Letter Baring Hitler's Jewish Hatred Goes on Display

A Jewish "hate letter" written by Adolf Hitler will go on public display for the first time ever in a Los Angeles museum. The four-page typed letter, written years before Hitler came to power and believed to be his first significant writing about Jews, expresses his disdain for Jews and warns of the "uncompromising removal of the Jews altogether," reports the Los Angeles Times. Such a goal can only be accomplished, he writes, "under a government of National strength and never under a government of National impotence."

"What began as a private letter, one man's opinion, 22 years later became the 'Magna Carta' of an entire nation and led to the nearly total extinction of the Jewish people," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which acquired the letter last spring. "This is an important lesson for future generations: Demagogues mean what they say and given the opportunity, carry out what they promise." The letter goes on permanent display beginning today at the Museum of Tolerance. (More Adolf Hitler stories.)