[RAUSCHNING’S ANTI-NAZI BOOK IN CROATIAN / NY IMPRINT BY A JEWISH EMIGREE] Moji povjerljivi razgovori [i.e., My confidential conversations]

RAUSCHNING, H[ERMANN] [ADOLF REINHOLD] (1887-1982)

The Europa-Verlag, New York, 1940.

Original yellowish wrappers. Cr. 8vo. (20 x 12,5 cm). In Croatian. [4], 146 p. Wear on lower spine, owner’s name(?) on the blank last page. Otherwise, a good/very good copy.

First and only Bosnian or/and any Yugoslavian language edition, of Rauschning’s book titled “Gespräche mit Hitler”, known also as “Conversations with Hitler", “Voice of Destruction” in America, and “Hitler Speaks” in the UK.

This scarce earliest Bosnian edition printed in New York includes Rauschning's meetings and conversations with Adolf Hitler which he claimed to have had many. Rauschning was an adherent of the Conservative Revolution movement who briefly joined the Nazi movement before breaking with it. He was the President of the Senate (head of government and chief of state) of the Free City of Danzig from 1933 to 1934. In 1934, he renounced Nazi Party membership and in 1936 emigrated from Germany. He eventually settled in the United States and began openly denouncing Nazism.

Between 1938 and 1942, he wrote many works in German on the problem of the Nazis that were translated into several languages, including English. His "Gespräche mit Hitler" [i.e., Conversations with Hitler] was a huge bestseller but its credibility would later be severely criticized, and it now has no standing as an accurate document on Hitler for historians. However, as anti-Nazi propaganda, it was taken seriously by the Nazi regime. At the beginning of the war, the French dropped leaflets on the Western Front containing excerpts from Rauschning's writings but with little response. Rauschning's ideas of conservative Christian resistance to Hitler met with increasing skepticism and were of no interest to Winston Churchill and his doctrine of uncompromising total war.

Rauschning's writings that were translated into English deal with Nazism, the conservative revolutionaries' relation to it, and their role and responsibility for Hitler gaining power. By conservative revolution, Rauschning meant "the prewar monarchic-Christian revolt against modernity that made a devil's pact with Hitler during the Weimar period." His success with the publication of his "Die Revolution des Nihilismus book" [i.e., The Revolution of Nihilism] in early 1938 made Rauschning financially able to pursue his German edition of "Gespräche mit Hitler" [i..e., Conversations with Hitler] and the other early versions and translations in 1939 and 1940.

In 1941, Rauschning moved to the United States, becoming an American citizen in 1942 and purchasing a farm near Portland, Oregon, where he died in 1982. He remained politically active after the war and opposed the policies of Konrad Adenauer. (Wikipedia).

ON THE PUBLISHER: Friedrich Krause was a Jewish emigree who fled to Austria in 1933 where he became co-owner of the Europa-Verlag. He came to New York City in 1938 as manager of the New York branch of the Oprecht Verlag. After a short time, he founded the Friedrich Krause Verlag in New York after he arrived in 1938. He also operated a large import business, becoming one of the largest importers and distributors of German-language books.

As of January 2024, the OCLC (252893332) shows only two copies: National Library Information System of Slovenia & Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. Not in the North American libraries.