Hitler salutes his troops on parade in Berlin in the 1930s

Controversy is raging on both sides of the Atlantic over a British publisher’s plan to reprint Adolf Hitler’s anti-semitic manifesto, Mein Kampf, in German for the first time since the end of the Second World War.

Though there are many translations of Hitler’s book available around the world, and the book is not banned in Germany, as such; reprints have not been allowed in the country since 1945, given the rights to the original are held in Bavaria and the company responsible has refused to release them.

Jewish interest groups and Holocaust survivor organisations on both sides of the Atlantic have damned the planned reprint, claiming it insults the memories of the millions of Jews and non-Jews that perished under Nazi rule, not to mention tarnishes the reputation of modern Germany which has put a lot of effort into distancing itself from such a horrendous episode in its history.

Historians and academics however have welcomed the planned reprint, which will be accompanied by detailed historical commentary and annotations to put Hitler’s crazy into context for scholars and readers alike. Said a German journalism professor who had provided some of the annotation for the reprint:

I think we have a very inhibited approach to this material in Germany. You can read this book around the world – there is even a Hebrew translation in Israel. I think we should present it to as broad an audience as possible because it is the best way to learn what the National Socialists were thinking and what was so attractive about this ideology.

If you didn’t know, Mein Kampf was written by Hitler while he languished in a German jail in the late 1920s, and comes across as part autobiography, part hate-filled polemic, part rambling views on Jews and Communism in Europe at the time. Until 1945, over 10 million copies of his fascist manifesto were printed, and the work was even gifted to newlywed couples by the State after the Nazis came to power.

Says Peter McGee, the British publisher planning the reprint:

Everyone knows (the book) and sees it as a sort of diabolical Nazi Bible, but people haven’t read it and therefore haven’t seen that it is the poor-quality and confused work of a totally twisted mind.

McGee plans to publish a series of annotated excerpts from the book, featuring academic commentary on key passages, before the full edition is released later this year, pending authorisation from the State of Bavaria, of course.

[Source: TIMES Live]