Mein Kampf : The Ford Translation

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mike20202
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Re: Mein Kampf : The Ford Translation

#46

Post by mike20202 » 30 Jul 2010, 01:11

Both of those translation choices(night clubs/Race Watcher) are explained in detail in the MK Translation Controversy ebook and the explanations make good sense to me.

So, are you now saying that anyone who defends the Ford translation is a neo-Nazi?

You say "one right-wing group" yet you failed to mention that recommendation is old and was made long before the Ford translation was released. Is it not possible that they may revise their recommendation if they have not already? You seem to forget Manheim has been published for longer than most readers of this board have been alive, and the Ford translation has been out for literally months, then you slam it for not being on the recommended list of every university and right-wing group? Make up your mind.

Your attack against the Ford translation is the cry of a lone wolf. No one who has read it(as far as I can tell from this board and the amazon comments and based on my own impressions) has had anything bad to say other than the lack of an index and some typos which have apparently been fixed. You keep using the same two examples over and over as "proof" of the translations poor quality but neither of your examples stands up to scrutiny. Ford gave a lengthy explanation of both of these choices and his explanation is good enough for me because he makes sense so do his choices.

I just don't get why you keep attacking the book. You say it is full of errors but you keep harping on the same two which have already been explained and are clearly not errors but translation choices which others, including the profesisonal German translation on amazon accept as at least "valid choices". Then when people disagree with you, you call them neo-Nazis. I just dont get you and I am glad.

bytwerk
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Re: Mein Kampf : The Ford Translation

#47

Post by bytwerk » 30 Jul 2010, 02:00

Read what I write. I never say that anyone who likes Ford's translation is a neo-Nazi. I simply say that some neo-Nazis do like it. Note what you do. You resort to calumny rather than argument or evidence. If you want to accuse me of misdeeds, please cite specific things I've written rather than make things up. And how about letting us know what your qualifications are to evaluate Ford's translation? Can you read German?

And yes, Ford explains both choices. However, no one with scholarly credentials agrees with him. Ford's basic claim is: "Everyone else is wrong, but I'm right." Believe him if you wish.

His book has been out a year. That's long enough for people to evaluate it. On his site, the only person he quotes is one "Francis Hackett," who he claims is "an eleven time author." A search on amazon doesn't help much in finding out about her. If anyone with scholarly standing was impressed with the book, said person would be happy to write a blurb that Ford could cite. You will note that just about any scholarly book has blurbs from recognized scholars on the back of the dust jacket (I've even written a few of those for other scholars myself). It's easy to manipulate amazon. It's harder to manipulate scholarly discussion, where people cannot hide behind anonymity.

So here's my challenge: Find a significant scholar who has published work on Hitler who has said, or is willing to say, that Ford's translation is better than Manheim's.

This discussion got me back to Ford's book justifying his translation, which he keeps correcting as he goes along. The first version translates this passage: "Sang- und klanglos zog Herr Cuno zurück..." as: "While singing and soundless[without a whimper]...." That's a really bad translation, but Ford used it as an example of how much better he was than others.

In the current version, he has "Without a whimper, Herr Cuno...." Now, that's accurate. However, when I first pointed out that error on amazon, he insisted that he was correct. Now he's changed his mind.


js3862
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Re: Mein Kampf : The Ford Translation

#48

Post by js3862 » 30 Jul 2010, 02:08

Heh, well, the nightclub translation does seem a bit silly on its face. Personally I think "club nights" or even "evenings at the club/bar" would be a better translation given they probably weren't listening to swing or jazz music while sitting around talking politics. :-)

On the Völkischer Beobachter translation, I would agree that the statement that all previous translators used a dictionary is just a tad silly. However, I have to admit though that it is a bit confusing, of the online dictionaries I often use none can seem to agree on a definition other than one agreement on "national" and almost all would seem to fit. LEO does also specifically site "racial" and the overall tone I seem to be getting from the dictionaries and google results do point to Völkisch having an ethnic or racial overtone in it's usage as it applied to Nationalistisch Sozialismus. Is there any chance he might have a point that this has just been something overlooked in the past?

Code: Select all

PONS.eu  -  national

Leo.org -   folkish  adj. pol.
   	      racial  adj.  Nationalsozialismus

dict.cc -   national {adj} 	
  	       ethnic {adj} nationalsoz. 	
  	       nationalistic {adj} nationalsoz.
  	       pol. völkisch {adj nationalsoz. 	
One would wonder why neo-Nazis would even care about comments concerning the book. It isn't like there aren't other versions out there, why get upset over someone critiquing one particular version? Oh well, probably as much good trying to figure that out as trying to predict that actions of a crazy person.

mike20202
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Re: Mein Kampf : The Ford Translation

#49

Post by mike20202 » 30 Jul 2010, 02:24

Yet again you fall back on a false argument.

First, no I do not speak German, but I do have common sense and I am very familiar with Mein Kampf. I can also read Ford's explanation about his translation choices and make a rational decision.

In your post you say "I never say that anyone who likes Ford's translation is a neo-Nazi." but that is exactly what you said. Just because you did not use the word "anyone" does not change the insinuation you made. You make a broad claim, then give no facts to back it up. So who are these neo-Nazis and how do you know they are neo-Nazis?

You then make another broad and baseless claim when you say "no one with scholarly credentials agrees with him" so who with schollarly credentials disagrees? You are the only one attacking the book. I have not seen anyone else writing any articles about any problems with it, anyone with schollarly credentials or not. So who are these secret scholars you have in your back pocket? Why can we not talk to them? What are their names? Furthermore, what difference does it make, if Ford's explanation is good and he decided for valid reasons to make a choice that you might not have made, that does not make his choice wrong.

Take your own challenge, find a significant scholar who is against the translation and can give reasons why, not broad, baseless accusations.

Now you are saying the current printing is correct with the "Without a whimper.." quote. So again, my inital post was correct, you are attacking the book because maybe a handful of minor errors crept in, but they were fixed and you cannot list any other so-called errors. Even when they are fixed you keep trying to use them to claim there are errors in the book when they are simply not there and you want people to believe correcting a few errors is somehow sinister. It was the right thing to do and I doubt I could write a book of over 500 pages without a few typos and errors no matter how many times I went through it and to make a translation must be twenty times more difficult. The nature of these few issues you have brought up is also minor. Not one of them alters the meaning of the work, not one. I remind you, that Manheim's translation has been out 60+ years and has lots of errors still in it. Again, my hat is off to Mr. Ford for making updates and corrections, he is obviously serious and has an interest in producing the best translation, an interst not shared by the publishers of Manheim's translation.

I went back and re-read the amazon postings, now I feel even more strongly that Ford's translation is good and your arguments are false. What really put me over was finding out that you sent an email to a bunch of college professors encouraging them to leave false negative feedback on amazon and trying to tie the translation to Holocaust-denail books when it has no connection and I do not think it even mentions the Holocaust(it should not since it was long before that time). That act of dishonesty tells me all I need to know about your argument and your motivations. I was stunned that you even admitted you did it right there on amazon! That combined with the fact that you keep claiming you have a secret list of errors but you cannot list more than the same few over and over(which have all either been corrected or are not errors as previously covered). Nope, it just dont wash with me.


To js3862, review the MK Translation Controversy book, it explains the two translations in detail and expains how the German word Völkischer for national/race/people is used differently just as we use a word to mean different things in English. It is a very long explanation, really long and I was suprised how much time he put into it. It was obvious a great deal of research went into the choice which ford validates well. bytwerk is just trying to confuse the issue and taint the translation by his association with neo-Nazis. It is his attempt at Reductio Ad Hitlerum. Don't trust google translate, it is not that good and only does exactly what Ford warned about, standard word substitution from a German to English dictionary without any consideration for the context or meaning. Re-read his MKTC book about the need for a new translation and he goes into minute detail about the process and shows examples of how past translations translated one sentence while ignoring how it tied into a previous sentence or paragraph thus changing the meaning.

A year(actually less because I doubt it was on amazon the day it was released and do not know how long it takes books to get listed on amazon) is hardly enough time for any honest scholar to post a detailed review of the book. I suspect it will take 3-4 years before it is really studied heavily and those with real credentials weigh in. Most are likely waiting to see what other scholars say before they say anything(typical monkey see monkey do, I'm not going to stick my neck out until someone else does first, type attitudes, hmmmmmm seems like Hitler had something to say about that in MK).

bytwerk
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Re: Mein Kampf : The Ford Translation

#50

Post by bytwerk » 30 Jul 2010, 02:57

As for calumny, I rest my case. Read mike20202's comments and mine, and see I say anything close to what he says I say.

He tells us that he doesn't read German. Well, in that case he has touching faith in Mr. Ford. If you are going to claim that a translation is good, it's probably good either to know German, or to be able to cite competent experts. Note that mike20202 admits between the lines that he can't do that. Unable to do that, he asks me to find scholars who think it's bad. Well, Mr. Ford is the one who claimed that his version was approved by scholars. I'm simply asking him (or mike20202) to do so. Having published three books and several dozen refereed scholarly articles, I have a pretty good sense of how the scholarly community works. Most scholars would take a look at the back of Ford's book, read what he says there, smile, and go on to other things.

As for amazon, Ford had two five-star shill reviews posted on amazon even before the book was published. They''ve since been removed. And as I said, what one does is mail a book manuscript to people, and they can comment. A year after publication, Ford can't cite anyone except the "eleven time author." Scholarly reviews take a year or more to appear, true, but I'll tell you that no scholarly journal is likely to review a self-published translation of "Mein Kampf" by an author who apparently isn't willing to say anything about his credentials.

As for the translation of VB, the first problem, as I said, is that if you want to translate "völkische" the way Ford does, it should be "racial," not "race." That's grammar. The problem is that the word does not translate directly into English, so people have to make a choice. For some reason, Ford is the only person I've ever seen who chooses to use the grammatically incorrect "race watcher." If he'd translated it as "racial observer," he'd at least have some company, but it's still not the one most experts think is the best.

Well, enough. I'm heading off to the Sierra Nevada for a week of backpacking, with no connection to the outside world. When I come back, I'll see if anything has been said that needs a response.
Last edited by bytwerk on 30 Jul 2010, 03:22, edited 2 times in total.

mike20202
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Re: Mein Kampf : The Ford Translation

#51

Post by mike20202 » 30 Jul 2010, 03:05

bytwerk, thank you for confirming everything I have said.

Yet again, you ignore the facts presented and insert your own opinion masquerading as a fact. The race/racial issue was discussed and explained in the MKTC book where Ford explains why he made the choice and to have made the choice you suggest would have been nonsense to any English speaker.

As for the rest of your arguments, they ahve already been discredited, disproven, or corrected, but you keep trying to use the same rhetoric over and over. You would make a great politician, at least during the campaign.

I don't care about convincing you, as long as other people see the truth.

The poster who recommended both the Ford and Manheim translation had the best suggestion and I will also make that recommendation, get both, compare, read the MKTC which is a free pdf from the publisher, and decide for yourself. You can PM me your decision on which is the best if you do not want to post it here. I would be interested in other's thoughts.

js3862
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Re: Mein Kampf : The Ford Translation

#52

Post by js3862 » 30 Jul 2010, 03:13

The statement Ford makes is that völkisch is used interchangeably to mean "folkish", "populist" or "race". Since the German state consisted of "the German race" the use of the word "nation" seems a pretty fair translation for things that were to reference the German people/race. So "nation" or "national" in reference to the perspective of a German in the period we're discussing would seem to reference that which is specifically German.

So, in the context of "National Observer" the racial basis of the word could still reasonably apply.

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KasparHauser
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Re: Mein Kampf : The Ford Translation

#53

Post by KasparHauser » 30 Jul 2010, 07:01

I'm sure you all know what Hitler dictated Mein Kampf to Hess while they were in jail. I read somewhere that Hess made a lot of editorial suggestions and he had a lot to do with the lebensraum idea. Do any of the translations point out which parts of the book were heavily edited or even written by Hess? Or is this forgotten knowledge?

js3862
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Re: Mein Kampf : The Ford Translation

#54

Post by js3862 » 30 Jul 2010, 08:50

I think that was and is only between Hess and Hitler. I have never heard of any joint authorship accredited to Hess in any of the translations.

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Adam Carr
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Re: Mein Kampf : The Ford Translation

#55

Post by Adam Carr » 31 Jul 2010, 06:11

It's a while since I read Peter Padfield's biography of Hess, but I think he makes very extensive claims for Hess's co-authorship of MK. I think his contention is that Hitler did not "dictate" to Hess, as is commonly said, because Hitler was not capable of that kind of sustained disciplined intellectual effort. Instead Hitler would "hold forth" on a subject in his familiar style, while Hess took notes, and Hess would then go away and turn Hitler's ramblings into a typescript, which he would then go through with Hitler and make changes at Hitler's direction. In that case Hess was what would now be called a ghost-writer. From what I've read of Hitler's work habits, I find that a very plausible scenario.

On the translation of Volk and völkisch, mein Deutsch ist noch nicht sehr gut, but I know this is always a difficulty for translators. Sometimes volk means "the people" in a Marxist class sense (Volkspolizei), sometimes it means the whole nation (Volk ans Gewehr!), sometimes it means race in a biological sense (das jüdische Volk). My dictionary (Cassell) translates völkisch as "national, pure German, anti-Semitic". So Völkischer Beobachter could be National Observer, Racial Observer, Racialist Observer or People's Observer, although the last of these sounds too marxian to give the right sense. I've also seen Folkish Observer, but this sounds a bit twee - the English "folk" carries none of the connotations of the German Volk.

js3862
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Re: Mein Kampf : The Ford Translation

#56

Post by js3862 » 31 Jul 2010, 06:59

I have to admit that I do like the Ford translation's in line explanations of certain references and historical notations of who mentioned figures were. Not having an index is really sort of killing it for me though.

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KasparHauser
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Re: Mein Kampf : The Ford Translation

#57

Post by KasparHauser » 01 Aug 2010, 04:55

Adam Carr wrote:It's a while since I read Peter Padfield's biography of Hess, but I think he makes very extensive claims for Hess's co-authorship of MK. I think his contention is that Hitler did not "dictate" to Hess, as is commonly said, because Hitler was not capable of that kind of sustained disciplined intellectual effort. Instead Hitler would "hold forth" on a subject in his familiar style, while Hess took notes, and Hess would then go away and turn Hitler's ramblings into a typescript, which he would then go through with Hitler and make changes at Hitler's direction. In that case Hess was what would now be called a ghost-writer. From what I've read of Hitler's work habits, I find that a very plausible scenario.
Hmm, interesting. I wouldn't have a hard time believing that.

mattjolley
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Re: Mein Kampf : The Ford Translation

#58

Post by mattjolley » 01 Aug 2010, 18:36

A Bit of a sidenote, but has anyone seen the new addition on ford's hitler library site? Seems to be a copy of the original german edition of MK complete with the original style jacket and (supposedly) the blue gilt hardcover. Has anyone seen a copy of this? Would be an interesting purchase and I'd guess a bit cheaper than buying an original copy!

Just joined to add this really, have really enjoyed the discussion thus far, weighing up the pros and cons of Ford and his work. Let's just say, for now, I intend to stick to Manheim's version!

Ideally we need a version translated into english by German scholars. Just my two cents!

mike20202
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Re: Mein Kampf : The Ford Translation

#59

Post by mike20202 » 01 Aug 2010, 20:51

I have the German version you described from the Hitlerlibrary.org site. I don't speak German, not more than a few words, but the book was very appealing to me too. I have seen the originals (originals are too expensive for me to buy one) and it does look just like them except it does not have the swastika eagle on the front of the blue cover, and it has printing on the back and flap of the dustjacket(original had no printing at all on the back or flap which I thought was strange, why would they not put some sales pitch on the back of the original? I guess in Germany they didn't need a sales pitch.). Also, the Ford version has an English introduction page.


A version in English by German scholars? Then we would have another bad translation because German scholars would be German and not know the in's and out's of common American English. They could understand the German but would not understand English well enough to make the meaning clear. I believe this is something Ford got right. Looking through his explanatory notes, he really understood what was being said better than Manheim, or the Reynal Hitchock crew, or even Murphy. Check out the Ford translation, do some comparision, then you can report your findings. If I had "stuck with" the Manheim, I would still be confused about many things in it which were poorly translated by Manheim. Next time you get one of those scam emails offering to transfer a zillion dollars to your bank account, look it over and imagine what a translation by experienced German scholars into English would sound like...about the same I suspect. Just because someone is a scholar does not mean he is a master of all diciplines.

mike20202
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Re: Mein Kampf : The Ford Translation

#60

Post by mike20202 » 18 Aug 2010, 19:24

mike20202 wrote:....other than the lack of an index .
I wanted to correct my previous posting where I complained about the Ford translation not having an index. I sent my list of suggestions to the publisher and they responded to let me know that an index for the Ford translation is available as a digital PDF, it is on the bonus link which is at the end of the book. What an index too, it lists every word I think and is over 140 pages, again very thorough and it will be very helpful to me.

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