Ben Wilson

He doesn't believe in cruelty to animals.

He reads voraciously military history, philosophy, American history.

He develops the plan that frankly he will successfully carry out over the coming few years.

You know, sometimes you hear about like Bill Gates takes his think week

Again, you know, all right, comparing Bill Gates and Adolf Hitler.

All right.

But Bill Gates takes his think week, right?

Which is, he takes a week every year where he says, you know, I can't just be a worker all the time.

I need time to step back and take a broader view of what I'm trying to accomplish.

And so for just a week, he reads, he thinks very deeply, and he takes that bigger perspective.

Well, you know, Hitler has sort of a 13-month enforced think week when he can get a broader perspective and some outcomes of that thinking.

One is that before the putsch, Hitler had imagined Lutendorf as the figurehead of the

When he actually tried to throw a revolution, that is what he tried to do, bringing Lutendorf as the famous national figure who everyone could follow.

Well, now he starts to believe that he has the potential to actually be the man, to be the leader for Germany.

The historian Ian Kershaw writes that, quote, by the date of his release from Landsberg on December 20th, 1924, the basis for his later incontestable position as leader had been laid.

all right so he's made that that switch to being the leader of the movement also as previously mentioned he has categorically and permanently abandoned the path of violent revolution all right he now sees clearly that he wants to come to power legally not so much that he wants to come to power legally but

The most viable path for him to come to power is legally, is through the pre-existing system.

Now, the other big thing he does in Landsberg prison is he starts writing a book.

He called it at first, quote, four and a half years of struggle against lies, stupidity, and cowardice.

His publisher and friend, Max Amann, convinced him to change the title to something more marketable.