Mein Kampf Allowed in Germany?

According to MSNBC, historians in Germany are hoping to reprint Hitler's "Mein Kampf," My Struggle in English. Although it is available throughout the world, including on the Internet and at Pelham Public Library in Canada, this memoir has been banned from being republished in Germany since the end of WWII. Possession of the book is not illegal but the purchase of old copies is carefully regulated, limiting the sales except for research purposes.

The copyright will run out in 2015. Presently a government body holds the right to the memoir but once the copyright runs out, the door will be open for anyone to republish it, including neo-Nazi groups. Historians want to publish an authoritative annotated edition to thwart these groups from appropriating and glamorizing this infamous work.

According to the article, "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."

The Bavarain Finance Ministry which had opposed a similar proposal two years ago believes it can keep the publication of "Mein Kampf" banned under laws against incitement to hatred beyond 2015.

The issues to balance out are respect for Jewish victims of Hitler's regime vs. the opportunity to demystify the work. Some concerns have been raised about who will annotate the volume and whether this is really necessary.



It is time once more for our Banned Book Challenge. Choose a goal for the number of challenged or banned books you can read between Feb. and June. Let us know about your goal on our form, so we can keep track. Not sure what to read? Check out our suggested reading and the many links on the right side bar.

Anniversary of Nazi Book Burnings

Where they have burned books, they will end in burning humans.

— German Poet Heinrich Heine, 1820

The TribStar of Terre Haute, Indiana features Bruce's History Lessons which is about the Nazi book burnings. On May 10, 1933, the Nazi party in Germany held a nation-wide bonfire during which 25,000 books went up in flames. Anything considered "un-German in spirit" that did not line up with Germany's political and social goals was censored. The German Student Association developed an “Action Against the Un-German Spirit” campaign that saw student members of the Nazi Party participating in town by town book burnings. Censorship eventually began to be applied to more than books and included “un-German” music, paintings, photographs, plays, films, newspapers and magazines. were banned or censored, and then religious groups, cultural institutions and political parties.

As Bruce Kaufmann puts it so eloquently,

And finally, as Heinrich Heine predicted a century earlier, Jews and other “un-German” people (gypsies, Slavs, the mentally and physically handicapped) were themselves banned, censored, and — in the crematoriums at Auschwitz, Dachau and elsewhere — burned.

Don't forget to check out the Pelham Public Library's "Banned Book Challenge."

New Question: Should Hate Literature Be Banned?

A number of democratic countries, including Austria, France, Germany, and Canada, have criminalized various forms of "hate speech", including books judged to disparage minority groups. Should hate literature be banned? How would you define hate literature?

Case in point: In the 1980s, Ernst Zündel was convicted twice under Canada's "false news" laws for publishing Did Six Million Really Die?, a 1974 book denying the Holocaust. On appeal, the Canadian Supreme Court found the "false news" law unconstitutional in 1992, but Zündel is now being prosecuted under Canada's "Human Rights Act" for publishing this book and other material on his Zundelsite. Even so, Deborah Lipstadt and some other prominent critics of Holocaust deniers have gone on record as opposing laws that would censor such speech. (On the other hand, Zündel is quite happy to call for bans for works he doesn't like, though, as seen in this leaflet calling for a ban of Schindler's List. And denier David Irving's attempt to stop publication of Lipstadt's book on Holocaust denial, as seen in the complaint reproduced on Irving's web site, failed when a UK court ruled that Lipstadt's statements about Irving were, in fact, justified.)

See alsobanned book article.