6 ms·

They reprinted "Mein Kampf" (book by Adolf Hitler) lately in Germany. 50k books sold in matter of days...

• f_allwein 11y ago
  ironically, it was published by a state agency as the copyright expired. They figured it would be better to have a good, critical edition rather than wait for cheap reprints to flood the market. See http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/feb/04/mein-kampf-hitler-eine-kritische-edition-review http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/feb/04/mein-kampf-hitl...
• 67726e 11y ago
  Isn't the reprint an annotated version meant for analysis? That isn't to say a skin head can't pick it up and read it, but it's more than just a reprint.
  • dudul 11y ago
    Correct. Note that skin heads have been able to read the book for decades online. It is very easy to download a copy.
  • jevinskie 11y ago
    You say that as if it is a bad thing that neo-Nazis can freely read books. I would be much more upset about, say, the United States banning certain people from reading certain books than allowing undesirable people to read undesirable books. German citizens already lost that freedom.
    • JamilD 11y ago
      Exactly; is our ideology so fragile that we can't tolerate or allow dissenting speech?
      • labster 11y ago
        Mein Kampf is a known vector of Fascism-Related Memetic Disorder. Shouldn't we stop diseases of the mind as well as those of the body?
        • douche 11y ago
          The Qua'ran is a known vector of Islamic-Jihad Memetic Disorder. Shouldn't we stop diseases of the mind as well as those of the body? My Little Pony is a known vector of Brony Memetic Disorder. Shouldn't we stop diseases of the mind as well as those of the body?
          • labster 11y ago
            Nazi science sneers at your bad analogies.
          • selimthegrim 11y ago
            I hear marijuana is a gateway drug too.
      • bad_user 11y ago
        I have nothing against books and I'm firmly against censorship. I've read about half of Mein Kampf myself, only because of curiosity. However, when it comes to extremists, I think you're wrong. You see, this is a war of attrition they are playing, bringing forth the same arguments, discussing the same hateful ideas, only packaged differently, over and over again. And you see, the moderates, the liberals, the ones combating such ideas, get tired and move on, or are silenced through harassment. There is no useful dialog one can have with a far right supporter. And you think debates are healthy, yet they wouldn't give you that privilege if they were in power. The irony being that the liberties we liberals believe in are being used against us.
        • A_COMPUTER 11y ago
          You're not wrong, but you've got a political blind spot if you don't think there are people on the left that do the same thing re. repackaging and resubmitting ideas, or if you don't see the contingent of the left that is against free speech.
  • OxO4 11y ago
    Skinheads are not necessarily Neo-Nazis, many are apolitical and there are leftwing movements e.g. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinheads_Against_Racial_Prejudice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinheads_Against_Racial_Preju...
• elorant 11y ago
  Tried to read it once in the English version, couldn’t get past the first fifty pages. There’s so much hatred in there. He hated Jews, French, democracy, intellectuals, people with disabilities, you name it. It’s also badly written which is a surprise considering that Hitler seemed to be an excellent speaker.
  • danieltillett 11y ago
    I agree 100% with this, but I have always wondered if this was the translation or not (I don't speak or read German). If you were a translator is this the sort of book you would want to make a good read?
    • elorant 11y ago
      I’ve read the Murphy translation and according to Wikipedia it was the only translation approved by Nazi Germany. So if it was good for them I guess should be good for us. Although there have been controversial translations where the translator deliberately left-out some of the more anti-Semitic statements (Alan Cranston translation). But even that would make the book more bearable, not worsen it. I think the book is badly written because the guy was so full of anger. If you take it at face value the book is a road-map of all the monstrosities that happened once the Nazi party took the power. Every atrocity that took place, from the Holocaust to invading half of Europe and especially the severity of their attacks against Russia is more or less mentioned in the book. For me the $64.000 question is why leaders of the era weren't alarmed from the writings. Haven't they read the book? They didn't take it at face value? The book was written 15 years before the war erupted. They'd surely have time to prevent it. And then nothing happened.
      • danieltillett 11y ago
        It certainly was not in the small amount of what I could stomach an easy read. I would hate to have the job of translating it. I thought the reason the book was not taken seriously was because nobody could believe this was his real plan.
      • 11y ago
• arrrg 11y ago
  That reprinted edition is heavily annotated, with the text basically surrounded on three sides by annotations. There are more annotations than text … This means that it is perfectly innocent to buy the book in this form. None of your friends will think anything weird of you when they see it on your bookshelf, that will just think how intellectual you are … There certainly are Neonazis in Germany and there are people adoring Hitler in Germany, too. And those people suck and shouldn’t have those opinions. But I don’t think sales of that book have anything to do with that. And modern dangerous fascist ideologues aren’t necessarily super into Hitler …
  • capote 11y ago
    > will just think how intellectual you are … I'm wondering what sort of annotations to an inane, hateful, book of ramblings can spur intellectual stimulation. Is it worth even checking it out? Is it analyzing Hitler's thought process or what? I just can't imagine it'd be very interesting.
    • adventured 11y ago
      Hitler was one of the foremost intellectuals and proponents in the early 20th century Socialist movement that saw its deadly influence spread globally. His various writings and remarks on Socialism rank among the most widely read in history. His generation of Socialist leaders were the first to put actual Socialism into action politically, along with Lenin and Mussolini. It's not a very interesting book, unless you're interested in the history of Socialism (and as a Capitalist, I am).
      • jwdunne 11y ago
        No. This is incorrect. Hitler and Mussolini were fascists. Hitler even downplayed the leftwing aspects of fascism and promoted private enterprise as long it worked towards national interests - such as killing Jews (or "creating the master race") and waging war (or "creating living space for said master race"). Communists and socialists were heavily persecuted during the holocaust. In fact, they were the first to be pursued by the state. Another thing: those in the Nazi ranks who actually wanted socialism were purged. It's called Night of the Long Knives and it's a pivot moment in the history of Nazi Germany. It may be confusing because of the whole National Socialism thing. It could be argued that actually that was purely to strike a chord with the type of dissatisified folks who would die for the movement, such as the lower classes that made up the SA.