The ‘Mein Kampf Ramp’: Emily Overend Lorimer and Hitler Translations in Britain
Royal Holloway, University of London
D.Stone{at}rhul.ac.uk
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Abstract |
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In the 1930s, the translation of Hitler's Mein Kampf into English caused considerable consternation. Many feared that both the first, abridged version and the later, unabridged translation were bowdlerized and deliberately downplayed Hitler's aggressive foreign policy intentions. Much has been written about the controversies that surrounded the publication of the key text of Nazism, but the contribution of Emily Lorimer to these debates has until now been overlooked. Lorimer's book, What Hitler Wants (January 1939), her correspondence and her work as a translator and political analyst provide rich insights into the way in which Nazism was understood in Britain. Lorimer's argument that Mein Kampf should be taken seriously is presented here not in order to defend a naïve intentionalism, but in order to bring some nuance to the stereotype that Britons were unable or unwilling to consider the claim that the Nazis meant what they said. This study in historical translation studies and history of ideas shows how the case of one book, albeit an unusually important one, highlights issues of appeasement and its opponents, the press, the government and the ‘reading public’, and the development of anti-fascism in Britain.
Keywords: Hitler, Mein Kampf, Lorimer, translation, appeasement, Britain