Mein Kampf Returns to Print in Germany
Via the BBC: Mein Kampf: Bavaria plans first German publication since WWII
The German state of Bavaria is preparing to publish Hitler’s manifesto, Mein Kampf, in 2015, before the book’s copyright expires.
The book is not banned by law in Germany, but Bavaria has used ownership of the copyright to prevent publication of German editions since 1945.
Copyright restrictions stop at the end of 2015, 70 years after Hitler’s death.
The Bavarian government says it is preparing an edition for students which will include a critical commentary.
[…]
It has not appeared in German since the end of World War II but until 1945 around 10 million copies were sold. The book is available in translation and on the internet.
When I saw the headline the last thing that I thought was going on was that this was in response to an expiring copyright! I was thinking either neo-Nazis or, maybe, just that German society had moved beyond worrying about this aspect of their past.
In parting:
The BBC’s Stephen Evans in Berlin says that many readers, not least the Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, have found the book boring.
I have read excerpts. There isn’t much with which I am likely to agree with Mussolini, but on this point, I concur.
I always preferred his treatise on living room furniture:
http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/0/9857/362193-mein_chair.jpg
10 million sold, and 9,999,999 people never read it.
There are many things hidden in boring, little books, written in plain words of sincerity, that would cause us to go ashen if we considered them seriously.
It’s boring kind of like the Communist Manifesto is boring: nothing really happens, the climax is an anticlimax, and the whole thing feels like it has too many loose ends for proper resolution. Then someone takes it seriously and suddenly Russia’s drawing out of World War I and before you know it some dude named Trotsky gets it in Mexico City.
I haven’t read it yet so no spoilers please.
Hitler writes about as well as Ayn Rand. Terribly.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant, yadda,yadda, yadda. It wouldn’t matter if there weren’t so many damn neo-nazis sculking around. Maybe this is why so many of us get upset at elements of the ring wing. They make us read crap like Hitler and Rand in order to understand what they’re thinking.
@michael reynolds:
It turns out the Jewish Butler did it.
@Fog:
Claiming the right supports hitler is just as ridiculous as people on the right who claim the left is all marxists.