Hitler’s Mein Kampf to be republished in Germany

Mein Kampf, in which Adolf Hitler set out the anti-Semitic and racist ideology behind his Nazi regime, is to be published in Germany next month for the first time since the end of the second world war, The Financial Times reports.

Publication of a scholarly version of the book, with the original text accompanied by voluminous academic notes, has been mostly welcomed by historians, although Jewish opinion has been divided.

German justice ministers have pledged to ensure that general public access to the text remains limited for fear of stirring neo-Nazi sentiment.

Aware of the sensitivities involved, the Institute of Contemporary History in Munich, which will publish the new edition, insisted it was bringing out an “academic work” far removed from any “irresponsible” uncritical publications that are widely available in second-hand bookshops.

“I think our edition is there to challenge these editions,” Andreas Wirsching, the institute’s director, said on Tuesday. Up to 4,000 copies of the new 2,000 page version will be printed, complete with more than
3,500 academic notes.

Thomas Kruger president of the government’s Centre for Political Education, welcomed the publication of critical editions of Mein Kampf, saying in a press interview that it was important to break “the Mein Kampf taboo”.

He argued that objects which were not easily available generated “the desire to possess what is apparently forbidden”.

Mein Kampf, written before Hitler came to power in 1933, was a best-seller in the Nazi era, with more than 12m copies in circulation.

Recognising the book’s central role in Nazi propaganda, the Allied occupying powers had the copyright transferred in 1946 to the Bavarian regional government. It then used its copyright powers to keep the work out of the hands of would-be publishers — although, unlike the swastika and other Nazi symbols, the book was never banned.

As under German law copyright lasts for 70 years, publishers will from January 2016 have free access to Hitler’s original text. Aware the end of the copyright was looming, German justice officials last year agreed to prevent any “uncritical publicising” of Hitler’s work by means of anti-incitement laws.

The Central Council of Jews in Germany, the country’s leading Jewish organisation, did not return a call for comment. However, its website carries differing views on Mein Kampf.

In 2008 Stephan Kramer, general secretary at the time, welcomed plans for an academic edition. Four year later Dieter Graumann, the group’s then president, was less sympathetic.

“I can really and completely renounce the publication of this crazy book, which is soaked through and through with anti-Semitism and hate,” Mr Graumann wrote. “[But] if anybody has to read this book at all then it is better to do so in the framework of parallel critical commentary [of the kind the historical institute will publish].”