Volume 1 of Mein Kampf was published in 1925 and volume 2 in 1926.
Lift ban on Hitler's 'Mein Kampf', say historians
By
Harry de Quetteville 25/04/2008
Historians in Germany are demanding that the country's ban on publishing Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' be lifted, to prevent it becoming a new propaganda tool for modern extremists. Publication of the two volume treatise, which Hitler dictated in the 1920s, has long been outlawed in Germany. But anyone will be able to issue an edition in 2015, when copyright lapses 70 years after Hitler's death. Before then, researchers at Munich's Institute for Contemporary History are determined to release a scholarly, annotated version of the book. They hope the new edition will help demystify and debunk Hitler's book, which lays out much of the anti-Semitic ideology he incorporated into the Nazi party, and stop it becoming a new manifesto for right wing extremists in Germany.
“This would allow everyone the opportunity to examine the arguments for themselves, and prevail in debates with close-minded people,” the institute's deputy director Udo Wengst told journalists.
The Institute has previously printed scholarly editions of other Nazi texts, but their high prices have restricted them to use by academia. But according to Mr Wengst, the new edition of Mein Kampf could be made available on the internet for free, to allow for much wider distribution.
The Institute must now convince Bavaria's state government, which inherited the copyright to Mein Kampf after the war, to allow it to reprint the book. But the region has long taken a gloomy view of new versions, waging a constant fight to prevent unauthorised editions being printed abroad. It claims that Mein Kampf should not be printed out of respect for Holocaust victims, and for fear of stoking new anti-Semitism. Mr Wengst described that official opposition in Bavaria as honourable, but wrong.
See also
The holocaust
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