1938 – FIRST EDITION – THE NAZI PRIMER – TRANSLATED BY HARWOOD L. CHILDS

1938 – FIRST EDITION – THE NAZI PRIMER – TRANSLATED BY HARWOOD L. CHILDS

“OFFICIAL HANDBOOK FOR SCHOOLING THE HITLER YOUTH” – translated from the Original German with a Preface by Harwood L. Childs; with a commentary by William E. Dodd.

Harper & Brothers Publishers, New York, 1938 on title page, 1938 on copyright page with bottom two lines 8/8 and G-N — Per publisher’s statement in Zemple, G-N indicates printing in July 1938. Further in that statement, not all instances is First Edition printed, but usually later editions do have a statement of edition. On the rear pastedown in small handwriting is 10/30/38 Exeter, NH, indicating someone purchased this copy at that time. On the verso of the front free endpaper there is a bookplate, and on the front free endpaper a school library stamp at the bottom, and “German History” at the top. Extremely faint are call numbers in white at the top of the spine.

A book review in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency – August 16, 1938, is titled — Nazi Primer Published Here in English Translation

Americans were given an opportunity today of reading the type of literature that is fed Germany’s 7,000,000 young when Harper and Bros. published an English translation of “The Handbook of the Hitler Youth” under the title “The Nazi Primer.”

The book, translated by Prof. Harwood L. Childs of the Princeton politics department and with a preface by former Ambassador to Germany William E. Dodd, teaches German boys and girls from 14 to 18 Nazi ideas on race, history and national ambitions. As summarized by Dr. Dodd, it instructs the youth in “how sacred was their Aryan race, how great their ancestors had been and how much of Europe properly belonged to the Fuehrer and his followers.”

Three days later, on August 19, 1938, the Detroit Jewish News carried a much longer review of the book. These early reviews further show the July printing to be the first.