Mein Kampf Makes Comeback in Germany

[Liam]

Historians lobby for right to reprint Adolf Hitler's infamous memoir

BERLIN - Publish Hitler's infamous memoir "Mein Kampf" in Germany? It sounds like the ultimate taboo.

But a group of German historians is lobbying to do just that, arguing that it's necessary to get an authoritative annotated edition ready for bookshops by the time the copyright runs out in 2015, opening the way for neo-Nazi groups to publish their own versions.

The memoir has been under a de facto publishing ban in Germany since the end of World War II, with the government body that holds the rights refusing to let anybody print it.

Bavaria's Finance Ministry has rejected proposals by Munich's Institute for Contemporary History to publish the tome, but there has been growing support for the idea. This week, the state's science minister emerged as an energetic backer of printing a critical edition.

"Once Bavaria's copyright expires, there is the danger of charlatans and neo-Nazis appropriating this infamous book for themselves," Wolfgang Heubisch said Thursday.

Edith Raim, a historian at the Munich institute, envisions a thorough, academic presentation that places Hitler's work in historical context. She says that would be the best defense against those who might want to use the book to advance racist or anti-Semitic agendas.

Raim noted that "if someone really wants to get a copy of the book, then he can do so anyway, for example over the Internet."



Bavarian copyright

Though widely available in the English-speaking world, the book has never been reprinted in Germany since World War II. While possession is not illegal, resale of old copies is tightly regulated, essentially limited to research purposes.

But German copyright law dictates that any author's work enters the public domain 70 years after his or her death. In Hitler's case, that is just over five years away: the Nazi dictator killed himself in his Berlin bunker on April 30, 1945.

After World War II, the Allies agreed to hand the rights to "Mein Kampf" over to the Bavarian state government.

The Munich historians tried to initiate a similar project two years ago, but the Bavarian Finance Ministry was categorically opposed.

While its position may be softening somewhat, it still isn't keen and says it hopes publication of "Mein Kampf" can be prevented beyond 2015 under laws against incitement to hatred. It argues that holding back the book is matter of respect for the victims of the Holocaust.



'A chance to demystify'

The president of Germany's Central Council of Jews, Holocaust survivor Charlotte Knobloch, opposes publishing the book — but her organization's general secretary takes the opposite view.

"I'd rather see the book with commentary than printed in a normal version," Stephan Kramer told The Associated Press.

"I understand the survivors, but the publication is going to come anyway," Kramer said. "So we should use this opportunity."

"It also represents a chance to demystify 'Mein Kampf,'" he added. The vast majority of Germans are sufficiently educated and responsible to read it and draw their own conclusions, he said. "The longer it remains forbidden, the more attractive it becomes."

Raim and Kramer were both skeptical that a court would forbid the book's publication after 2015, as that might constitute a breach of freedom of expression.

A similar case involving the reprint of some Nazi-era newspapers in Germany by London-based publisher Albertas Limited went through several layers of jurisdiction before a court last year essentially ruled against efforts by the Finance Ministry — which held the rights to these documents as well — to keep the infamous documents off the shelves.

Historian Raim also points out that diaries by prominent Nazis like Joseph Goebbels and Heinrich Himmler are already available in Germany.



1930s best-seller

Hitler wrote the 700-page book — its English translation is "My Struggle" — after he was jailed in the aftermath of the failed Beer Hall Putsch of 1923.

After the Nazis rose to power in the 1930s, the book became a best-seller. Copies of it were given free to every German soldier and newlywed couple.

The book is widely available around the world in translations including English, Arabic, Russian and Japanese; Bavaria has sought to block it from publication and sale in some countries.

Bavaria successfully defended its copyright in recent court proceedings in Poland, the Finance Ministry said. Another trial in the Czech Republic is about to start, it said.

Last year a Spanish translation — "Mi Lucha" — appeared in Apple's online store as an audio book. Apple removed it immediately after learning about the Bavarian copyright, the ministry said in a statement.

In other countries, however, the Finance Ministry couldn't hinder the book's publication due to different copyright legislation. A special case involves the U.S. and Britain, where the copyright had already been sold during Hitler's lifetime.

Hitler's ?Mein Kampf? makes comeback - Europe- msnbc.com




L.

[Eric]

So, Liam, what are your personal views on all this?

[Liam]

Originally Posted by Eric

So, Liam, what are your personal views on all this?

Well, living thousands of miles away, I'm sure I don't care, . If neo-Nazism is making a comeback, you guys should be concerned more, I think. (Eric, Mirabell, Clarissa, etc).

But generally speaking, I'm against banning books of any kind.



L.

[Mirabell]

I was always puzzled by the fear of having that book around.

It's so so so dull and stupid. He may have been a gifted orator, but as a writer he was about as seductive as liam is heterosexual.

and nobody, by the way, takes ms. knobloch seriously, no-one.


but really, why would anyone consider that book dangerous material? It's like saying that Michael Cunningham isn't a hack. Both self-evidently wrong.


And a historisch-kritische ausgabe is an excellent idea.

[Liam]

Originally Posted by Mirabell

It's like saying that Michael Cunningham isn't a hack.

What're'you driving at there, Ruff-Hausen???


L.

[Loki]

I can't see the point of banning this book. I mean, is a piece of histroy as long as I see it; and as Stephan Kramer has said in the article people are aware of what happened and are educated enough to draw their own conclusions.
I believe it would be an interesting book to read, no matter how bad-written it may be.
I might have misunderstood something but that's my thought.

[hdw]

Originally Posted by Loki

I can't see the point of banning this book. I mean, is a piece of histroy as long as I see it; and as Stephan Kramer has said in the article people are aware of what happened and are educated enough to draw their own conclusions.
I believe it would be an interesting book to read, no matter how bad-written it may be.
I might have misunderstood something but that's my thought.

Yes, of course, Hitler was one of the major players in recent history and the cause of a huge amount of grief in the world and it's important to try to understand what motivated him, if only to try and head off somebody like him in the future. Careful reading of Mein Kampf is surely essential for this. Sure, some far-right dickheads might buy the book and drool over it, but are you going to ban de Sade's Justine or Nabokov's Lolita because some inadequate character is going to buy them and read them solely for ... ahem ... self-gratification?

When I was a boy I used to spend hours up in the attic of my grandmother's house in a Scottish fishing-village. Nothing had ever been thrown away, and there were packing cases full of old newspapers and postcards from relatives overseas.

There were also two part-works: books which were issued in weekly or monthly magazine parts, and when you had the whole set you got them bound. One was an illustrated history of the First World War, in 52 parts, and the other was Mein Kampf. When my granny died and the house was sold I was allowed to take anything I wanted, and I chose my fisherman grandfather's binoculars, and those part-works.

I have often wondered who in the family subscribed to Mein Kampf. I don't think my grandfather was much of a reader, and like most of the fisherfolk he was a Liberal in politics, even to the extent of calling his boat the W.E. Gladstone. But my dad was the youngest of 10 children, and I think one of his older brothers probably had enough curiosity about the political issues of the day to try and find out what this madman in Germany was all about. Four of my dad's brothers were in the Royal Navy in WWI, and thoughtful people in the 30s were apprehensive about the whole tragedy happening all over again.

Harry

[Eric]

I think they should bind "Mein Kampf" and "The Communist Manifesto" in one volume and include a series of essays comparing and contrasting Nazism and Communism, e.g. the GULag versus the Nazi death camps, propaganda & censorship, infiltration & subversion, systems of policing open or secret, race, sexuality, and especially the hypocricy and subterfuge of the "racially pure" Nazi leaders who were for family values, and the "proletarian" Communist leaders with their secret shops and holiday homes on the Black Sea. Both systems were monstrous. How Europe, continent of culture and civilisation, fell for these two systems I still do not understand.

It seems completely foolish nowadays to deprive Germans of the chance to read what the Austrian madman and mass murderer they invited into their midst thought, as well as did.

Harry, while I can see sickoes entertained in pubic wise to the rhythms of "Justine" or "Lolita", I cannot visualise anyone tossing their caber over a copy of "Mein Kampf"...

[Loki]

Originally Posted by Eric

I think they should bind "Mein Kampf" and "The Communist Manifesto" in one volume and include a series of essays comparing and contrasting Nazism and Communism, e.g. the GULag versus the Nazi death camps, propaganda & censorship, infiltration & subversion, systems of policing open or secret, race, sexuality, and especially the hypocricy and subterfuge of the "racially pure" Nazi leaders who were for family values, and the "proletarian" Communist leaders with their secret shops and holiday homes on the Black Sea. Both systems were monstrous. How Europe, continent of culture and civilisation, fell for these two systems I still do not understand.

That would be a great idea, but they should be careful and really objective about what they write. Too often I read in books that communism was not so negative, that it was not evil, and it seems as if Communist didn't kill so many people, while probably Communism caused more deaths than Nazism.
Some time ago I remember that the Chinese President (correct me if Im' wrong) denied the existence of internment camps in China.
What's more, I can't make out why we have the Communist Party but we cannot have a Fascist Party: now, I'm not pro-fascism, but why is there a Party pro-communism, when everybody should know how many people were killed by communism.

[Eric]

I personally am an anti-Communist. When I was in my twenties, many years ago, I thought Communism was a great idea. Well, it still is a great idea, but it doesn't take into account human nature (or the sinfulness of mankind, as Christians would say).

It is most interesting that spin, lies, and disinformation over the past decades have meant that an intrinsically anti-German, anti-Semitic country has used the theories of a cerebral German Jewish bourgeois author who sat in a foreign library half of his life and was subsidised to write his stuff by a factory owner who liked champagne and clubs. I'm talking, of course of Russia, Karl Marx and London, Friedrich Engels and Manchester. False consciousness, and all that, to use Communist jargon.

But a further tragedy is that now that Communism is no longer wholly acceptable in Russia, they still use the tune of the old Soviet national anthem, and many people fall for the propaganda spiel that Stalin was really the Father of the Motherland. Stalin, like Hitler, was a foreign import from a smaller country, a man maybe filled with an obsession to dominate the huge country he had now moved to.

Actually, in Britain we have parties that are a little bit fascist (e.g. the BNP), as do many West European countries. If you banned those parties, they would smoulder underground and occasionally cause damage when they got mass votes during, for instance, a recession. That's how Adolf & Co managed to take over Germany in the 1930s. If fascist parties, run by half-educated nutters, are allowed some free rein, they will remain small and laughed at. But there comes a point, when anti-democrats become strong, that they must be stopped. In a democracy, we rely on wise leaders to know when to allow and when to ban.

Hitler was quite openly anti-Semitic in "Mein Kampf". It is about time that Germans read this for themselves in their own language. There should also be far more anti-democratic texts by Stalin, Lenin, and others published in Russian in Russia to show what these men really thought and did. Communism is full of little secret groups of élite people who think they are better than everyone else. They plot to take over from the middle-classes. Actually, most Communist theorists were disgruntled members of those same middle-classes, luring the workers with their theories.

[Eric]

How many people here have actually read, browsed in, or otherwise made their acquaintance with "Mein Kampf"? Ditto, the "Communist Manifesto" and "Mao's Little Red Book"? All seminal texts in their own way.

[Mirabell]

Originally Posted by Eric

How many people here have actually read, browsed in, or otherwise made their acquaintance with "Mein Kampf"? Ditto, the "Communist Manifesto" and "Mao's Little Red Book"? All seminal texts in their own way.

Read two out of the three. Twice, both of them. Didn't read Mao's book, but I did read the Bible, in three different translations, Goebbels' diaries in part (I see where you take your cue. Well done) and Lenin's "What is to be done" (in German). I actually own a digital edition of the collected works of Marx and I own three beautiful volumes of Lenin's work. I have also read the Qur'an (ages ago), I have read some buddhistic texts. I have read no Confucian text, nor anything Shinto. I would be happy for recommendations.

[Eric]

You win, Mirabell. You've read more than the rest of us (Mao's book is only soundbites for the faithful). Now tell us what you think. A Shigekuni-style comparison of The Koran, The Bible, and the Communist texts would be appreciated.

[Mirabell]

Originally Posted by Eric

You win, Mirabell. You've read more than the rest of us (Mao's book is only soundbites for the faithful). Now tell us what you think. A Shigekuni-style comparison of The Koran, The Bible, and the Communist texts would be appreciated.

You do the comparison of apples and oranges. have fun.

[Eric]

Let's forget the oranges, Mirabell. The important thing is, do you personally think that reading "Mein Kampf" (which I presume you've done) will urge people of a weak mentality and neo-Nazi urges to apply the ideas, in the same way as Communist tracts could do to gullible middle-class youth of a spoilt nature?

People don't usually hide behind quips (long one; ten words this time) unless they genuinely have no opinions of their own. As Shigekuni has opinions, it is tiresome that his twin brother hides his.

[miercuri]

Originally Posted by Liam

Well, living thousands of miles away, I'm sure I don't care, . If neo-Nazism is making a comeback, you guys should be concerned more, I think. (Eric, Mirabell, Clarissa, etc).

I am afraid it has increased in popularity in the past few years, at least in Hungary. I was talking to one of my friends who is Romanian but lives and works in Budapest and she is very concerned about the upcoming elections in Hungary. The governing party at the moment is of centre-left orientation and has become highly unpopular as the country's economy was affected by the crisis. At the same time the centre-right opposition has grown very nationalistic and xenophobic and another radical party, "The Movement for a Better Hungary" is sporting nationalistic and anti-semitic views out in the open and more and more young people are joining.

Originally Posted by Liam

But generally speaking, I'm against banning books of any kind.

I do agree with you on this one, at least in theory, it should be so.

[Mirabell]

Originally Posted by Eric

Let's forget the oranges, Mirabell. The important thing is, do you personally think that reading "Mein Kampf" (which I presume you've done) will urge people of a weak mentality and neo-Nazi urges to apply the ideas, in the same way as Communist tracts could do to gullible middle-class youth of a spoilt nature?

People don't usually hide behind quips (long one; ten words this time) unless they genuinely have no opinions of their own. As Shigekuni has opinions, it is tiresome that his twin brother hides his.

I recommend reading my opinions in the same fucking thread.
From 06-Feb-2010 02:10