World Jewish News

Bavaria will not reprint Hitler’s’ Mein Kampf’ in 2014

Bavaria has decided to scrap its plans to publish a reprint of Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" with critical commentary when its legal power to ban the book expires next year.
The German state owns the book’s copyright because Hitler was officially a resident of Munich. It has banned any republication.
Austrian-born Hitler wrote the autobiographical "Mein Kampf" (My Struggle) in prison after his failed Munich coup. Responsible for the Holocaust, the extermination of six million European Jews by the Nazis, Hitler was chancellor from 1933 until he committed suicide in 1945 at the end of WWII.
As copyright expires at the end of 2015, 70 years after the author's death, Bavaria had planned to then publish a new edition with critical commentary from the Munich-based Institute for Contemporary History (IfZ).
"Many conversations with Holocaust victims and their families have shown us that any sort of reprint of the disgraceful writings would cause enormous pain," said Bvaria’s Science Minister Ludwig Spaenle.
The minister said the "seditious" book must stay off the market and warned that any publishers who print it will face criminal charges - a move that was praised by Jewish groups.
He said Bavaria would ask the new German government to help it find a solution to the looming expiration of the copyright.
The former head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Charlotte Knobloch, said that she backed efforts to stop any reprints of a book that was "steeped in hatred and contempt for humanity".
She said the text was "one of the most inflammatory works ever written in this country" and - even though it is available abroad - in Germany it "must never be legally allowed to sneak back into the hands and minds of the people".

by: Maureen Shamee

EJP