The German State of Bavaria has abandoned all plans to reprint Mein Kampf after it the legal power to place a ban on Adolf Hitlers Manifesto expires in 2015.
The BBC reports that the government of Bavaria has cancelled a planned annotated edition of the manifesto. They state that the decision was made out of respect for the victims of the Holocaust.
The book, Mein Kampf, was written by Hitler while he was held in a Munich prison. Bavaria holds the rights to the book. The state banned the book from being republished for decades; however, they were considering to allow the manifesto to be published in an effort to “demystify” the text… And by extension, the author.
Bavaria has since decided to continue the ban on the book–even when the copyright is set to expire in two years.
Munich’s Institute of Contemporary History was said that it did not intend on cancelling the project. A project that was said to have cost 500,000 euros (£419,000; $688,000), thanks to state funding.
The website issued a statement stating that it intended to publish the edition independently when the copyright expired.
There are those who have pointed out that the contents of the manifesto have been available to the public on the internet and also in other countries.
Due to the complaints from the survivors of the Holocaust, the state government have since decided that it would be wise to keep the book off of the market. They warned that any publishers who go through with printing the book may face criminal charges.
“Many conversations with Holocaust victims and their families have shown us that any sort of reprint of the disgraceful writings would cause enormous pain,” said Bavarian Science Minister Ludwig Spaenle.
Charlotte Knoblock, the former head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, stated that she backed any efforts to stop any future reprints of a book that was “steeped in hatred and contempt for humanity.”
She also stated: “[It was] one of the most inflammatory works ever written in this country”.
The annotated book was ordered by the Bavarian government two years ago from the Institute of Contemporary History.
In a statement, Professor Wirsching felt that the study of Mein Kampf was critical into the understandinf of the Nazi period. It was planned that the edition would he teach people as well as demystifying the text. He goes on to say that the institute would publish the book in 2015 under their own responsibility as an independent research organization.
Mein Kampf, translated to My Struggle, was initially published in 1924, 10 years before Hitler came into power. The book is said to be against Judaism and communism. It has been said that the book was presented to newly weds in Nazi Germany as a wedding gift.