Print and be damned Germany debates Hitler’s book

With only two months to go before the copyright of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf expires, debate is raging over whether the anti-Semitic manifesto should again be published in Germany, where all reprints have been halted since the defeat of the Nazis.

Authorities in the southern Bavaria region were handed the copyright by Allied forces after World War II. For seven decades, they have refused to allow it to be republished out of respect for victims of the Nazis and to prevent incitement of hatred.

But as Mein Kampf — whose title means “My Struggle” — falls into the public domain on January 1, differences have emerged over how it should be treated in future.

Some scholars want reprints of the original text to be allowed, saying they would serve to demystify the notorious 800-page document.

Others, including Jewish groups, want to maintain the ban, likening reprints to opening Pandora’s box.

Historians at the Institute of Contemporary History of Munich (IFZ), meanwhile, have gone for the middle-ground — producing an annotated version of the two-volume tome to be made available in bookstores in January.

This IFZ version — which has been in the works since 2009 and runs to 2,000 pages with the added commentary — would be the first print version of the original text here since 1945.

But it will also “deconstruct and put into context Hitler’s writing”, the institute wrote. The book, to retail at 59 euros ($65), will look at: “How were his theses conceived What objectives did he have And most important: Which counterarguments do we have given our knowledge today of the countless claims, lies and assertions of Hitler ”

Charlotte Knobloch, who is president of the Jewish community in Munich and Upper Bavaria, said however that even the annotated version carried certain risks as it “contains the original text” which “should itself not be printed”. Hitler’s “book is dangerous. It is a Pandora’s box. One does not know what’s going on within the reader’s mind,” she warned. “It is the ideological basis of the mass, industrial extermination of the Jewish people.”

“It paved the way for the Holocaust. Of course it is in the interest of right-wing militants and Islamists to spread these ideas,” said Ms Knobloch.

Partly autobiographical, Mein Kampf outlines Hitler’s ideology that formed the basis for Nazism. He wrote it in 1924 while he was imprisoned in Bavaria after a failed coup.

Some 12.4 million copies were published in Germany until 1945, and the sale, purchase and possession of the book is today not banned in Germany.