. The classical literature on resistance to tyrants, stretching back to the days of the ancient Greeks, dealt exclusively with violent seizures of power; there was no talk of silent takeovers through outwardly democratic methods, of obeying the letter of the law while mocking its spirit. By leaving the facade of the constitution in place, Hitler hopelessly confounded the public's ability to judge the legality of the new regime, to choose whether as good citizens they should feel loyal to it or not.

- It always required an element of terror, he (Reichenau) said soon after assuming his new position, to purge a state of all its rot and decay.

- The presidency was the last bastion of army independence. This office and the powers attached to it were all that separated Hitler from outright dictatorship. (It was Hitler's merging of the offices of president and chancellor, which was an open violation of constitutional law, which provided him with absolute authority in Germany.)

- Venerable institutions are much more commonly laid low by their victories than by their defeats, especially when the true nature of those triumphs is disguised - as it so often is - or when it transpires that they are not in fact victories at all.

- During the Fritsch crisis the Führer had confided in a member of his cabinet that Beck was the only officer he feared: "That man could really do something." (Ludwig Beck was anointed to become the provisional head of state should Stauffenberg's assassination attempt have been successful.)

- Dictators do not allow themselves to be driven into things, because then they would no longer be dictators - Manstein's comment at the Nuremberg trials.

- "We should have gone to war in 1938. That was our last chance to keep it localised. But they gave in everywhere. Like cowards they yielded to all our demands. So it was very difficult to initiate hostilities." - Hitler

- "You can't wage ware with Salvation Army methods." - Hitler referencing the brutality used against the Poles in 1939.



- In the years that followed, it was these brilliant successes, much more than opportunism or personal weakness (although they also existed), that generated the mysterious confidence in Hitler's genius that always seemed to resurface despite setbacks.

- Only a complete collapse and widespread acceptance of the inevitability of defeat and the ensuing chaos could create the necessary preconditions for the great internal revival on which the future depended.

- Most of the politicians and military leaders whom they unsuccessfully courted in London, The Hague, and Washington still believed, however, that these Germans were committing "treason" and therefore regarded them with contempt. There was no appreciation of the fact that the opponents of the Nazi regime felt guided by new principles and laws whose legitimacy did not end at national borders.

- Canaris - exemplified the dilemma of many torn between emotion and reason. They felt proud of the restoration of German might yet were well aware of the repellent ways in which it had been achieved. They took great professional pleasure in their successes yet despaired over the "gangster methods of the regime." They recognised that a catastrophe was looming for which they bore some responsibility yet felt paralysed by such honourable principles as duty, loyalty, and a job well done.

- He (Hitler) had once said that avoiding such a predicament (the waging of a two-front war) was a fundamental principle of German foreign policy. "Time, always time!" he later grumbled.

- To Mussolini he (Hitler) said that he felt like someone who had only one shot left in his rifle as night began to fall.

- Their motives (Hans and Sophie Scholl) were amongst the simplest and, sadly, the rarest of all: a sense of right and wrong and a determination to take action. (Siblings arrested while throwing hundreds of leaflets from the gallery of the atrium at Ludwig-Maximillian University in Munich speaking out vehemently against the regime and the moral indolence and numbness of the German people. In a special session of the People's Court, they were tried in less than three and a half hours and sentenced to death with their executions taking place later that day.)

- ... the attitude of most of the officers: their indecision, their narrow-mindedness, their ambivalence, and ultimately their servility.

- A dictatorship cannot be put on a democratic footing over night." - Julius Leber

- "He who has the courage to act must know that he will probably go down in German history as a traitor. But if he fails to act, he will be a traitor before his own conscience." - Stauffenberg

- "But even worse than failure is to yield to shame and coercion without a struggle." - Stauffenberg

- ... the German resistance remained what it had always been: an expression of feelings that may well have been widespread but that only a tiny minority was prepared to act on.

- Far from representing a tightly knit social elite hoping to regain its lost preeminence, the opposition to Hitler consisted of a motley collection of individuals who differed greatly in their social origins, habits of thought, political attitudes, and methods of action.

- German philosophy is often said to be rather removed from reality, and this characterisation certainly holds true for the German resistance.

- Public reports of the trials were quickly cut back and then stopped entirely in what was probably the most searing propaganda defeat the regime had ever suffered.

- No amount of success justified the government's crimes.

- On the night of July 20, 1944, Hitler addressed the German people by radio, claiming that "a very small clique of ambitious, wicked, and stupidly criminal officers forged a plot to eliminate me and, along with me, virtually the entire leadership of the Wehrmacht." (The officers were stripped of their military rank so as to be tried in the People's Court and they, and their families, numbered in the thousands in fact. Their numbers were so great that Hitler eventually forbade reporting on the trials or the subsequent executions.)

Book Review - Everest from sea to summit by Tim Macartney-Snape

At the last Save The Children Book Fair at UWA I purchased Everest from sea to summit by Tim Macartney-Snape. Turns out that it is an autographed copy, although with my name not being Margaret its' probably not worth quite as much as it could be, and not a bad buy for $6.

As soon as I saw the title I knew what the book was about. It's the personal account by New Zealand-born Australian Tim Macartney-Snape's trek from sea level in India to the summit of the world's highest peak. Without oxygen. On foot. Wow!

I like his style of writing and found it to be quite engaging. Not that I'd say as though I felt that I was a part of the journey but he has a lovely way of describing his experience and you find yourself wanting to be there to share the experience. India was a bureaucratic nightmare, maintaining a team of personnel to help was eventful and the wait around base camp prior to his summitting the mountain was painstaking. Even the journey to the summit had me hanging on during his struggle. And I knew that he'd made it beforehand!

It's a great read and Tim Macartney-Snape is a bit of a philosopher who wanted to examine the human condition. What more reason do you need to scale Everest with the start point being 1000kms away?

Everest from sea to summit by Tim Macartney-Snape

I picked out a number of quotes from the book that I'd like to share:

p11 - Heroes provide role models and encourage lesser people to strive harder - Richard Cashman.
p45 - To a certain extent the probability of an accident is determined by the caution and judgment you exercise.
p52 - I believe the path to a greater spirituality is through self-knowledge and understanding, not resignation to mysticism; through mastering consciousness, not blocking it out.
p94 - The danger faced is mostly the result of one's own mistakes.
p105 - ...on any journey the only way forward can sometimes be backward..
p129 - We can only look forward to the time when the cause of human upset has been eradicated by an understanding of our condition.
p130 - By making the object of the journey the destination rather than the journey itself, we rob ourselves of an important element of living.
p155 - There is pleasure in hard physical work, a celebration of the remarkable and perfect teamwork of the body's individual parts.
p167 - ...even our greatest mountains are but the tiniest crinkles on the Earth's surface and it is only because we are so small that we perceive them as grand.
p169 - Comfort should not be gained from an airy promise of some mystical afterlife but from the certainty that we are inextricably part of the continuum of life.
pp169-170 - Caring for the environment is a question of education and common sense. The more we are alienated from nature, the more that sense is hidden.
p172 - "to rought it you've got to smooth it".
p212 - Impatience is an easy attitude to cultivate, and it tends to be blind to future possibilities.
p220 - Nothing has ever seemed as lonely and desolate as leaving that wreck of a camp at 3.30 in the morning to head up an icy slope that seemed never to end.
pp224-225 - Criticising others is a natural thing for us to do; it offers us relief from our constant, subconcious self-criticism.
p229 - Even the most insignificant act can help realign the mind in a positive direction.
p245 - One should not go to a famous place if one seeks solitude, even the top of Everest.

Charlie Weatherburn - Matt Magain's New (And First) Book

There's a new author in town. Published he is. And his name is Matt Magain. The book is a children's story and delightfully drawn with lyrical prose. Great for the younger member of the family. The star is Charlie Weatherburn - and he even has his own Facebook page - http://www.facebook.com/charlie.weatherburn

Don't be cheap and look for it on Amazon as the printed version isn't available in second hand print yet. I've looked. It is downloadable for Kindle. Help make Matt Magain a not-so-struggling artist and buy his book. You can keep up to date with the newsletter too if you wish.

I see that the day after the book was published it was ranked 11,805 on Lulu sales rank and it's soared to 8,623rd today - in only three days. Grab it before it becomes a best seller. I've got my copy on order.

Book Review - Sam Walton Made in America - My Story by Sam Walton with John Huey

Only took about a week to finish this book. You can see that Sam Walton wasn't trained as an author as he uses everyday language in his book. Written shortly before his death from bone cancer it is filled with anecdotes from his life and a generous amount of recollections from friends, family and colleagues. No, it's not just Sam Walton's book.

Would you believe that Sam Walton started off with a newspaper round? He was the best seller of newspapers and recruited others to do so which created some sort of a foundation for his selling abilities. He was a more than capable amateur sportsman but had a minor heart condition that perhaps stopped him from going further.

Sam Walton new the value of a dollar. Of that you can be sure. During WWII he married Helen Robson, from a reasonably well-to-do family, whose father advised Sam regarding setting up a business early on. It turned out to be remarkably good advice and he loaned some money towards setting them up.

At the conclusion of WWII Sam went to work for J.C. Penney, a large retail company. He worked there for three years before deciding to buy a Ben Franklin franchise. Now, you all know that franchisers want the franchisees to purchase their goods and resell them. Sam, knowing the value of a dollar, would find a distributor close by who could offer a better deal and so would purchase from them and pass on the savings to his customers. It did mean that the franchise wasn't too pleased with him but it meant that the business did well. He went on to create Walton's Five and Dime stores before Walmart came to fruition in 1962. The business was borrowed heavily for and Sam had his head salesmen as partners, albeit for minimal shares.

Much of the success for Walmart came about because the stores were situated in country towns of 3-10,000 people and were able to soak up much of the demand because prices were low, stock was available and the locations were well planned. Sam Walton flew his own plane, out of 18 owned none of them were new, to a site and viewed it from overhead. He's note the roads, competition and proximity from his distribution point (as far as possible). Then, if he spotted some land he fancied, he'd land the plane and seek out the land owner and make an offer right there on the spot. Once a new store was operational he would back-fill the smaller towns in between this new store and the distribution centre with additional stores. Great tactic and probably the only person to conduct business in this manner.

The early business success, in part, was due mainly to the location of his franchise close to the border in Arkansas with Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri. It meant that he could sell in four states with differing competition in each state and didn't step on too many toes. Stroke of luck or masterstroke?

Some of the sales that they had to attract people were amazing. Tractor mowers that sold for $449 were purchased, in bulk, for $175 and sold for $199. Who could resist a bargain like that? Or how about 3600 packets of bulk washing detergent piled up some 15 feet and 100 feet long taking up a whole aisle to get people in through the door?

There was a definite culture at Walmart. Saturday morning meetings were held and people were made to attend. If the shoppers were busy on the weekend and shop staff had to work then the managers would work also. Sam Walton would be in the office at 4 am check the weekly sales figures for all stores some three hours before the staff meeting. That's dedication. If a new store was to be opened the management team worked 16-18 hours a day and had, generally, three weeks to pull it off. The people were pushed seriously but gained from an early profit-sharing scheme. How would you feel if eight of you were forced to share a hotel room or four or five slept on the floor in a manager's accommodation to save on costs? The Walmart executives did it because they knew that money wasted on looking after them was money that their customers had to find. Or maybe it was just Sam Walton who knew that.

Sam played tennis most of his life and he loved to shoot quail. He was never one of the white-gloved brigade and took his own dogs. Imagine the surprise of some very well-to-do shooters who invited him one time and met him at the airport with their Mercedes Benzes. Sam hopped out of his plane with five dirty bird dogs and hopped into their pristine vehicles. Not too many more invitations were forthcoming.

I love the way this book was written. Think what you like about Walmart and the culture of the shoppers but it's no wonder that Sam Walton was a success. He was one of the most driven individuals of the 20th century and his books makes great reading.

Made in America - My Story by Sam Walton with John Huey

Book Review - The Last Tsar by Edvard Radzinsky

I've just finished reading The Last Tsar by Edvard Radzinsky. The book goes into incredible detail of Nicholas II - the last tsar of all the the Russias. The reign of Nicholas II begin in tragic circumstances when his father Alexander III was murdered. Nicholas took the throne and during the mourning period and married his childhood sweetheart Alix of Hesse from Germany. One could so that that was not the start to a happy reign.

Edvard Radzinsky had access to secret documents in Russia in his ability to cover the incredible amounts of history in the Russian royal family is amazing. He had access to the tsar's diaries which we kept from the age of 13 and which gives us a great insight into who Nicholas II was. I understand that Nicholas was never a strong man for his mother held much power in the empire and his wife Alix appeared to be an autocrat at heart.

Nicholas was in a very privileged position as tsar and when some unfortunate accidents happened during his reign and many people were killed he became known as Nicholas the Bloody although the book doesn't talk about this in great detail it is as though Nicholas didn't know what was happening around him. I would say he was quite sheltered from what was actually happening in the country.

The story about the last tsar has been hidden from the truth the last 70 years. He and his wife had four daughters before an heir, Alexei, was finally born. But the heir was a sickly child and suffered from haemophilia. This illness was kept as a state secret. Alix, although she was queen Victoria's granddaughter, was ignorant to modern medicine which in fact could not treat her son had turned to Rasputin for help. He was a demonic and may and despised by many bodies treatment for the boy appeared to work and his mother had great faith in Rasputin as a healer. She kept the faith in him until her death and her demise can be partly attributed to her belief in Rasputin. The people of Russia did not believe that he, Rasputin, have such power over the royal family and they were condemned for the belief. If How could such a despised men have such great power in the royal household?

Nicolas came out from a large family and there were many grand dukes, his brothers, and they were largely murdered by the Bolsheviks. It is intriguing how much information Radzinsky has been able to unearth about the Romanov family. Did you know that Nicholas and Alix conversed in English and wrote to each other in English? There were over 600 letters from the empress to her husband during their lifetime. Her Russian was never fluent. Considering her ties with the British royal family, and Nicholas also, perhaps it's not so surprising that they used English.

When the second revolution came, the first was in 1905, Nicholas realised that he would have to abdicate to protect his family. This did not have the desired affect though and they were forced to leave their palace in Tsarkoe Selo as prisoners although at the time they may not have realised this. The guards for there for protection of the royal family. I believe the royals felt that they would be rescued by the British royal family but in truth nobody tried to save them. They were kept for some time in Tobolsk which is not far from Rasputin's hometown. This was seen as a good sign by the empress. Their final place of captivity was Ekaterinburg and they were not allowed much freedom here. Their captors were trying to discover the whereabouts of the Russian royal jewels without any success. Very cleverly the jewels were sewn into the bodices of the grand duchesses.

The final few chapters of the book are relating to the execution of the royal family and what happened to the people involved in the execution. At the time of completing another book a strange men contacted Radzinsky and provided documents that were still classified. Some of the royal servants were slain as well and there were meant to be 11 people killed. And just before book was published the Romanov family bodies were exhumed and the number of bodies seems to indicate what was written in the book was true - only nine people were killed and two may have survived. There is a great mystery surrounding Anastasia and Alexei. Did they survive? Radzinsky was not the only one to investigate this possibility and a great deal of mystery surrounds this outcome.

The Last Tsar by Edvard Radzinsky

I enjoyed this book immensely and there are very few books I have read that go into this much detail. The man should have been a detective but he did have access to an immense source of material. The structure of the book actually changes from being a biography to listening to the opinions of the author written firsthand. It is a brilliant book and does not waffle on at any stage. Superb reading and I can only recommend it to you. Not bad for a book picked up for $3.00 at a book fair.

Book Review - The Ilustrated Origin of Species by Charles Darwin (Abridged & Introduced by Richard E. Leakey)

Always wanted to read The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. I've never had Creationist tendencies and this book is supposed to explain it all. One of the fellow taekwondo fathers saw me with it and said that he'd read it many years ago and that it was "very dry". How right he was.

The 6th edition of this book was written in about 1870 and the abridging and introduction by Richard E. Leakey is included in this printing from 1979. Dr Leakey was very insightful and his clarifications throughout the book are most helpful. It assists in bringing Darwin's findings to light as science understood them some 30 years ago. The pictures and photos made the book much more reader friendly than otherwise would have been.

The language that Darwin used was scientific and dated. Many terms are not used any more such as animalcule (a minute animal). He refers to the bumble bee as the humble bee. Fossiliferous was another of my favourites.

Darwin covers variation under domestication, variation under nature, struggle for existence, natural selection or the survival of the fittest, laws of variation, difficulties of the theory, miscellaneous objections to the theory, instinct, hybridism, imperfection of the geological record, geological succession of organic beings, geographical distribution and mutual affinities of organic beings: morphology, embryology and rudimentary organs.

His sections on hybridism and rudimentary organs made most interesting readings. I could extrapolate much of that to humans today and why we have reproductive problems just from the point of nature. Our understanding of change is very limited as we can't grasp geological time and the changes that it will bring.

Did you know that the bone structure and features of bats, porpoises, whales, horses and humans are very similar? You would have great difficulty in determining whether an embryo was that of a dog, bat, rabbit or human due to the similarities? Or that hybrids are often sterile and that comes down to genetic makeup?

Pretty much everything can be explained by genetics today. With that in mind the book was easier to understand. What we know now was touched upon by Darwin but had not been discovered in his time. He was one smart man.

For reading I'd give this book 3/10 but for content we're looking at 8/10. More examples to explain would have been of much greater assistance. Darwin repeated himself too much and that surprised me seeing as there were six editions during his lifetime. As such, the book could have been reduced to half its length without losing any of its message. There were many convincing arguments to debunk the debunkers. I did find that the justified text made it more difficult to read though.

P.S. Perhaps the most disappointing aspect was in the four weeks that it took me to read I never had the opportunity to sit next to a particular God-botherer who occasionally takes the same bus. Three days after completing my reading I happened to sit alongside him. Bugger. I don't mind a bit of a stir.

The Ilustrated Origin of Species by Charles Darwin (Abridged & Introduced by Richard E. Leakey)

Book Review - Weary - The Life of Sir Edward Dunlop by Sue Ebury

Behind great people are great stories. But, it's all in the writing as to how well the great person comes across. After reading Weary - The Life of Sir Edward Dunlop by Sue Ebury I am full of admiration for the man. He is certainly someone to be looked up to in terms of his compassion, drive to succeed, determination to survive and selflessness. This book describes his life in minute detail and is a captivating read although it does drag a bit during WWII. He's one of the most inspiring people I've ever read about.

I knew that Weary Dunlop was a doctor and that he was almost held in reverence in Australia. Here's what I didn't know about the man and what I learnt from the book.

Weary Dunlop was born in country Victoria. His parents did reasonably well on the land and he had an elder brother. His mother become terribly ill and mentally unstable due to an infection caught during childbirth due to lack of sanitation at the time. She recovered by the time he was about 18 months old but he'd been cared for by his aunts until that time and they doted on him. Weary wasn't a great student and only did what he had to. After completing school he took up an apprenticeship to become a pharmacist but at the end of his training he was unable to see himself spending the next 50 years standing behind a counter making and dispensing pills. His new hero was Sir Thomas Dunhill, who was also from country Victoria, studied pharmacy and then went on to become a great surgeon, and Weary's life paralleled his in many aspects. Weary studied medicine and achieved fantastic results. The initiation at Ormond College made me understand a lot of what professionals went through and why they have such great relationships for the rest of their lives.

Weary played rugby for Australia and was the first Victorian to represent his country. He had to decline a tour of South Africa due to his studies. When the studies were complete he travelled to England to try for acceptance into the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons (FRCS) and he was one of 14 out of some 44 who were accepted. Following graduation and about a year of practicing in England WWII broke out. Weary was perhaps the only Australian who joined the 2nd Australian Imperial Force (AIF) without being in Australia but it took some determination for that to come about. Before leaving for England he had been dating Helen Ferguson. She had been unable to accompany Weary to England and stayed in Melbourne.

Weary became a captain in the army. He served in Greece, Palestine, Egypt and travelled much of the area. Most of him time was spent organising movements of sick troops and preparing for the construction of hospitals and supply of medicine and instruments. Unfortunately for Weary he was so adept at organising that they were loathe to release him to duties as a surgeon for which he longed. Later he went to Indonesia and was captured by the Japanese when he refused to abandon the hospital. Thus started some three years as a prisoner of war and at this stage he was a lieutenant colonel / colonel and the most senior officer although he was involved in the medical side of the army and not the troops.

The book drags a little during his war years and his early life and study coupled with later life make more interesting reading. Perhaps that is because of the attention to detail and the fact that he wasn't learning much in that period although he performed many heroic acts of courage by standing up to the Japanese. There wasn't as much personal development during that time. He was involved in the camp which built the bridge on the river Kwai in Thailand where the Japanese forced the prisoners to from Indonesia. Weary's skill for organising and surgery were evident and his camp suffered a much lower rate of mortality than other POW camps. He was instrumental in officers pooling their money to allow more nutritious food to be purchased for POWs and that undoubtedly kept hundreds more alive. During the war he became engaged to Helen but it wasn't until eight years after he'd left Australia, and he hadn't seen her in this time, that he returned and married her.

Post war Weary developed into an outstanding general surgeon who did great work with oesophageal cancer and much of it was pioneering. His family suffered from the fact that he was nearly forty before returning from the war and hadn't done much work as a surgeon, had lost the war years, had many young surgeons coming through and he had to make a name for himself. His hours were long and family life was almost non-existent. Sad in a way but it reveals the dedication that this man had to his learnings and fellow man. He was such a driven individual who never lost the yearning to travel and spent much of his latter years travelling the world attending the best clinics and hospitals observing surgery and giving lectures. He did tours of India, Sri Lanka and Thailand where he trained surgeons in those countries and gave freely of his time for his profession.

The end of Weary's life was tinged with sadness. Helen developed Alzheimer's disease and he could do nothing for her. His eyesight was failing and his driving, which had never been great, led to many accidents. His like of a drink undoubtedly had much to do with that. Perhaps he considered himself to be invincible and had such a high level of self-belief. I can imagine that. Even up to the time of his death, 10 days short of his 86th birthday, he was flitting about the country and internationally attending all sorts of committees and sharing his knowledge. Weary had been a driving force behind pensions for POWs and war widows. He never charged for surgery on POWs or servicemen following WWII. Weary wasn't a rich man because it wasn't wealth that drove him. He was dedicated to his profession first and foremost.

It's a fabulous book about a great man. Definitely read it.

Weary - The Life of Sir Edward Dunlop by Sue Ebury

P.S. Couple of passages that I wanted to include in the post but forgot in my haste to publish and get to work.

"It is better to wear out than to rust." - Professor George Grey-Turner
"Never operate on the man who seeks to make his will before he enters hospital." - Sir Gordon Gordon-Taylor
"One's calling to medicine comes before one's personal needs. Surgery has to take absolute precedence over everything else." - Weary Dunlop
"Almonds come to those who have no teeth" - old Chinese proverb

Book Review - The Breaker by Kit Denton

Bastards! Stupid Pommy bastards! Stupid toadying, obsequious, sycophantic Pommy bastards!

Now that I've got that out of the way I'll tell you about the latest book that I've read. It's called The Breaker and is about Harry Harbord "Breaker" Morant. A talented poet, horseman, womaniser and military man. He seemed to have led a just life but doing things mainly for himself and not for others. He ran away from his problems in Britain, the reason why was never given, and made a life for himself in Australia as a cattle/sheep drover, horse breaker, jockey, fighter, drinker and poet. One could almost say that he was quintessentially Australian.

The book started off in a very difficult manner to read. Maybe that had something to do with me having watched the movie when I was a younger but I thought that the author was trying too hard. Later in the book the writing style suited the story perfectly. It outlines his life and the important characters that he spent his life with in Australia. He had crossed over from a privileged life in Britain to one of hard, honest work in Australia. And then he made the transitition back again effortlessly. One could almost feel proud of the way he crossed the social divide.

When the time came to fight for the mother country against the Boers he did so eagerly. And he did his job well. So well that he was promoted and it appears that he was an accomplished leader of men. From what I read I understand that he was made to be to be a scapegoat for the British military following the murder of a German missionary, to appease the Kaiser, who, incidentally, had been supplying the Boers!

The Breaker is a great read. But I'm starting to consider that it has been written in just such a way. A great read. There's no way that all of the material written about Morant's life could have been documented so well. The story is too well written to be based entirely on fact and appears to be a brilliant piece of fiction.

Having just read Wikipedia's article on Breaker Morant I feel that too much has been made up. Of the three charges the book mentions that he was found not guilty on two counts and guilty on the third. Wikipedia has the findings opposite to the book. The name of the German missionary, Hesse in the book, and Heese online, is interesting that such a difference should exist. Morant, and Peter Handcock, were shot by firing squad for the crime/s that they had been found guilty of. Much to the chagrin of Australians. And the details of the court martial have remained shrouded in secrecy since.

Whatever the truth, it is completely understandable that no Australian (Morant was a British soldier at the time) has been tried by a foreign power since. And quite rightly so.

The Breaker by Kit Denton

P.S. - Some news on the case possibly being reopened - it won't be.

Book Review - Kokoda by Paul Ham

Just finished another book written by Paul Ham. It's called Kokoda and covers the history of the battle between Australian (and American) forces and those of the Japanese. This book is incredibly well researched and examined sources such as diary entries, military documents and numerous interviews.

Kokoda is a term for which the Australian soldiers are held in high esteem. But not many of us know what happened there. This book tells the story of the struggle between few well-trained and many conscripted Australian soldiers who suffered from poor leadership, were ill-equipped and supplied and who fought against the Imperial Japanese army in some of the most inhospitable land (Australian territory at the time) imaginable.

The content is graphic and sometimes chilling. The subject matter is not for the faint-hearted. Neither side was well supported and suffered immeasurably from disease and lack of food. Cannibalism took place. War crimes are put forth. It's hard to believe that two armies could fight in such conditions.

This book is a must read if you want to know the story of Kokoda. It's also necessary to read if you wish to improve your vocabulary. Some of the words used that I need to look up are:

Crapulence, inviolable, gallimautry, amanuensis, discombobulated, ambuscading, bowdlerised, pathos, exigencies, obfuscation, spenetic, obesiant, kessel, mendacious, propifious, etiolated, caparisoned, rumbustious, felorile, fetiol, transmogrifying, ineluctable, insouciance, anthropophagy, eponymous, glossitis, apotheosis, exculpatory, abnegation, encomiums, sisyphean, abstemious, corporeal, inculcated, oleaginous and perfunctorily.

I'm glad to say that I completed the book just before the upcoming Save The Children Book Fair at UWA this weekend. Don't miss it if you wish to pick up a bargain, or twenty, on secondhand books with proceeds going to an excellent charity. You might even see me there.

Kokoda by Paul Ham

Book Review - Gallipoli by Les Carlyon

You might have noticed a bit of a theme in the books I've read recently. There's been a book or two about Don Bradman, the SAS, the Korean War, H. Norman Schwarzkopf's autobiography, Vietnam : The Australian War and Mein Kampf. Yes, war, is high on the reading list. C'mon, what do you mean Don Bradman has nothing to do with war? He was fighting the old enemy, England, on the pitch. That's close enough in my book. Geddit? Book. Ha!

Gallipoli by Les Carlyon

This is a fantastic book. It lays bare the truths about the campaign and why it failed. By the time you have read it you will understand The Ode - a few lines from it are below:

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.

Let me attempt to sum up the story about an eight month campaign covered in 543 pages by Les Carlyon. The British wanted to remain friendly with Russia and Tsar Nicholas II by keeping the Dardanelles open so that Russian could continue exports. Winston Churchill and Lord Kitchener decided to hand over Turkey to Russia and a quick campaign at the Dardanelles would allow this to happen. By refusing to deliver two ships paid for by Turkey, or return the money, the British allowed Germany to gain an ally as the Germans were quick to offer a couple of warships in return for allegiance. [Why does allegiance look so similar to the French word for Germany - Allemagne?] The British bombed Turkey from warships for three months before landing any troops. Enough warning for anyone to realise that war was imminent.

Kitchener was, if you'll pardon the pun, a loose cannon. He made decisions on the go without consulting those that should be consulted, i.e. the War Cabinet, and Churchill believed so strongly in the campaign at Gallipoli that he convinced pretty much everyone to go along with the idea although it was never thought out properly. Ian Hamilton, one of the old boys, was charged with making the landing and taking over Turkey but without a real plan, ammunition, supplies or men. He was guilty of not reporting how the battle was really faring as it might upset the guys in charge back home. Let me take the last sentence from chapter 28:

"If there is one thing worse than a man who deals in half-truths, it is a man who decides things are so bad he needs to tell you the truth."

Young men - Australians, New Zealanders (of course - Anzacs), Britons, French, Senegalese, Indians and Gurkhas. Now I knew about the first three but who would have thought that the rest of them were there? Even the Turks didn't know too much about New Zealand and the Germans had to reassure them that it was a country. In fact, the British and French lost more soldiers than the Australians or Kiwis. Who'd have thought that either? These men were the best, youngest and fittest of their respective countries and thousands were sent needlessly to their deaths. Mind you, it was the way war was conducted back in those days. One other fact that made my blood boil was that when these men charged enemy trenches, more often than not, very well defended by machine guns, they had to charge with bayonets on their unloaded rifles. How absolutely ridiculous. Surely after the first charge someone in authority would have realised that this was a completely stupid and avoidable loss of life. Not so it seems. Make no mistake, the soldiers involved were immensely brave. Have another look at The Ode, the link is a good one, and you'll start to see what I mean.

Amazingly the Turks lost more men than the Allies. They had the high ground, literally, were better supported with artillery and knew the terrain. I hold the ground forces of the Allies in very high regard after reading that.

Hamilton didn't even have proper maps of Turkey. The terrain was vastly different to what they thought they knew. They landed miles down the beach from where they were supposed to, many attacks were conducted at night where they didn't know what they were facing, lots of plans didn't realistically take into account the unknown terrain, basic things such as supply of water and medical aid weren't thought out properly and they even brought in the Australian Light Horse (deployed without their horses) to fight on the cliffs at Gallipoli. Madness. Honestly. They even had a second landing with several new divisions in August and landed at the wrong place once more. Even Monash lead a charge up the wrong hill and poor maps can take much of the blame.

War correspondents had to maintain the army's propaganda so that recruitment numbers wouldn't fall. All correspondence to be published had to be approved. You must remember that this was not the time of the professional soldier and criticism or adverse reporting could significantly affect recruitment. And it seems that the generals didn't understand modern warfare. Charging men, without loaded rifles, were no match for machine guns. Even after bombardment of the area where the enemy was thought to be prior to the charge.

Carlyon goes into such detail about the major offensives that you almost feel like you are there and you may be forgiven for thinking that he was there. The landing, the Nek, Lone Pine, the August offensive - they're all so well covered, including the background happenings in Britain, that it isn't difficult to imagine yourself in the middle of it. And there would be something wrong with you if you didn't sympathise with the combatants.

I was constantly appalled by what I read but full of admiration for the men who carried out the orders of incompetent boys' club members, posing as generals. I would urge everybody to read this book if you want to understand Gallipoli. It doesn't glorify war but it exposes what we should know about this campaign. And to think that the Australian government didn't want to know what was really happening as we were seen to be doing our bit for Old Blighty [Ha! Blogger thinks that Blighty should be "Blighter" with its spellcheck] no matter how incompetently run the battle was. This book is the real history and the real story.

As Anzac Day approaches I have a much healthier respect for those that gave their lives in defending our ideals in far-flung places that they probably shouldn't have been in. Read this book and you will be left in doubt as to why that is. It is a wonderful piece of literature.

Book Review - The Complete Book of the Olympics 2008 Edition

Only two days before completing The Adventures of Tom Sawyer I finished another book that has been a long time coming - The Complete Book of the Olympics 2008 Edition. I bough this for myself in April last year. Considering that there was a total of 1179 pages to read you can understand why it's taken so long to complete.

This is a book for nerds and statisticians alike. Is there a difference? As the book cover aludes - it is a treasure trove of lore, drama and anecdotes including the top eight finishers in every summer Olympic event from 1896 to 2004. Rules and scoring for events is there too. What an absolute wealth of information. When it comes down to the swimming events I felt like I was reminiscing about old times by reading the last 20 or 30 years worth of events. The names of the competitors and their deeds were so familiar. Perhaps the best part of the book were the anecdotes. So many athletes entered politics or were busted for drug running (I don't think anybody had a spiked shoe in both camps). There's the gymnast who broke her back and was carted off in a wheelchair, the Hungarian pistol shooter who lost his hand when a grenade exploded so he taught himself to shoot with the other hand and won the gold medal, the growing number of state-sponsored drug cheats and the fact that during the Great Depression an American athlete could win a gold medal in front of 60,000 people in his hometown but still have to walk home from the stadium as no-one on the street recognised him. Everything the Stats Man, another nickname I had, could ever want.

If you, like me, enjoy facts and figures you will love this book. One thing that I did find annoying was the constant misspelling of names, even within the same section, that went on. A decent proofreader required before the next edition goes to press. But a wonderful piece of work nevertheless.

Check out Your Success eBooks for the latest books on statistics.

The Complete Book of the Olympics 2008 Edition

Book Review - The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

When I was but a little tacker I received a book from my Great Grandma for Christmas. It was Mark Twain's unabridged version of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. That was back in 1982. Late last year I began to read it. I thought that it would be a good idea to read it as a bedtime story to my son. One chapter a night, in general, it was. There have been a few lapses in the reading but we finished it last night.

I know, I know. It is one of the classics but why has it taken so long for me to get around to reading one of the all time classics? Well, I guess I wasn't inclined to read it when I was younger. There were too many computer games and sports to be played. If I read anything they generally consisted of Tintin, Asterix, computer and cricket magazines. Books included atlases and other reference material such as knowledge and encyclopedia. I quite enjoyed the dictionary too. Perhaps you can understand why I had the nickname "Cuboid" at one stage. I was more square than a square.

Back to the book. As it was written in 1876 there is a lot of language not in common use these days. And the words used were very non-prosaic. At times there was too much effort placed in making the description. I felt that it went over the top trying to set the scene. That said, the story itself is uplifting and insightful about the adventures of a boy and his friends. I had no difficulty imagining what the movie should look like. Glad we've finished it. My boy thought that the story was "pretty interesting". Maybe that had a lot to do with the fact he didn't have to the do the reading but also because it appealed to his sense of boyhood. It certainly captured his attention and no matter how tired he was he was listened. And I tested him to make sure he was paying attention. As the words were unusual it gave me a bit of work explaining the words and concepts associated with them so he got more out of it than by just reading to himself and glossing over what he didn't immediately understand. Great if you can make the time for your child to do that too.

I'd certainly recommend the book although reading it aloud was difficult at times. Perhaps I could purchase an ebook from my friend at Your Success eBooks for improvement in reading aloud.

Mark Twain's unabridged version of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

Book - H. Norman Schwarzkopf - It Doesn't Take A Hero

Just finished a great book about an intensely interesting man. Talk about leading a fulfilling life and having great experiences. I had no idea that it would be so interesting to read.

General H. Norman Schwarzkopf - It Doesn't Take A Hero

Vietnam: The Australian War by Paul Ham

I'm not much of a bookworm. I enjoy reading the news, sports, financials, gossip, etc but not so much the books. Especially not novels. Don't need any of that gushy stuff. There was a book sale on at Myer after Christmas and I bought a travel book for Hong Kong and Macau where we are planning to visit. Whilst browsing the book section one book in particular caught my eye. Vietnam: The Australian War by Paul Ham.

There were a few reasons that I was attracted to it:

1) Vietnam is both a blight on our history and a remarkable story.
2) The history in Australian schools teaches you nothing about the Vietnam War.
3) Vietnam veterans have received little recognition for their service and I wanted to know why.
4) The book was shortlisted for the Prime Minister's Literary Awards 2008.
5) It was written by Paul Ham. Perhaps I'm a little nepotistic.

I bought it even though its genre wasn't on sale.

There's some 665 pages to read but it only took me four weeks to finish as I used every opportunity walking to the bus and whilst on the bus to stick my nose into it. And it was a fabulous read. I learnt so much about the reasons for Australia going to war, what they did when they were there, the succession of blundering and interfering Australian governments, the protesters against Australia's involvement, the famous battles that I only knew by name (Tet Offensive, battle of Long Tan, etc), the atrocities and suffering, the guts and determination, the life of the soldier, poisons used, conscription, the return home and why the soldiers weren't welcomed back.

Each chapter focuses on a particular aspect of life, or a battle or something happening in Australia. The book brought to life, at least for me, some of what these men were experiencing. It is about the war that the Australians fought and not so much about the Americans. The attitude of the Australian government and anti-war protesters absolutely disgusted me.

I would thoroughly recommend this book if you want a no nonsense report about the Vietnam war from an Australian perspective. And I can't wait to get my hands on another book by Paul Ham - Kokoda.

Vietnam: The Australian War by Paul Ham.

I've Read A Book

Yes, shock horror. I've read a book. And it only took me six weeks to complete the job. Well, it was 540 pages. Riveting stuff. It's called The Rise And Fall Of The Great Powers - Economic change and military conflict from 1500 to 2000.



I didn't realise that the Europeans loved warring so much and that it held them back from economic development so badly. Great book. Really. I found it difficult to put down. Not that I'd recommend it to too many people. Pity about his predictions. I was rather looking forward to what India had in store for the world but it was printed in 1987. He did mention the rise of China but felt that Japan wouldn't falter. Those Russians never did themselves much of a favour.

Quotes From Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler (Translated by Ralph Mannheim)

Don't think that I've become a Nazi or an idoliser of Hitler or anything. A couple of months ago I dropped a friend off at his house and noticed Mein Kampf on his bookshelf. It was a book that I was interested in reading and I asked to borrow it. Well, he provides quite an insight into the rambling, tunnel-visioned megalomaniac that he was. With 20-20 hindsight you could see that he wanted to wipe the Jew from the face of the earth and he had no time for France with its supposed negrification. It is very clearly written what he had plans for.

I wouldn't look at this book as a teaching aide but he did make quite a few interesting points and observations along the way. The man was very determined in what he wanted to achieve. There are many truths that are relevant to this day and considering that the first volume was written in 1925 and the second in 1926 the relevance is remarkable.

I've created a list of quotations that struck me. It's not a mantra though. Some of them are true, some fall short of the mark and others were incorrect. My remarks are in brackets.



A man does not die for something which he himself does not believe in.

Isn’t every deed of genius in this world a visible protest of genius against the inertia of the mass?

Sooner will a camel pass through a needle’s eye than a great me be “discovered” by an election. [Hitler had little time for politicians.]

The world is not for cowardly peoples. [He thought that you must fight for your existence.]

If the struggle for a philosophy is not led by heroes prepared to make sacrifices, there will, in a short time, cease to be any warriors willing to die. [This can be administered to any faith in the world.]

The man who is fighting for his own existence cannot have much left for the community.

The greatest revolutions in this world have never been directed by a goose-quill! [Hitler's belief was that people listened to great speakers and were motivated by them and never by great writers.]

To change a thing means to recognise it first. [Poignant.]

The aim of studying history is not to forget its lessons when the occasion arises for its practical application, or to decide that the present situation is different after all, and that therefore its old eternal truths are no longer applicable; no, the purpose of studying history is precisely its lesson for the present.

Peoples who can sneak their way into the rest of mankind like drones, to make other men work for them under all sorts of pretexts, can form states even without any definitely delimited living space of their own.

… The preservation of the existence of the species presupposes a spirit of sacrifice in the individual. [You could relate this to trade unions, community groups, etc.]

The urge to preserve the species is the first cause for the formation of human communities; thus the state is a national organism and not an economic organisation.

A man does not die for business, but only for ideals.

Enthusiasm once scotched cannot be reawakened at will. [How true. If you take away someone's enthusiasm don't expect it to return when you want it to.]

Any philosophy, whether of a religious or political nature – and sometimes the dividing line is hard to determine – fights less for the negative destruction of the opposing ideology than for the positive promotion of its own.

Care should be taken not to regard the masses as stupider than they are.

Any attempt to combat a philosophy with methods of violence will fail in the end, unless the fight takes the form of attack for a new spiritual value.

Good care should be taken not to deny things that just happen to be true. [Truthful, for sure.]

Generations of rabble without honour deserve no freedom.

Where the destiny and existence of a people are at stake, all obligation towards beauty ceases.

Even propaganda is no more than a weapon, though a frightful one in the hand of an expert.

The function of propaganda is, for example, not to weigh and ponder the rights of different people, but exclusively to emphasise the one right which it has set out to argue for.

The broad mass of a nation does not consist of diplomats, or even professors of political law, or even individuals capable of forming a rational opinion; it consists of plain morals, wavering and inclined to doubt and uncertainty.

All advertising, whether in the field of business or politics, achieves success through the continuity and sustained uniformity of its application. [Look at advertising today in the media and realise how true this is.]

Though human though can apprehend truths and set up crystal-clear aims, complete fulfilment will fail due to the general imperfection and inadequacy of man.

From a certain vanity, which is always a cause of stupidity, the great mass of politicians will keep far removed from all weighty plans for the future, in order not to lose the momentary sympathy of the great mob. [I can agree with this observation as politicians, on the whole, seem only interested in popularity and not doing what is necessary.]

(On forward-thinking politicians) Great men are only the marathon runners of history; the laurel wreath of the present only touches the brow of the dying hero.

A man who is prepared to stand up for a cause will never and can never be a sneak or a spineless lickspittle. Anyone who is really serious about the preservation and furtherance of an institution will cling to it with the last fibre of his heard and will not be able to abandon it if evils of some sort appear in the institution.

Cringers and lickspittles do not let themselves be knocked dead for their master.

Today, when the ballot of the masses decides, the chief weight lies with the most numerous group, and this is the fist: the mob of the simple or credulous.

In the uniformity and constant repetition of instruction lies tremendous power. [Brainwashing still holds its relevance.]

For an institution which is no longer resolved to defend itself with all weapon has practical purposes abdicated. [If you can't fight for something it's not worth fighting for.]

The vices of the parents are revealed in the sickness of the children. [True.]

In all cases where the fulfilment of apparently impossible demands or tasks is involved, the whole attention of a people must be focussed and concentrated on this one question, or though life and death actually depended on its solution.

The great mass of the people cannot see the whole road ahead of them without growing weary and despairing of the task.

The right of personal freedom recedes before the duty to preserve the race. [Can't agree with this quotation but you can see where he was headed with regards to the Aryan race.]

Prostitution is a disgrace to humanity, but it cannot be eliminated by moral lectures, pious intentions, etc; its limitation and final abolition presuppose the elimination of innumerable preconditions. The first is and remains the creation of an opportunity with human nature – particularly for the man, as the woman in any case is only the passive part. [Try telling a woman today that she's only plays a passive role in life - she'll probably hit you.]

There is no freedom to sin at the cost of posterity and hence of the race. [Another quote aimed at racial purity which is not so agreeable.]

If the power to fight for one’s own health is no longer present, the right to live in this world of struggle ends.

It is the business of the state, in other words, of its leaders, to prevent a people from being driven into the arms of spiritual madness. [True, to some extent.]

The meaning and purpose of revolutions is not to tear down the whole building, but to remove what is bad or unsuitable and to continue building on the sound spot that has been laid base.

It was better to be a little old-fashioned, but honest and loyal, than enlightened and modern, but of inferior character and, as is often seen today, ignorant and incompetent. [Can agree with this one.]

There are some truths which are so obvious that for this very reason they are not seen or at least recognised by ordinary people.

Struggle is always a means for improving a species’ health and power of resistance, and therefore a cause of its higher development. [Think of our kids today. They have everything that they want and do not have to struggle for it. I don't think that they will be better people because of it. You must have struggle to appreciate that which you have.]

The fall of man in paradise has always been followed by his expulsion. [Hitler had some deep Christian views.]

In the monotony of everyday life even significant men often seem insignificant, hardly rising above the average of their environment; as soon, however, as they are approached by a situation in which other lose hope or go astray, the genius rises manifestly from the inconspicuous average child, not seldom to the amazement of all those who had hitherto seen him in the pettiness of bourgeois life – and that is why the prophet seldom has any honour in his own country.

The spark of genius exists in the brain of the truly creative man from the hour of his birth. True genius is always inborn and never cultivated, let alone learned.

A man can change his language without any trouble – that is, he can use another language; but in his new language he will express the old ideas; his inner nature is not changed.

After the death of his victim, the vampire sooner or later dies too.

Give a coward ten pistols and if attacked he will not be able to fire a single shot.

Faith is harder to shake than knowledge, love succumbs less to change than respect, hate is more enduring than aversion, and the impetus to the mightiest upheavals on this earth has at all times consisted less in a scientific knowledge dominating the masses than in a fanaticism which inspired them and sometimes in a hysteria which drove them forward. [True.]

If propaganda renounces primitiveness of expression, it does not find its way to the feeling of the broad masses.

Propaganda must be adjusted to the broad masses in content and in form, and its soundness is to be measure exclusively by its effective result.

In a mass meeting of all classes it is not that speaker who is mentally closest to the intellectuals present who speaks best, but the one who conquers the heart of the masses.

Germanic democracy: the leader is elected but then enjoys unconditional authority. [Don't think that there would be too many people that would agree with this statement.]

Any man who wants to be leader bears, along with the highest unlimited authority, not only within its own ranks, but for an entire state. Anyone who is not equal to this or is too cowardly to bear the consequences of his acts is not fit to be leader; only the hero is cut out for this. [And Hitler thought of himself in this regard?]

As worthless as an army in all its organisational forms is without officers, equally worthless is a political organisation without suitable leader.

The future of a movement is conditioned by the fanaticism, yes, the intolerance, with which its adherents uphold it as the sole correct movement, and push it past other formations of a similar sort. [You'll never get anywhere if you don't fight for what you believe in. The Jews have this trait and Hitler, although he loathed the Jew, seemed to admire them in their fight for their beliefs and ideals.]

The greatness of every might organisation embodying an idea in this world lies in the religious fanaticism and intolerance with which, fanatically convinced of its own right, it intolerantly imposes its will against all others. If an idea in itself is sound and, thus armed, takes up a struggle on this earth, it is unconquerable and every persecution will only add to its inner strength.

Terror is not broken by the mind, but by terror. [How prophetic. Methinks of USA vs Iraq today.]

Anyone in this world who does not succeed in being hated by his adversaries does not seem to me to be worth much as a friend. [Relate this to the political sphere - if you don't hate your opponent how can you have respect for them?]

A people of scholars, if they are physically degenerate, weak-willed and cowardly pacifists, will not storm the heavens, indeed they will not even be able to safeguard their existence on this earth.

A decayed body is not made the least more aesthetic by a brilliant mind.

Anyone who demands of Fate a guarantee of success automatically renounces all idea of a heroic deed. [Those that look for someone else to do the hard work and deliver their wants doesn't deserve to achieve anything.]

It is no longer a disgrace to be an honest manual worker, but it is a disgrace to be an incompetent official, stealing the daylight from his master and daily bread from honest people. Then it will be taken for granted that a man will not be allotted tasks to which he is not equal to begin with.

It is not the mass that invents and not the majority that organises or thinks, but in all things only and always the individual man, the person.

Political parties are inclined to compromises; philosophies never. [True.]

The strength of a political party lies by no means in the greater possible independent intellect of the individual members, but rather in the disciplined obedience with which its members follow the intellectual leadership.

Really great historical changes are not induced by the written word, but at most accompanied by it.

I must not measure the speech of a statesman to his people by the impression which it leaves in a university professor but by the effect it exerts on the people. And this alone gives the standard for the speaker’s genius.

Just as a courageous man can more easily conquer women’s hearts than a coward, a heroic movement will sooner win the heart of a people than a cowardly one which is kept alive only by police protection.

The first foundation for the creation of authority is always provided by popularity. But an authority which rests solely on this foundation is still extremely weak, uncertain, and shaky. Every bearer of such an authority based purely on popularity must, therefore, endeavour to improve and secure the foundation of this authority by the creation of power. In power, therefore, in force, we see the second foundation of all authority. It is already considerably more stable and secure, but by no means always stronger than the first. If popularity and force are combined, and if in common they are able to survive for a certain time, an authority on an even firmer basis can arise, the authority of tradition. If finally, popularity, force, and tradition combine, an authority may be regarded as unshakeable.

Times when a nation is rising are distinguished in fact exist only, by the absolute leadership of the extreme best part.
Times of a normal, even development or of a stable state of affairs are distinguished and exist by the obvious domination of the elements of the middle (class), in which the two extremes mutually balance one another, or cancel one another.
Times when a nation is collapsing are determined by the dominant activity of the worst elements. [Relate this to Germany's downfall in 1945 and what do you see?]

If you want to hold weak, wavering or actually cowardly fellows to their duty, there has at all times been only one possibility: the deserter must know that his desertion brings with it the very thing that he wants to escape. At the front a man can die, as a deserter he must die. Only by such a Draconic threat against any attempt at desertion can a deterring effect be obtained, not only for the individual, but for the whole army.

The lack of a great, creative, renewing idea means at all times a limitation of fighting force. Firm belief in the right to apply even the most brutal weapons is always bound up with the existence of a fanatical faith in the necessity of the victory of a revolutionary new order on this earth.
A movement that is not fighting for such highest aims and ideals will, therefore, never seize upon the ultimate weapon.

In an hour when a national body is visibly collapsing and to all appearances is exposed to the gravest oppression, thanks to the activity of a few scoundrels, obedience and fulfilment of duty towards them amount to doctrinaire formalism, in fact pure insanity, if the refusal of obedience and “fulfilment” of duty would make possible the salvation of a people from its ruin.

State power can only guarantee law and order when the content of the state coincides with the philosophy dominant at that particular time, so that violent elements possess only the character of individual criminal natures, and are not regarded as proponents of an idea in extreme opposition to the state views.

The aim of secret organisations can only be illegal. [And this meant what exactly in relation to the SS, the Gestapo and the SA?]

Anyone who disregards consequences resulting from undeniable facts cannot help but remain behind the times.

It would be absolutely mistaken to regard a wealth of theoretical knowledge as characteristic proof for the qualities and abilities of a leader.

The function of propaganda is to attract supporters, the function of organisation to win members.

A supporter of a movement is one who declares himself to be in agreement with its aims, a member is one who fights for them. [True.]

Being a supporter is rooted only in understanding, membership is the courage personally to advocate and disseminate what has been understood.

Understanding in its passive form corresponds to the majority of mankind which is lazy and cowardly. Membership requires an activistic frame of mind and thus corresponds only to the minority of men. [This makes sense.]

If a man believes he can enter into profitable connections with parasites, he is like a tree trying to conclude for its own profit an agreement with mistletoe.

Considered from the purely military angle, the relations would be simply catastrophic in case of war between Germany and Russia and Western Europe, and probably against all the rest of the world. The struggle would take place, not on Russian, but on German soil, and Germany would not be able to obtain the least effective support from Russia. [Well, take a look at history and what did we learn?]

Peoples are not freed by doing nothing, but by sacrifices. [True.]

Hitler's Mein Kampf