Post by Daniel on Jan 9, 2016 12:23:17 GMT -5
New ‘Mein Kampf’ publication ‘a slap in the face to Holocaust survivors’
By Miriam Dagan January 8, 2016
As Adolf Hitler’s last official residence, the German state of Bavaria has kept the copyright of the genocidal dictator’s “Mein Kampf” under lock and key since the end of World War II. Forced into the role of a taboo’s reluctant guardian and although most historians see it as an important source on the Nazi period, for 70 years the state has prohibited publication of Hitler’s monstrous autobiographic manifesto of anti-Semitic ideology. That copyright expired on December 31, 2015.
Hitting the shelves in Germany on January 8, the Munich-based Institute for Contemporary History’s re-published “Mein Kampf” is a heavily annotated edition with commentary almost as long as the 800-page original text. Work on the annotated version took three years and for the research community, this new two-volume edition is an opportunity to finally fill a major gap.
While both sides of the controversial public debate wonder about the efficacy — and need — of republishing Hitler’s lengthy screed, many don’t realize that, alongside other excerpted texts of Nazi propaganda, “Mein Kampf” is already included in standard German history textbooks.
When the ICH presented the project to an international commission of researchers, it has garnered approval from historians including Dan Michman, head of the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. At the hefty sum of 59 Euros ($65), the new edition is not likely to become a bestseller. But as the first print publication of “Mein Kampf” in Germany since 1944, it has set off heated discussion in both domestic and international forums.
continue reading
www.timesofisrael.com/mein-kampf-publication-a-slap-in-the-face-to-holocaust-survivors/?utm_source=The+Times+of+Israel+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=c4cad1efd0-2015_01_08&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_adb46cec92-c4cad1efd0-54476133
By Miriam Dagan January 8, 2016
As Adolf Hitler’s last official residence, the German state of Bavaria has kept the copyright of the genocidal dictator’s “Mein Kampf” under lock and key since the end of World War II. Forced into the role of a taboo’s reluctant guardian and although most historians see it as an important source on the Nazi period, for 70 years the state has prohibited publication of Hitler’s monstrous autobiographic manifesto of anti-Semitic ideology. That copyright expired on December 31, 2015.
Hitting the shelves in Germany on January 8, the Munich-based Institute for Contemporary History’s re-published “Mein Kampf” is a heavily annotated edition with commentary almost as long as the 800-page original text. Work on the annotated version took three years and for the research community, this new two-volume edition is an opportunity to finally fill a major gap.
While both sides of the controversial public debate wonder about the efficacy — and need — of republishing Hitler’s lengthy screed, many don’t realize that, alongside other excerpted texts of Nazi propaganda, “Mein Kampf” is already included in standard German history textbooks.
When the ICH presented the project to an international commission of researchers, it has garnered approval from historians including Dan Michman, head of the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. At the hefty sum of 59 Euros ($65), the new edition is not likely to become a bestseller. But as the first print publication of “Mein Kampf” in Germany since 1944, it has set off heated discussion in both domestic and international forums.
continue reading
www.timesofisrael.com/mein-kampf-publication-a-slap-in-the-face-to-holocaust-survivors/?utm_source=The+Times+of+Israel+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=c4cad1efd0-2015_01_08&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_adb46cec92-c4cad1efd0-54476133
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