La edición crítica de ‘Mi lucha’ es objeto de deseo en todo el mundo

Una treintena de sellos internacionales, también españoles, tratan de publicar la versión comentada del libro de Hitler, agotado en Alemania. De momento, sólo saldrá en inglés

Luis Doncel
Berlín 26 FEB 2016 - 16:48 BRT

Un ejemplar de la edición crítica de 'Mi lucha', en una librería de Múnich.

El mundo editorial alemán sufrió una pequeña revolución el año pasado. El anuncio de que Mein Kampf (Mi lucha)—el libro maldito que había permanecido durante 70 años fuera del circuito comercial— estaba a punto de ser reeditado generó un apasionado debate. A un lado estaban los que defendían el proyecto de presentar de una forma crítica las tesis que Adolf Hitler comenzó a escribir desde su cautiverio en Múnich en 1924. Al otro lado, los que temían que sirviera de inspiración a los nuevos cachorros de la ultraderecha. La polémica llegó hasta los servicios secretos alemanes, que concluyeron que el interés en los círculos ultras por la obra fundacional del nacionalsocialismo había caído en las últimas décadas.

Lo que nadie podía anticipar era cómo iban a reaccionar los lectores y editoriales internacionales. Pasados casi dos meses de su salida a la venta por 59 euros, se puede decir que los resultados son espectaculares.


No se trata solo de que Hitler, Mein Kampf. Eine kritische Edition se haya encaramado esta semana al segundo puesto en la lista de libros más vendidos de la revista Der Spiegel. El Instituto de Historia Contemporánea de Múnich-Berlín —el centro de investigación responsable de la minuciosa edición con 3.500 notas que explican, matizan o simplemente desmienten las tesis del líder nazi— ha recibido en las últimas semanas una avalancha de peticiones de editoriales internacionales deseosas de publicar la obra en sus países.

Varias españolas lo han intentado también, según confirman a EL PAÍS en el organismo alemán. Pero tras recibir una treintena de peticiones —algunas de países tan lejanos como Corea, China o Japón— el instituto prefiere por ahora permitir tan solo una edición en inglés.

“No podemos asumir el trabajo que supondría asegurar que todas las traducciones se hicieran con nuestros estándares científicos. Cada país, además, tiene sus particularidades. No son las mismas explicaciones necesarias para un lector coreano que para uno europeo, por ejemplo” asegura una portavoz del instituto. Dada la complejidad del proyecto, los historiadores alemanes prefieren centrarse por ahora tan solo en la versión inglesa. No hay nada cerrado aún con las editoriales interesadas, pero los investigadores del instituto creen que el trabajo podría alargarse durante este año; para que la nueva versión llegara al mercado anglosajón en 2017.

El libro del que hasta 1945 se imprimieron 12 millones de ejemplares ha sobrevivido en los últimos años gracias a ediciones antiguas, a Internet o a su sorprendente popularidad en países como India. Es ahora, tras vencer los derechos de autor que estaban en manos del Estado alemán de Baviera, cuando se hace evidente el interés en Europa.

Además del proyecto alemán, la editorial francesa Fayard anunció el año pasado su propia versión de Mi lucha, que, al igual que la del otro lado del Rin, contara con anotaciones que contextualicen un texto que en Francia se publicó en 1934. Esta edición, acompañada por un breve aviso del contenido de las páginas, era la única disponible hasta ahora en el mercado francés.
Perfil del comprador

Al mismo tiempo, muchos se preguntan en Alemania por el éxito del libro que sirvió para prender la llama del odio y la violencia por todo el mundo. Tras subir en las listas de ventas, el mamotreto de 2.000 páginas se ha agotado en todas las tiendas. Pero el perfil del comprador no responde al del simpatizante hitleriano, sino a investigadores o a personas interesadas en la historia, dicen los responsables de la edición. Tras distribuir a las librerías 24.000 ejemplares, ya han encargado nuevas impresiones.

“El gran interés que suscita Mein Kampf está relacionado con su aura de misterio, especialmente después de que Baviera hiciera todo lo posible para evitar su reproducción. Y este gran interés ha hecho que los editores no hagan una obra destinada solo a los especialistas, sino que hayan buscado un público más amplio”, señalaba hace unas semanas a la radio pública alemana el historiador y biógrafo de Hitler Peter Longerich.

Historia de un libro maldito

• El 18 de julio de 1925 se publica el primer volumen de Mi lucha, escrito por Adolf Hitler en la cárcel en Múnich. Un año más tarde aparece el segundo.
• Durante la dictadura nacionalsocialista (1933-1945) se convierte en libro de culto, de estudio en las escuelas y que incluso regalan las administraciones públicas a las parejas de recién casados. Hasta 1945 se llegarán a imprimir 12 millones de ejemplares.
• Tras la derrota alemana y la muerte de Hitler, el Estado de Baviera se queda con los derechos de autor. Pese a que el libro no está oficialmente prohibido, las autoridades no conceden permiso para su publicación, pero es fácil de conseguir en librerías de segunda mano, y más tarde en Internet.
• Los derechos de autor vencen en 2016. El Instituto de Historia Contemporánea de Múnich-Berlín edita una versión crítica, que cuenta con 3.500 notas que contextualizan el texto que sirvió de base ideológica para el nazismo.

Source: El País (Spain)
http://cultura.elpais.com/cultura/2016/02/26/actualidad/1456508623_592314.html

Prohibiciones, vetos, censuras

No hay nada como prohibir un libro para convertirlo en fetiche: miren el éxito de la edición crítica de 'Mein ­Kampf', publicada en enero

Manuel Rodríguez Rivero
24 MAR 2016 - 19:52 BRT

Adolf Hitler revisa una edición de 'Mein Kampf' en una fotografía sin datar. Afp

No hay nada como prohibir un libro para convertirlo en fetiche: ¡la de bodrios del Instituto de Marxismo-Leninismo de la URSS y de malas traducciones de novelas “con sexo” que leyó mi generación, atraída por el veto de la censura franquista y por el misterio de las trastiendas de las librerías más audaces durante el franquismo, imaginadas como auténticas cuevas de Alí Babá repletas de pretendidos tesoros bibliográficos! El amante de Lady Chatterley (D. H. Lawrence) o Sexus (Henry Miller), por ejemplo, dos de las joyas más cotizadas en el apartado de ficción prohibida, no sólo nos abrían los ojos a otras literaturas, sino que realizaban una función consoladora bastante más imaginativa que la que hoy cumplen los videoclips de la exuberante rapera Ni­cki Minaj entre los varones adolescentes con hormonas disparadas. En todo caso, el éxito espectacular de la edición crítica de Mein ­Kampf —2.000 páginas de texto con 3.500 notas que lo contextualizan, discuten o contradicen— confirma, a pesar de su disuasorio precio (59 euros), que su eventual prohibición constituye uno de los más poderosos reclamos de cualquier libro. Desde que se publicó en enero, ya se han vendido decenas de miles de ejemplares de este nuevo y muy rentable best seller (beneficiario del copyright: el land de Baviera), que ha conseguido encaramarse en la lista de más vendidos de Alemania, al tiempo que se multiplican las peticiones para traducirlo (hasta la fecha denegadas, excepto al inglés). Tras 70 años de prohibición, el libro que más difusión ha tenido en la historia de la edición alemana puede volver a leerse. El morbo respecto a la obra “cumbre” de Hitler —una mezcla estúpida y siniestra de autobiografía reinventada, feroz antisemitismo, prejuicios raciales y machistas, delirios imperialistas irredentos y letales mensajes de incitación al odio— tardará en disiparse al menos hasta que Mein Kampf pueda ser leído y discutido abiertamente por las generaciones posteriores a la guerra y el Holocausto. Hasta entonces, las ediciones primitivas seguirán alcanzando precios fabulosos, como esos 20.655 euros obtenidos recientemente por un ejemplar encuadernado que perteneció a su autor (es decir, que fue tocado por Hitler). En todo caso, las nuevas camadas de nazis, grupos afines y movimientos antimigrantes y antirrefugiados (como los cada día más rampantes Pegida o Alternativa por Alemania) no han necesitado leerlo para trufar de odio su discurso xenófobo. Mi lucha, la historia del libro que marcó el siglo XX, de Sven Felix Kellerhoff, publicado por Crítica, es el mejor y más asequible vademécum para entender los orígenes, la historia editorial y la difusión del libro, así como una buena introducción a la mediocre inteligencia de quien lo imaginó y escribió. Si se desea leer un complemento de ficción al libro de Kellerhoff, puede recurrirse a Su lucha (editorial Adriana Hidalgo), primera novela del argentino Patricio Lenard, de reciente distribución en España. Utilizando el viejo artificio narrativo del “manuscrito encontrado”, Lenard transcribe el imaginario diario de Rudolf Hess, confinado en la cárcel de Landsberg con Hitler, para ofrecer una perspectiva inédita de las relaciones entre el futuro Führer y su fanático discípulo durante el periodo en que, entre los dos, fueron componiendo el maldito libro maldito.

Clandestino

De entre las obras prohibidas adquiridas en las trastiendas de las librerías, todavía conservo la Historia de España del estupendo periodista socialista Antonio Ramos Oliveira (1907-1973). Comenzado en Londres, donde ARM permaneció exiliado hasta 1950 tras haber trabajado durante la Guerra Civil como agregado de prensa en la embajada dirigida por Pablo de Azcárate, el libro —tres pequeños pero compactos volúmenes en tapa dura de color rojo— fue publicado en México en 1952 por la Compañía General de Ediciones. Visto con perspectiva, no se trataba de un trabajo historiográfico excepcional (se basaba sobre todo en fuentes secundarias y carecía de aparato bibliográfico), pero constituía una tentativa honesta, desde una perspectiva socialista, de contar el devenir peninsular desde la prehistoria al desastre de 1939. Y para muchos de nosotros fue, junto con la brevísima Histoire de l’Espagne (1947), de Pierre Vilar (1906-2003), una herramienta para contrarrestar, aunque fuese débilmente, el relato de la peripecia histórica española que contaban la mayoría de los manuales y que enseñaban algunos profesores aún firmemente anclados en el nacionalcatolicismo (recuerdo, por ejemplo, que Vicente Palacio Atard, también preceptor real, dedicó media docena de clases universitarias a contar a sus adormecidos alumnos los entresijos del Manifiesto de los Persas —1814—, probablemente porque viera en aquel reaccionario apoyo al regreso del absolutismo un posible modelo para combatir la temida evolución “liberal” del régimen de Franco). La historia de Ramos Oliveira dedicaba amplio espacio a las estructuras económicas y sociales y a la descripción de los diversos nacionalismos españoles. Y, aunque sólo sea porque fue en su libro donde leí por vez primera (y completos) la Constitución de 1931 y los Estatutos de Cataluña y el País Vasco, le sigo estando agradecido. He pensado estos días en ARM a propósito de su libro Controversia sobre España (Renacimiento; prólogo de Ángel Viñas), que reúne, además de una interesante y breve correspondencia con el director del ultraconservador The Morning Post —hostil a la República, como buena parte de la prensa británica de la época—, otros dos escritos de tono pedagógico acerca de asuntos españoles, que fueron escritos durante su etapa de agregado en la embajada del Gobierno de la República en Londres. Me ha parecido particularmente interesante el dedicado a demostrar al —en general— pacato y escasamente solidario público inglés de clase media que no todos los católicos españoles iban tras el Caudillo botafumeiro en ristre.

Nuevos

Pasan volando mis sillones de orejas sin tiempo para ocuparme de tantas cosas. Por ejemplo, de que siguen surgiendo, inasequibles al desánimo digital y corsario, pequeñas editoriales independientes. De entre las últimas selecciono dos dignas de tener en cuenta. Arpa es la última (por ahora) aventura de Joaquim Palau (antes en RBA —allí llegó a mandar mucho—, y aún antes en Planeta, Destino, Edicions 62 y qué se yo dónde más) y de su hijo Álvaro: explican que su sello se especializa en “humanidades, ciencias sociales, y pensamiento crítico”. De su catálogo me fijo particularmente en De cómo tratar con las personas, de Adolph Freiherr Knigge, una especie de manual de filosofía moral orientada a la vida social que tuvo enorme influencia en Europa Central durante el Siglo de las Luces. Más nueva aún es Ultramarinos, otro sello barcelonés, dirigida por Julia Echevarría y Unai Velasco, que se inicia con sendas atractivas recuperaciones poéticas, Los eróticos y otros poemas (1976), del mexicano Efraín Huerta (1914-1982), y Mi más hermoso texto, de Alberto Cardín (1948-1992), que recoge los poemarios compuestos entre 1977 y 1982 por el ya casi olvidado antropólogo, escritor y feroz polemista y provocador que brilló fugazmente en la vida cultural barcelonesa durante la Transición. Qué tiempos.

Adolf Hitler Editoriales Escritores Periodismo Nazismo Sector editorial Ultraderecha Segunda Guerra Mundial Libros Literatura Historia contemporánea Guerra Ideologías Gente Medios comunicación Conflictos Historia Cultura Comunicación Política Sociedad

Source: El País (Spain)
http://cultura.elpais.com/cultura/2016/03/24/babelia/1458818554_641918.html?id_externo_rsoc=TW_CC

Hitler, Mein Kampf. A critical edition

From the satirical weekly Simplicissimus,
31st August 1925 (in Bavarian dialect):
"The booklet costs twelve Marks? A
little expensive, neighbour...You
don't have any matches by chance?"

On 31 December 2015, 70 years after Hitler’s death, the copyright will expire on his book Mein Kampf. Immediately after that expiration date, the Institute for Contemporary History intends to present to the public an annotated critical edition of this work.

Central in critical commentary are the deconstruction and contextualisation of Hitler’s book. How did his theses arise? What aims was he pursuing in writing Mein Kampf? What social support did Hitler’s assertions have among his contemporaries? What consequences did his claims and asseverations have after 1933? And in particular: given the present state of knowledge, what can we counterpose to Hitler’s innumerable assertions, lies and expressions of intent?

This is not only a task for historiography. In the view of the powerful symbolic value still attached to Hitler’s book, the task of demystifying Mein Kampf is also a contribution to historical information and political education.

What is Mein Kampf?

Mein Kampf is Hitler’s most important programmatic text. He composed it between 1924 and 1926 in two volumes. In a strongly stylized form, Volume 1 centres on Hitler’s biography and the early history of the Nazi party (NSDAP) and its predecessor organization, the German Workers’ Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, DAP). Volume 2 mainly deals with the political programme of the National Socialists. Large sections of Volume 1 were written during Hitler’s incarceration in Landsberg am Lech subsequent to his abortive coup attempt in November 1923. Its failure, his imprisonment and the prohibition of the NSDAP interrupted Hitler’s political career. He utilised this time in order to weld everything that he had previously experienced, read and thought into an ideology in written form, and to develop a new perspective and strategy for his now outlawed party. After his release from prison, Hitler wrote much of the second volume at his mountain retreat in Obersalzberg. Once Hitler was installed as Reich Chancellor in January 1933, sales of the book skyrocketed, and it became a bestseller. Down to 1945, it was translated into 18 languages and 12 million copies were sold.

After Hitler’s suicide and the collapse of the Nazi regime in 1945, the victorious Allied powers transferred the rights to Hitler’s book to the Free State of Bavaria. The Bavarian state government then repeatedly employed the copyright in its possession to prevent any new printing of the work. But with the expiration of the copyright 70 years after Hitler’s death, effective 1 January 2016, this legal instrument is no longer available.

Why a critical scholarly edition?

Mein Kampf is one of the central source documents of National Socialism. Writing in 1981, the historian Eberhard Jäckel stressed its importance and impact: ‘Perhaps never in history did a ruler write down before he came to power what he was to do afterwards as precisely as Adolf Hitler. For that reason alone, the document deserves attention. Otherwise the early notes and accounts, speeches and books that Hitler wrote would at best be solely of biographical interest. It is only their translation into reality that raises them to the level of a historical source’.

Hitler’s politics, the war and crimes he initiated, changed the world completely. It was for that reason that all extant texts he authored – his speeches, his early notes and observations, his conversations with diplomats, his ‘monologues’ in the Führer Headquarters, his instructions for the conduct of the war and finally likewise his last will and testament − were published long ago. By contrast, we still have no scholarly edited critical version of the most extensive of Hitler’s writings, and also to a certain extent his most personal. Since the war’s end, Mein Kampf has only been published in extracts in Germany – a gap that has long been considered a desideratum in research on National Socialism.

The aim of this edition is thus to present Mein Kampf as a salient source document for contemporary history, to describe the context of the genesis of Hitler’s worldview, to reveal his predecessors in thought and mentality as well to contrast his ideas and assertions with the findings of modern research.

In preparing scholarly editions of National Socialist texts, the Institute for Contemporary History can point to a varied and wide-ranging expertise: for example, the collection of Hitlers Reden, Schriften, Anordnungen 1925-1933 (Hitler’s Speeches, Writings and Directives, 1925-1933), published between 1991 and 1998/2003, encompasses 12 volumes. In 1961, the Institute for Contemporary History also published Hitler’s Zweites Buch (Second Book). In the 1990s the Institute brought out the diaries of Joseph Goebbels and recently published the diaries of the NSDAP ‘chief ideologue’, Alfred Rosenberg. For that reason, it is only consistent if now the Institute also takes up this challenge of a critical edition of Mein Kampf, dealing with a textual source that certainly does not present itself like other historical documents. Rather, what is necessary, along with sober and precise scholarly expertise, is a critical encounter with Hitler’s text, in sum: an edition with a point of view.

A contribution to political education

Preparing scientific commentary on Mein Kampf is not only a scholarly task. There is hardly any book that is more overladen with such a multitude of myths, that awakens such disgust and anxiety, that ignites curiosity and stirs speculation, while simultaneously exuding an aura of the mysterious and forbidden – a taboo that can prove for some commercially lucrative.

Consequently, this critical edition of Mein Kampf also views itself as a contribution to historical-political information and education. It seeks to thoroughly deconstruct Hitler's propaganda in a lasting manner and thus to undermine the still effective symbolic power of the book. In this way, it also makes it possible to counter an ideological-propagandistic and commercial misuse of Mein Kampf.

After all, despite all the debates about republication, Hitler’s book has long been accessible in a variety of ways: on the shelves of used book shops, in legally printed English translation or a mouse click away on the Internet – Mein Kampf is out there and every year manages to find new readers, agitators and commercial profiteers.

For that reason as well, the task of a annotated critical edition is to render the debate objective and to put forward a serious alternative, a counter-text to the uncritical and unfiltered dissemination of Hitler’s propaganda, lies, half-truths and vicious tirades. The scholarly edition prepared by the Institute for Contemporary History is oriented to political education, and thus consciously seeks in form and style to reach a broad readership. By means of a kind of ‘framing’ of the original text in the form of an introduction and detailed commentary, a subtext to Mein Kampf is constructed. Through these annotations, it quickly becomes clear how Hitler’s ideology arose, just how selective and distorted his perception of reality was, and and it becomes possible to show the link between its formulation in Mein Kampf and the political practice and its terrible consequences after 1933.

How do the editors work?

Nazi period advertisment: "The
Book of the Germans. Adolf Hitler:
Mein Kampf. Eher Verlag [Eher
Publishing]. Distribution 4 million"

Two historians, under the direction of Christian Hartmann, are currently at work in the Institute for Contemporary History on the critical edition of Mein Kampf. They are structuring the original text by providing explanatory introductions to each individual chapter; through more than 3,500 annotations, they address a broad spectrum of variegated tasks by providing:

1. Objective information on persons and events described
2. Clarification of central ideological concepts
3. Disclosure of the source materials Hitler utilised
4. Explanation of the roots of various concepts in the history of ideas
5. Contextualisation of aspects contemporaneous to the text
6. Correction of errors and one-sided accounts
7. Development of a perspective on the consequences of Hitler’s book
8. New contributions in relevant fundamental research

Unusually in the context of an edition of a book, the editorial team is also examining the period after 1933, thus comparing Hitler’s programmatic ideas with his political actions in the time period 1933-1945.

The core editorial team, which in the peak phase of its work on the edition consisted of five historians, is further supported by experts from a number of other scientific fields in order to better evaluate Hitler’s myriad assertions in the light of the findings of modern research. To that end, external interdisciplinary advisors have also been consulted from a range of scholarly disciplines, including German Studies, human genetics, Japanology, Jewish Studies, art history, the educational sciences and economic history.

The team at the Institute for Contemporary History also encompasses special editorial staff for copy-editing and manuscript preparation, indexing and the precise textual comparison of seven select printings of Mein Kampf, along with a number of student assistants. Besides, the team is additionally able to benefit significantly from the broad professional infrastructure of the entire Institute for Contemporary History, with its many staff members specialized in research on the period of National Socialism, and its wealth of relevant library and archival resources.

In order to retain all areas of copyright, and also to counter possible commercial utilisation of this sensitive topic, Hitler, Mein Kampf – eine kritische Edition is to be self-published directly by the Institute for Contemporary History. The scheduled date of publication will be immediately after expiration of the original copyright in January 2016.

Current information on the debate regarding the publication of Mein Kampf can be found here:

Mein Kampf in public discussion

Hitler, Mein Kampf. A Critical Edition - in German

Direct acquisition and pre-orders

BUGRIM Verlagsauslieferung
Saalburgstr. 3
12099 Berlin
GERMANY

Tel.: 0049-30-606 84 57
Fax: 0049-30-606 34 76

E-Mail: bugrim[at]bugrim.de
Download an information leaflet on the edition (in German).

ed. on behalf of the Institute for Contemporary History
Munich – Berlin by Christian Hartmann, Thomas Vordermayer, Othmar Plöckinger, Roman Töppel
with contributions by Edith Raim, Pascal Trees, Angelika Reizle, Martina Seewald-Mooser

Munich 2016
ISBN 978-3-9814052-3-1

approx. 2000 pages, with coloured illustrations, bound, cloth, without dust jacket
59,- Euro (D)

Publication date:
Available in bookstores as of January 2016

Press enquiries:

Simone Paulmichl
Head of Press & Public Relations
paulmichl[at]ifz-muenchen.de

Source: Institut für Zeitgeschichte website
http://www.ifz-muenchen.de/?id=550

Who’s Afraid of Mein Kampf?

A copy of Adolf Hitler's book Mein Kampf from 1940 in Berlin, Germany
Fabrizio Bensch / Reuters

As Hitler's infamous book enters the public domain, its history shows that censorship can't stop dangerous ideas.

Steven Luckert Dec 31, 2015 Global

Adolf Hitler’s notorious book is about to get a new lease on life. The copyright for Mein Kampf, which has been held for 70 years by the government of the German state of Bavaria, expires at midnight on December 31, 2015. From that moment on, any publisher interested in reprinting the Nazi leader’s virulently anti-Semitic, racist tome will be free to do so.

That realization has spawned understandable fears, especially in Germany itself, where the work has been banned since the author’s death. But in January it will be republished in the country for the first time since World War II ended, albeit in heavily annotated form. Some worry that Mein Kampf will once again be a bestseller in the lands where the Holocaust occurred, a symbolic posthumous victory for its author. At a time when anti-Semitism, racism, and xenophobia are on the rise in Europe, its republication could foment ethnic and religious hatred. The growth of militant populist right-wing parties throughout Europe, including in Germany, shows that such fears have a basis in fact.
Related Story

Understanding Hitler’s Anti-Semitism

But the history of the book, and of Hitler’s words more generally, demonstrates that there’s no clear-cut relationship between banning speech and halting the spread of ideas. The Nazi party grew despite Germany’s early efforts to curb Hitler’s speech; by the same token, today, his ideas are repudiated around the world despite being more widely accessible than ever before. The story is instructive as Europe and the United States continue to grapple with the question of how to combat newer extremist ideologies.

This is not the first time that Hitler’s words have generated public concern. Following his conviction for high treason in 1924, various German state governments barred the Nazi leader from public speaking for several years. It was during this low time in his political career that he penned Mein Kampf. The overpriced book was not an immediate bestseller; its sales dramatically increased only when the Nazi Party rose from insignificance to political prominence after 1930. By the end of 1932, close to 230,000 copies had been sold.

The Great Depression created a conducive environment for Nazi messaging. Millions of Germans cast their votes for the extremist movement, but the vast majority of them had neither read Mein Kampf nor subscribed to a Nazi newspaper. The Nazis reached huge audiences with much more appealing propaganda. Hitler the orator influenced far greater numbers than Hitler the writer. It was only after he came to power in 1933 that Mein Kampf became a staple on German bookshelves. Thereafter, Germany rapidly became a closed marketplace of ideas, where censorship and book banning ruled and anti-Semitism and racism were unassailable tenets of the new regime.

Today, Mein Kampf is available in more languages and countries than it was during the Nazi era. With only a few keystrokes one can download a copy, in any one of a variety of languages, off the Internet for free. Neo-Nazis—or ISIS fanatics, or any other extremists—haven’t had to wait until 2016 to get the text, and legal prohibitions haven’t stopped anyone from obtaining or disseminating it: If people want it, they already have it.

Moreover, the Bavarian government’s record of enforcing copyright has been spotty at best, and not due to a lack of effort. In countries where its legal authority was recognized, republication of Mein Kampf was denied. Yet in the Middle East, and even in some European countries, some publishers just thumbed their noses at German copyright law.

In the United States, Mein Kampf has never been prohibited, though some Jewish organizations opposed the sale of the book in 1933, at a time when populist demagogues were spreading their vitriolic anti-Semitism. Mein Kampf was not even banned when the United States went to war against Nazi Germany. In fact, the book’s U.S. publisher, Houghton Mifflin, urged Americans to study Mein Kampf as part of their patriotic responsibilities, and advertised it in The New York Times Book Review in 1944.

U.S. agencies analyzed the book to understand what made Hitler tick and how to best reform German society after the war. Members of the American public, too, tried to better understand the nature of the enemy by perusing Mein Kampf. In early 1939, just months before war broke out in Europe, an unabridged, critical, annotated English edition appeared in American bookshops. Libraries acquired multiple copies of Mein Kampf to feed the demand, and GIs slogged through it on military bases. Its availability did nothing to change American public opinion in favor of Nazi Germany.
The death and destruction caused by the Nazi regime did more to discredit Mein Kampf than any ban.

However, in postwar Germany, the Allies, including the United States, took a hard line on Mein Kampf. They banned the book and made its dissemination a criminal offense. At the Yalta Conference in February 1945, Soviet, British, and American leaders had pledged “to destroy German militarism and Nazism and to ensure that Germany will never again be able to disturb the peace of the world.” To this end, Allied occupation forces dissolved and prohibited the Nazi Party and affiliated organizations and revoked Nazi laws. They also ordered the removal of all Nazi and militarist propaganda from German public life.

As part of this policy, American authorities in Germany pulped tons of Nazi literature, including Mein Kampf, to print new textbooks, newspapers, and other materials. In October 1945, American military officials staged an impressive ceremony before newsreel cameras in which the lead type used to print Mein Kampf was melted down to produce page plates for the first postwar German newspaper in the U.S. zone.

By March 1947, the cleansing of Nazi literature from German public life was so successful that Library of Congress staff complained that—despite the millions of copies of Mein Kampf that had been printed by the Nazis—they couldn’t find 150 copies for transport to American universities.

The thoroughness of the Allied purge of Hitler’s words reflects just how dangerous occupation authorities thought they were in postwar Germany. Prosecutors at the Nuremberg trials cited Hitler’s magnum opus as evidence that Germany’s leaders had conspired to commit crimes against humanity. Major F. Elwyn Jones, junior counsel for the United Kingdom, described Hitler’s book as key to understanding the Nazis’ plans for genocide: “From Mein Kampf the way leads directly to the furnaces of Auschwitz and the gas chambers of Maidanek.[sic].”

But Germany today is a very different place, and so is the world. The death and destruction caused by the Nazi regime did more to discredit Mein Kampf than any ban. In seven decades of democracy, Germans have been exposed to both Hitler’s words and Hitler’s crimes in films, print, and school. Neither the release of his unpublished second book in 1961, nor that of a mammoth edition of his collected speeches in the 1990s, triggered a major resurgence of Nazism in Germany or elsewhere.

Given Germany’s past, and the critical role the ideology expressed in Mein Kampf played in the Nazi destruction of European Jewry, vigilance is entirely appropriate. Understandably, some Holocaust survivors and organizations, such as the World Jewish Congress, have called for a continued ban on republishing the book. Germany’s Central Council of Jews has taken a different position, arguing that although the lapse of Mein Kampf ‘s copyright represents a potential danger, knowledge of the text is essential for understanding the Holocaust and National Socialism, and that the organization would not oppose the publication of the new critical, annotated edition published by Munich’s respected Institute of Contemporary History.

Sensitive to these concerns, German authorities have taken precautions to mitigate the threat when Mein Kampf’s copyright expires. Several German state officials have indicated that they will prohibit any editions designed to incite racial, ethnic, or religious hatred under the nation’s strict laws on dangerous speech.
With the rapid expansion of the Internet, it is nearly impossible to suppress the spread of ideas, both good and bad.

Other German representatives believe that using selected excerpts from the critical edition of Mein Kampf will help to immunize young people from extremism. Josef Kraus, the longtime president of Germany’s teachers’ association, has pointed out that keeping silent or banning the book could have more dangerous consequences than publishing it. In today’s environment, it is better to discuss Mein Kampf openly and critically in the classroom than to have curious students seek it out on the Internet, where teachers will have no chance of influencing them.

The public debate about Mein Kampf raises a much broader question on how best to confront dangerous propaganda in today’s constantly changing information environment. With the rapid expansion of the Internet, and social media in particular, it is nearly impossible to fully suppress the spread of ideas, both good and bad. ISIS, for example, has repeatedly displayed its ability to disseminate its pernicious messages globally, even when governments or media providers take down the group’s videos or tweets. Tech-savvy extremists know how to navigate the deep labyrinths of the web to find new venues from which to transmit hate. Finding appropriate ways of addressing this problem is now the world’s collective challenge. Censorship is too feeble a weapon to defeat dangerous speech.

Source: The Atlantic
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/12/mein-kampf-copyright-expiration/422364/

How a new edition of 'Mein Kampf' hopes to debunk Hitler's lies

A mesh of "half-truth and outright lie" in Adolph Hitler's memoir-manifesto, "Mein Kampf," prompted scholars to spend three years completing a new edition chock-full of fact-check annotations, according to The New York Times.

That's to "defang any propagandistic effect while revealing Nazism," Alison Smale wrote for The Times. The work's copyright expires Dec. 31, which made the academics' efforts possible.

The Times noted why the release of the edition, which includes 2,000 pages and 3,500 academic annotations, wasn't possible until now.

"Not since 1945, when the Allies banned the dubious work and awarded the rights to the state of Bavaria, has Hitler's manifesto, 'Mein Kampf,' been officially published in German," The Times reported. "Bavaria had refused to release it. But under German law, its copyright expires Dec. 31, the 70th year after the author's death."

This time around, the work will "dismantle the core doctrines" Hitler deployed to justify the Holocaust, Marie Solis wrote for Mic.

The bottom line: "Scholars want to disrupt a narrative of hate," according to Mic.

Still, some argue in regards to whether reprinting such a controversial text is a good idea.

Svati Kirsten Narula wrote for Quartz many scholars and librarians view "Mein Kampf" — translated in English to "My Struggle" — as a "toxic and dangerous text."

And German authorities refused to allow reprintings of the book in fear it would incite hatred, according to BBC News. Because of that, officials indicated they'll limit the public's access to the new "Mein Kampf" edition "amid fears that this could stir neo-Nazi sentiment."

However, Caroline Mortimer wrote for The Independent that the team of academics said a scholarly version to refute Hitler's lies is an appropriate way to reprint the book.

Christian Hartmann, lead of the team, told David Charter for The Times they created a "very reader-friendly edition."

"We firmly connect Hitler's text with our comments, so that both are always on the same double page. I could describe it in martial terms as a battle of annihilation — we are encircling Hitler with our annotations," Hartmann said, according to The Times. "Our principal was that there should be no page with Hitler's text without critical annotations. Hitler is being interrupted, he is being criticised, he is being refuted if necessary."

According to The Independent, many Jewish leaders remain opposed to the reprint.

"I am absolutely against the publication of 'Mein Kampf,' even with annotations," The Independent quoted Levi Salomon, spokesman for the Jewish Forum for Democracy and Against Anti-Semitism, as saying. "Can you annotate the Devil? Can you annotate a person like Hitler? This book is outside of human logic."

Mic reported the edition will cost $63 and hits bookstore shelves in January.

Payton Davis is the Deseret News National intern. Send him an email at pdavis@deseretdigital.com and follow him on Twitter, @Davis_DNN.

Source: Deseret News National
http://national.deseretnews.com/article/6921/How-a-new-edition-of-Mein-Kampf-hopes-to-debunk-Hitlers-lies.html