Mein Kampf: Publish or Burn?

[barryqwalsh]

Everyone's heard of it. Few may have read it, or have any idea of its remarkable publishing history. For all its bizarre style and bombast, Mein Kampf was Hitler's broadest statement of his aims and beliefs. Had the world understood its meaning, it's been claimed, the Nazi catastrophe might have been averted.

It's a book that made Hitler rich and its ability to make money after his death has continued to pose sensitive problems. For the last 70 years the Bavarian authorities have effectively banned its republication in German through their control of the copyright. But this year, 2015, Mein Kampf's copyright expires. So what happens next?

Chris Bowlby has been investigating Mein Kampf's strange history and future, both in Germany and beyond. He hears of its strange popularity in India and the intriguing story of its translation into English.

AUDIO
BBC Radio 4 - Mein Kampf Publish or Burn

 

[barryqwalsh]

Germany: Memories of a Nation

Episode 1: The View from the Gate

BBC Radio 4 - Germany Memories of a Nation

 

[Taz]

I'd burn the bible first.

 

[Dajjal]

I have an early English edition published before Hitler invaded Poland, and I sure ain't burning it. It might be worth some money.

 

[indiajo]

Well, Hitler was a poorly educated autodidact,.
Mein Kampf is a weird mixture of self knitted history, conspiracy theories and semi-baked childish social theories plus lots of woven in inferiority complexes.
What made it worse, he was border line intelligent.
He wasn't a bad artist either, at least compared to 99% of people who call themselves artists today.

The book itself is a complete mess, boring, and almost nobody referring to it has ever read it.

The broad interest in it in Germany is caused by it's prohibition to be printed and sold. Actually total bullshit, because you can get it in every language you like, just use Google or drive across the borders if you like a printed version.

Who the helll uses this possibility? Almost nobody. So there ist no reason to worry about anything regarding "Mein Kampf". Just another scandal made up to divert people from looking at important issues.

 

[Politico]

Publish the shit out of it.

 

[MaxGrit]

I have an early English edition published before Hitler invaded Poland, and I sure ain't burning it. It might be worth some money.

imagine how much $$$ you would get if it's signed by the author .. . lol

 

[zaangalewa]

I'd burn the bible first.

I'm a blue eyed and blond haired Bavarian, a big part of my family were Jews, I'm a Catholic with good relations to nearly everyone who's a real spiritual man or woman of lots of religions. It was about 5:55 in the morning, when I bread your sentence here. Why do you wake me up? The Nazis showed very clear what will happen if no one lives in respect of the word of god any longer.

 

[TheOldSchool]

Maybe someone will translate it to elvish

 

[zaangalewa]

Well, Hitler was a poorly educated autodidact,.
Mein Kampf is a weird mixture of self knitted history, conspiracy theories and semi-baked childish social theories plus lots of woven in inferiority complexes.
What made it worse, he was border line intelligent.
He wasn't a bad artist either, at least compared to 99% of people who call themselves artists today.

The book itself is a complete mess, boring, and almost nobody referring to it has ever read it.

The broad interest in it in Germany is caused by it's prohibition to be printed and sold. Actually total bullshit, because you can get it in every language you like, just use Google or drive across the borders if you like a printed version.

Who the helll uses this possibility? Almost nobody. So there ist no reason to worry about anything regarding "Mein Kampf". Just another scandal made up to divert people from looking at important issues.

Sorry, I have little difficulties in using this message system. I just simple liked to tell to you: I never met anyone here in Germany who is interested in Hitlers "Mein Krampf" (=my cramp). The most people here prefer to read good books. No German has any problem to get good reliable informations about the deeds of the Nazis. No one needs the book of the liar Hitler, if he likes to find out what was going wrong in the years 1933-1945. In the moment we have greater problems with some effects of the reunion and with people who are confused from people who lived during two dictaorships: from 1933-1945 (Nazis) and from 1945-1989 (Commies). The enemy of one's own enemy is something nothing else than an enemy. Pragmatism is not always a good philosophy.

 

[zaangalewa]

Maybe someone will translate it to elvish

The terror doctrine of "My Cramp" (Mein Krampf) was translated into nine-elevenish.

 

[indiajo]

Sorry, I have little difficulties in using this message system. I just simple liked to tell to you: I never met anyone here in Germany who is interested in Hitlers "Mein Krampf" (=my cramp). The most people here prefer to read good books. No German has any problem to get good reliable informations about the deeds of the Nazis. No one needs the book of the liar Hitler, if he likes to find out what was going wrong in the years 1933-1945. In the moment we have greater problems with some effects of the reunion and with people who are confused from people who lived during two dictaorships: from 1933-1945 (Nazis) and from 1945-1989 (Commies). The enemy of one's own enemy is something nothing else than an enemy. Pragmatism is not always a good philosophy.

First, I am a German.
Second, of course people have enourmos difficulties to find reliable historical sources about the Nazi period, because everything broadly available is pretty much biased and does not even touch the background parameters that contributed to this development.
Third, Hitler was not a liar. Actually he never hold back with his intentions, "Mein Kampf" is one of the best ecamples for it.
Fourth, people here are not confused by the two dictatorships, The ones who experienced the first are mostly dead, the ones from the second are just disappointed by the lying and betraying actual politics, the mutual influence from outside and the piece by piece revealed opinion supression.

The rest is babblespeech.

 

[zaangalewa]

....
First, I am a German.
Second, of course people have enourmos difficulties to find reliable historical sources about the Nazi period, because everything broadly available is pretty much biased and does not even touch the background parameters that contributed to this development.
Third, Hitler was not a liar. Actually he never hold back with his intentions, "Mein Kampf" is one of the best ecamples for it.
Fourth, people here are not confused by the two dictatorships, The ones who experienced the first are mostly dead, the ones from the second are just disappointed by the lying and betraying actual politics, the mutual influence from outside and the piece by piece revealed opinion supression.

The rest is babblespeech.

The father of Joachim Fest - an author of lots of books about Hitler including the first biography about this damned asshole - called Hitler a liar, whose lies were so good, that even the opposit of his lies were lies again. I don't have any idea why you are calling yourselve a German. Seems to me your are an Aryan. And so you are a very good example for someone who is confused from the thoughts of a wrotten time of history. You are living a dead life. You are your own illusion. And you are more dangerous than the originals ever were, although you are only a cheap copy. They were often not able to know what you could know easily. Shame on you.

 

[Delta4Embassy]

Everyone's heard of it. Few may have read it, or have any idea of its remarkable publishing history. For all its bizarre style and bombast, Mein Kampf was Hitler's broadest statement of his aims and beliefs. Had the world understood its meaning, it's been claimed, the Nazi catastrophe might have been averted.

It's a book that made Hitler rich and its ability to make money after his death has continued to pose sensitive problems. For the last 70 years the Bavarian authorities have effectively banned its republication in German through their control of the copyright. But this year, 2015, Mein Kampf's copyright expires. So what happens next?

Chris Bowlby has been investigating Mein Kampf's strange history and future, both in Germany and beyond. He hears of its strange popularity in India and the intriguing story of its translation into English.

AUDIO
BBC Radio 4 - Mein Kampf Publish or Burn

Never read it. My brother did for school, remember seeing it on his nightstand and being rather perturbed. As a cautionary tale thing it has its' place. If we suppress things like that, thel ikelyhood fo something similar occuring again goes up as people wont recognize the early and warning signs.

 

[alang1216]

I read it and I think everyone should. Hitler was very honest as to what his long-term intentions were and if more people at read it during his lifetime there might have been no appeasement and maybe no WW2. People reading it now, with the benefit of knowing how sucy thinking played out, might be more cautious about following racist or nationalistic leaders.

 

[BluePhantom]

Publish. It's good to have stuff like that available to the people so they can see how A led to B. It was a lot more complicated than Hitler writing a book of course but history should not be hidden or it will be repeated.

 

[quorthon]

I read it and I think everyone should. Hitler was very honest...

Yeah, thanks, but we'll better abstain from it. Hitler was totally mad drug addict who tried different drugs every day! Maybe he was not addicted in the years of writing it, but anyway this book contains nothing interesting for a modern human, there are much more info about the great transmigration in books of real scientists, at least they haven't killed anyone for their ideas.

 

[alang1216]

I read it and I think everyone should. Hitler was very honest...

Yeah, thanks, but we'll better abstain from it. Hitler was totally mad drug addict who tried different drugs every day! Maybe he was not addicted in the years of writing it, but anyway this book contains nothing interesting for a modern human, there are much more info about the great transmigration in books of real scientists, at least they haven't killed anyone for their ideas.

Whatever Hitler was he certainly appealed to a great number of people. He played on their fears of foreign races and cultures and he reinforced their belief in the superiority of their own race and culture. Sounds like a throughly modern politician to me.

 

[zaangalewa]

I read it and I think everyone should. Hitler was very honest

Good joke.

as to what his long-term intentions were

From a very special extraterrestrian point of view it could perhaps make sense to erase all human beings from this planet and to do suicide afterwards - but not even a Borg-Queen would be happy about.

and if more people at read it during his lifetime there might have been no appeasement and maybe no WW2. People reading it now, with the benefit of knowing how sucy thinking played out, might be more cautious about following racist or nationalistic leaders.

Strange solution: If the reality fits not with proven knowledge and the experiences of all mankind - then deny the reality. But history is nothing what changes with some thoughts about history: history is facts. One line of history started with the concentration camp Dachau in 1933 and ended in Auschwitz-Birkenau exactly 70 years ago. That's what the Nazis did. The Nazis were murderers from the beginning to the end. And if someone thinks he's able to write a neverending story about the Nazis, then he's just simple in the wrong film. The film of life is life - not senseless death and irreversible destruction.

 

[zaangalewa]

Publish. It's good to have stuff like that available to the people so they can see how A led to B. It was a lot more complicated than Hitler writing a book of course but history should not be hidden or it will be repeated.

The Free State of Bavaria owns all rights in the book "Hitler: Mein Kampf". What "we" (=our governments since world war 2) did was very simple and efficient: We did not earn any money with this book and we did not allow anyone to earn money with this book. This means not no one is allowed to read "Mein Krampf" (=My Cramp). It's existing for example in the libraries of the universities.