July 5, 2012 10:48 am
Germans un-Kampf-ortable With Reissue of Hitler’s Tome
Dust jacket of the book Mein Kampf, written by Adolf Hitler. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Starting in 2015, Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf will once again be available to German readers. Banned from publication in the country at the end of World War II, the two volume text will go back on the market when the copyright—held by the Bavarian state government—expires.
Hitler’s text has always been available to German audiences, through the internet and second-hand booksellers. Owning the book is completely legal, as is using it for educational purposes. But, as one would expect, tensions remain high at the thought of new copies arriving on the market. Historians, political scientists, and other groups around the world are divided on if the book should be printed at all, and if so, in what form.
According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, the government has plans to issue annotated versions of the text, with that work being handled by the Institute of Contemporary History, in Munich, Germany.
“Mein Kampf is like a rusty old grenade. We want to remove its detonator,” explains Christian Hartmann, who leads the Munich team. “We intend to defuse the book. This way it will lose its symbolic value and become what it really is: a piece of historical evidence—nothing more.”
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Revisiting The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
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The thing is unreadable and what made it go was Hitler’s speaking skills, not the text. Also the combustible mix of the corruption and ethical collapse of Willhamine and Weimar Germany is no longer there.
What will interesting is how the social democrats and the Green parties play down the similarities between their programs and Hitler’s.
If they do re issue it and have it on library shelves, it will only gather dust and cobwebs because it is so stupid. there is no reason to fear it. It is, however, very important to understand what made the man himself so successful.
Comment by Steven — July 7, 2012 @ 4:11 pm
I disagree Steven. There is much to fear from this text being re-issued, although the historical value can’t be denied. The ideas within those pages are what fueled the Holocaust. The enduring danger of those ideas should not be forgotten.
Comment by Jim — January 27, 2013 @ 5:37 pm