Mein Kampf makes return to Germany’s bestseller list

ANNOTATED EDITION

BERLIN • Mein Kampf has become a bestseller in Germany once again, 92 years after it was first published.

Published by the Munichbased Institute for Contemporary History, which spent years adding comments to the original text in an effort to highlight Hitler’s propaganda and mistakes, the new, heavily annotated academic edition has sold more than 85,000 copies since it was published last year.

However, the sales are unlikely to be a sign of a resurgent German far-right or a rehabilitation of the racist text, but more to do with the fact that it is the first time Mein Kampf has been published in German since 1945.

The rambling screed, which contains Adolf Hitler’s thoughts on everything from eugenics and race theory to syphilis and the movies, continues to attract a morbid fascination and remains a bestseller in several countries.

But while it sold in translation around the world, publication of the original German text was blocked by German authorities for 70 years. So dangerous was the book considered to be that copies in the Bavarian state library were kept in a “poison cabinet” and readers had to be vetted before being access. Mein Kampf was never officially banned in Germany but publication was prevented by the Bavarian government, which had the copyright.

That copyright expired a year ago. Only 4,000 copies were originally printed, but the publisher has now had to order a sixth print run.