Germany’s Latest Best Seller? A Critical Version of ‘Mein Kampf’; New York Times, 1/3/17

Melissa Eddy, New York Times; Germany’s Latest Best Seller? A Critical Version of ‘Mein Kampf’:

"The decision to bring out a new edition of a work that advocated an Aryan “master race” provoked fierce debate before publication. One side argued the new work was an important step toward illuminating an unsavory era in Germany.

The other insisted it would only encourage nationalists and xenophobes at a time when the country was engulfed in its own debate about refugees and the threat posed by foreigners."

‘Mein Kampf,’ Hitler’s Manifesto, Returns to German Shelves; New York Times, 1/8/16

Melissa Eddy, New York Times; ‘Mein Kampf,’ Hitler’s Manifesto, Returns to German Shelves:

"At a time when nationalist and far-right politics are again ascendant in Europe, a team of German historians presented a new, annotated edition of a symbolic text of that movement on Friday: “Mein Kampf,” by Adolf Hitler.

The Nazi leader’s manifesto, which first appeared as two volumes in 1925 and 1927, was banned in Germany by the Allies in 1945 and has not been officially published in the country since then. A team of scholars and historians spent three years preparing a nearly 2,000-page edition with about 3,500 annotations in anticipation of the expiration on Dec. 31 of a 70-year copyright held by the state of Bavaria.

The effort by the Institute of Contemporary History in Munich to publish the new, critical edition was the subject of debate almost as soon as it was announced, with some seeing it as an important step toward illuminating an unsavory era in Germany, never to be repeated, while others argued that a scholarly edition would gitimize the rantings of a sociopath who led the country down the path of evil."

Scholars Unveil New Edition of Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’; New York Times, 12/1/15

Alison Smale, New York Times; Scholars Unveil New Edition of Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ :

"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. Bavaria had refused to release it. But under German law, its copyright expires Dec. 31, the 70th year after the author’s death.

That allows a team of historians from a noted center for the study of Nazism, the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich, to publish its two-volume, 2,000-page edition, a three-year labor complete with about 3,500 academic annotations.

The intention is to set the work in historical context, to show how Hitler wove truth with half-truth and outright lie, and thus to defang any propagandistic effect while revealing Nazism."