April 25, 2012
‘Mein Kampf’ being prepared for German students
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A new annotated edition of “Mein Kampf” is being prepared for German high school students.
The ministers of science and finance in the German state of Bavaria met recently to discuss ongoing work on an annotated edition of Adolf Hitler’s 1924 manifesto, whose copyright—held by the Bavarian Finance Ministry—is to run out in 2015. Up to now, the ministry has barred publication in Germany in order to limit the spread of Hitler’s ideology.
In 2010, however, the ministry granted permission to the Munich-based Institute for Contemporary History to reprint the work in 2015 in an annotated, scholarly edition.
This week, the Bavarian authorities announced that a version for youth would be prepared as well.
“It should show exactly where the dangers are in the text,” a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Science told JTA.
She also said that an additional $660,000 from the finance and science ministries would be granted to the Munich institute to expedite the project.
Theoretically, once the copyright runs out, anyone can publish the manifesto. The ministers hope that a special edition for schools would preempt the spread of editions with no historical context or that illegally promote Nazi ideology or incite hatred, the spokeswoman said.
