The Zweites Buch (German, "Second Book") is an unedited transcript of Adolf Hitler's thoughts on foreign policy written in 1928; it was written after Mein Kampf and was not published in his lifetime.

The arrangement of chapters is as follows:

After the Nazi Party's poor showing in the 1928 elections, Hitler decided that the public did not fully understand his ideas. He retired to Munich and began dictating a sequel to Mein Kampf focusing on foreign policy, expanding on that book's ideas.

The origins of Zweites Buch can be traced back to one of the main issues during the 1928 Reichstag elections, the condition of ethnic Germans in Italy.

In the area of South Tyrol, the Southern part of the former Austrian County of Tyrol which had become part of Italy after World War I, but possessed a German-speaking majority, Benito Mussolini's Fascist government had followed a policy of forcible Italianization of the German-speaking majority, a policy widely opposed in Germany. During the 1928 Reichstag elections, the leader of the German People's Party—Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann—felt that taking a strong diplomatic stand against the Italianization policies of Fascist Italy might improve his party's chances at the polls. Indeed, every German political party—except the Nazi Party—followed Stresemann's lead and vied with each other to offer the strongest possible condemnation of Mussolini's treatment of Italy's German minority.

Franz Schmidt (22 December 1874 – 11 February 1939) was an Austrian composer, cellist and pianist of Hungarian descent and origin.

Schmidt was born in Pozsony (known in German as Pressburg), in the Hungarian part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (the city is now Bratislava, capital of Slovakia). His father was half Hungarian and his mother entirely Hungarian. He was a Roman Catholic.

His earliest teacher was his mother, Mária Ravasz, an accomplished pianist, who gave him a systematic instruction in the keyboard works of J. S. Bach. He received a thorough foundation in theory from Brother Felizian Moczik, the outstanding organist at the Franciscan church in Pressburg. He studied piano briefly with Theodor Leschetizky, with whom he clashed. He moved to Vienna with his family in 1888, and studied at the Vienna Conservatory (composition with Robert Fuchs, cello with Ferdinand Hellmesberger and theory (the counterpoint class) with Anton Bruckner), graduating "with excellence" in 1896.

He beat 13 other applicants and obtained a post as cellist with the Vienna Court Opera Orchestra, where he played until 1914, often under Gustav Mahler. Mahler habitually had Schmidt play all the cello solos, even though Friedrich Buxbaum was the principal cellist. Schmidt was also in demand as a chamber musician. Schmidt and Arnold Schoenberg maintained cordial relations despite their vast differences in style. Also a brilliant pianist, in 1914 Schmidt took up a professorship in piano at the Vienna Conservatory, which had been recently renamed Imperial Academy of Music and the Performing Arts. (Apparently, when asked who the greatest living pianist was, Leopold Godowsky replied, "The other one is Franz Schmidt.") In 1925 he became Director of the Academy, and from 1927 to 1931 its Rector.