Krebs: Seine Ursachen und sichere Verhütung [PRESENTATION COPY TO ADOLF HITLER FROM ITS JEWISH AUTHOR] by BARKER, J. Ellis - 1925

Dresden: Emil Pahl, 1925. First German edition. 8vo.; brown paper over brown cloth boards, 304 pp. With Adolf Hitler's bookplate to front pastedown, at the bottom of which a previous owner has inexplicably penciled "Cristallnacht [sic], 9 Nov 1938." INSCRIBED by the author on the ffep, "Dem Führer in Verehrung / vom Verfasser das deutsch Ausgabe (roughly: "The Führer in admiration / from the author of this German edition"). Some minor fraying to cloth at joints; browning to cheap paper, a VG+ copy. A baker's dozen of this edition located in WorldCat (12 in German institutions). An outwardly unremarkable title from Adolf Hitler's personal library, but one actually teeming with significance and interesting historical connections. The title is the sole German edition of J. Ellis Barker's Cancer: How It Is Caused, How It Can Be Cured (1924), a homeopathic lay approach to the disease, which was mostly panned by the medical establishment. But homeopathy was one aspect of the German Lebensreform ("life reform") movement, which had become popular in Germany by 1900, and therefore Barker's book would have likely met with more acceptance there. As detailed in Robert Proctor's The Nazi War on Cancer, German scientists and doctors were influenced by the Lebensreform movement, and "...Nazi health activists may well have developed the most aggressive and successful cancer prevention program of the era." Hitler, whose prodigious library contained a section on health and nutrition, likely welcomed Barker's gift, although there's no textual evidence that he read or was influenced by it. He was certainly unaware that J[ames] Ellis Barker (1870-1948) was born Otto Julius Eltzbacher, a German Jew who emigrated to Britain where he became a prominent historian and outspoken critic of Germany (his brother, Paul Eltzbacher, was the noted anarchist historian). He published numerous books on international affairs and was part of a coterie of British imperialist academics, even Anglicizing his name after WWI allegedly due to widespread German prejudice. As an outspoken critic of German militarism and a Jew, why Barker would send his book with a venerating inscription to Adolf Hitler remains a fascinating mystery. It was after the war that the newly re-christened Barker became interested in homeopathy and came under the tutelage of the prominent British doctor and homeopath, Dr. John Henrik Clarke - who was also a virulent anti-Semite. But the evangelistic mission of spreading the merits of homeopathy somehow united the Jewish Marxist and British anti-Semite and Clarke passed on editorship of "The Homeopathic World" to Barker in 1931. Barker restyled the magazine "Heal Thyself" and greatly increased its readership, publishing books on the subject up to his death in 1948. Lastly, this copy was owned by the irascible American diplomat, Malcolm Toon (1916-2009), who was ambassador to Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Israel and the Soviet Union. Laid in is a typed letter on Allied Control Authority letterhead announcing Toon's temporary appointment as Acting Chief of the United States Element, Allied Liaison and Protocol in Berlin, which might explain when he acquired the book. So although books from Hitler's library do emerge occasionally, this fascinating and unique presentation copy connecting Adolf Hitler, a German Jewish academic-turned-homeopath, an anti-Semitic British doctor and a well-regarded American diplomat transforms what would otherwise be a staid title into an absorbing artifact of diametrically conflicting relationships.