Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf to be published again in Germany?
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After being banned in Germany since the end of the Second World War, the general secretary of the Central Council of Jews in Germany has called for an annotated version of Mein Kampf (My Combat) to be re-authorised in order to combat Neo-Nazism.
General Secretary Stephan Kramer had already called for the books’s reintroduction in June 2008, but those calls, like many others made since the end of WWII, were met with stiff resistance and a refusal.
Mein Kampf is only allowed to be reproduced in Germany for educational and research reasons. All reproductions are heavily censored and annotated. It is illegal to procure a copy of the book in any other way.
Kramer not only recommends lifting the ban on Mein Kampf, but he has also expressed the willingness of the Central Council of Jews in Germany to contribute to the editing and annotating of the text.
His calls, made on the German ZDF television station, may well be met with a more favourable response this time as he now has the support of Wolfgang Heubische, Science and Research Minister in the German state of Bavaria. Heubische said “There is a good chance that charlatans and Neo-Nazis will get a hold of this detestable book when Bavaria no longer has any rights over it. So I am of the opinion that a well-studied and documented edition should be prepared.”
Baveria is where Mein Kampf was written and the state currently holds the book’s copyright. Those rights will expire in 2015, 70 years after Hitler’s death.
Kramer also said that the book should be available online, adding “I think it makes sense and it is important to publish an edition of Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ with an academic commentary. An academic and historically critical edition needs to be prepared today, to prevent Neo-Nazis profiting from it.”
Hitler wrote Mein Kampf, in which he laid out the fundamental basis of Nazi philosophy, whilst in prison in Landsberg in 1924.
He had been charged with treason and jailed for his role in the ‘Beer Hall Putsch,’ a failed coup attempt to overthrow the German government.
(Photo: WikiCommons)
