Just curious, why would YOU buy that book?
Back in print - Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf is flying off the shelves in Germany
Or wouldn't you?
Copies of Adolf Hitler’s manifesto Mein Kampf have been flying off the shelves in Germany since a new edition – the first in 70 years – was published a year ago, the book’s publisher claims.
But despite growing concerns about the rise of the far-right in Germany, the publisher – Munich-based Institute of Contemporary History (IfZ) – says it believes the interest in the new edition comes from educators, rather than neo-Nazi readers.
...
“These sales figures have taken us by storm,” IfZ director Andreas Wirsching told German news agency dpa. “No one could really have expected them.”The two-volume, 1,948-page tome – titled “Hitler, Mein Kampf: A Critical Edition” – is annotated with critical analysis of the Nazi leader’s writings. Unlike previous versions of the book, which sets out Hitler’s racist ideas and was first published in two parts in 1925 and 1926, it comes wrapped in a plain white cover.
...
Bavarian authorities, who had previously used their copyright to block reprints of the inflammatory book, opposed the new edition. But IfZ pressed ahead with the initiative, which a group of historians had argued was necessary to provide an authoritative version for educational purposes – and to pre-empt neo-Nazis from disseminating their own versions. (me: You buy that?)“It would have been irresponsible to allow this book to roam freely,” Wirsching told dpa.
....
Germany has a range of laws prohibiting the glorification of its Nazi past, including those criminalizing Holocaust denial, as well as displaying the swastika or other Nazi symbols. But Hitler’s book itself is not banned, and older editions have remained available in libraries and second-hand bookshops
So, what is Vice News doing here with that article? And what is the IFZ real motive to publish it?
Whatever ... not buying the book. If you want to read it for "educational purposes" you can still find it in libraries, no need to make the publisher "happy and rich". Who is more honest in your opinion, the IfZ or the Bavarian authorities? Is that Libertarians vs Authoritarians war fare?
Gosh, I am so tired of the shit. I need me some blues now.
Comments
btw I found that too interesting
If you want to know the difference between something burning under your nails or on your nails and want to know what "Stolpersteine" (literally stones you stumble over) are, have fun with the karambolage.
Heh, it's not easy to understand the language of others... watch both segments ending at TC 4:17.
https://www.euronews.com/live
Hadn’t watched broadcast or cable TV for 10 years
Not after losing access to the satellite connection I had been using to watch BVN (“Best of Flanders and the Netherlands”) Dutch-language TV.
I remember enjoying watching Karambolage in the mid-00s — lots of interesting compare-and-contrast between German and French attitudes and culture.
I am sure my father had a copy, thus it's still in my natal home
But he became a professor of modern European History. That would be a significant book for him. He could read German.
But I confess in my experimental teens I had a copy of Mao's little red book. Why? WTF knows.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
oh, I had Mao's little red book too and never read it ...
instead ... I found a biography about Mao's wife, it's still in my boxes on storage and still not read.
I intended to use my retirement time to read it all. Ha.Ha.Ha. Ask me next year about it....
Mein Kampf, I never had that book, my father never had it and I guess he never read it as a highschool student either. But he was an exchange student to the US in 1936, remembered Jesse Owens afterwards in the Olympics in Berlin and remembered being "treated well" by some black US highschool students with their superior boxing skills they honed in their US highschool curricula. Unfortunately my father's diaries from that time are all lost, as his parent's house in Berlin, he grew up in, was bombed out and everything in there burned.
Then he had to do the Arbeitsdienst, I believe in Netherland digging ditches or something, then had an apprenticeship in the insurance field for a year and a little bit in Hannover (as my great-grandfather and then his son, my grandfather founded an insurance brokerage company in Berlin, and the sons were supposed to get into that one) and in 1939 was drafted. When Hitler invaded Russia, they all "got" Herrn Hitler very well (no reading my Kampf necessary) and everybody knew Hitler was a psychopath and crazy nut war criminal. Having been POW to the Russians, I guess my father didn't have to read "Mein Kampf" to "get it" either. There is still something I want to research about my family members engagement in the 1930ies though. I hope to find some photos that should answer my doubts.
So, really I don't know why this book was republished. I had an uncle, who became member of the SS as a 16 year old teenager. He was in Norway and later a French POW. The Americans "denazified" him. Didn't help. He was the only guy in my extended family, who somehow "didn't get it" til the end of his life. So, I guess, a well-annotated new publication of "Mein Kampf" wouldn't have helped him to "self-reflect" on his point of views either.
So much for the effectiveness of the educative efforts of honorable historians. I wished they would work better ... but I turned into being very doubtful that it would ever be the case for the "little guys". Either you "get it" or you don't and won't. Most folks I obeserved just don't want to "get it".
ok, someone made a profit, right? Who? And was it just a financial profit or a political profit for some as well?
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It could be becuz
the Nazis are back, the Fourth Reich about to be unleashed.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
I'm surprised you got
even one "like" with that sage analysis.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
You haven't been watching
the History channel. The Nazis are back!
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
What about the Ayatollah's
little green book?
Or Das Kapital?
Or any number of polemics the politicians of that period were expected to write?
"I realize with sadness that our new Master (of __ College) has never written a book. It is quite more distressing, that he's never read one, either".
Apocryphal, 18th century Oxford.
There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know.
Why not have a copy?
It's a book. Nothing to fear.
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
Why not wearing a little swastika sticker on your shirt?
It's just a little sticker, nothing to fear. Sure thing. Right?
Heh. YMMV, but my mileage doesn't go that route of your answer.
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False equivalence.
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
With just a touch
of hyperbole.
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
No, waste of money.
I read it. It was boring. Banality of evil comes to mind.
Maybe it's a better read in German.
I'd say the IFz are lying and the Bavarian's are naïve.
I would think the young who wanted to know the history would just go to the library.
Those who study the times, would go to the library.
Why spend the money unless you felt you needed a copy at home?
Who would feel that need?
Betcha I know who's been buying the book.
With their hearts they turned to each others heart for refuge
In troubled years that came before the deluge
*Jackson Browne, 1974, Before the Deluge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SX-HFcSIoU
considering that the evil was not so banal after all ...
I am not sure if the IfZ is lying, nor that the Bavarians are naive.
If you read the whole article, it said they tried to poll who is buying the book. Mainly teachers apparently. Not necessarily the right-wing neo-nazi or neo something young houlihans.
So?
https://www.euronews.com/live
Do many schools not have it thier libraries?
I don't know how things are in Germany. About all I am know of modern Germany is that the right seems to be rising (Across Europe also), that there are immigrant problem and they've gone green big time.
Maybe I should start paying more attention to Germany.
With their hearts they turned to each others heart for refuge
In troubled years that came before the deluge
*Jackson Browne, 1974, Before the Deluge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SX-HFcSIoU
well ... I can't tell you much about our school's libraries ...
I graduated from highschool in summer 1967. My history teacher never "made it to the Weimar Republic", so we got nothing about the Third Reich. But that was not by curricula design but for the lack of professionalism of my teacher (she messed up big time, because she could endlessly talk about everything else but that time period. A kind old-fashioned intellectual vagina monologue whe meandered into in front of the class).
I was not aware of a school library. We have public libraries and all what I read about the Third Reich, I got from there or through my parent's books. It was all available and basically just a matter if you wanted to read about it or not.
Yes right-wing movements and parties are on the rise and much more "visible" than they were in the sixties or seventies. The immigrant influx is used as political issue trigger and incubator of right-wing movement's growth. We will see.
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What is there to glorify?
Hitler was as much a catastrophe for Germans as for everybody else. Are neo-nazis glorifying ignorant, hateful, delusional fantasies that lead to catastrophes?
Beware the bullshit factories.
the future will tell, if neo-nazis will lead to catastrophe...
.... well, admit it, the moustache of Hitler seemed to have been very seductive, even for today's folks, and as such has a glorifying ambiance... similar to lipstick being seductive ... so many politicians embellish their protraits with moustaches and lipstick ... /s
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I'm sure a large part of Hitler's rise
had to do with resentments following World War I as well as economic problems. Come to think of it, I don't think we're done with World War I yet. Dubya would have had no Iraq to invade if not for World War I.
Beware the bullshit factories.
That is what I've heard as well
Like his paintings-- He's painting dull landscapes when Germany was experiencing one of the most revolutionary periods in art history. A dull, not very good book.
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
I read it too, several years ago.
And you're right, it is boring. It isn't recruitment propaganda.
I consider Nietzsche's Man and Superman to be much more disturbing.
Life is strong. I'm weak, but Life is strong.
I wouldn't buy a deluxe edition
but I have a low-priced paperback copy on my shelf. I think everybody with an interest in history ought to read it. In the US, "Hitler" is a universal term for evil so you've got all these people running around saying, "Trump is Hitler," or "Putin is Hitler." Please people, there is no Hitler but Hitler. If you know some history, if you've actually read Mein Kampf, you don't make that comparison so freely.
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
Didn't I read ...
that T-rump has a copy by his bedside? I wonder if he's got a copy of Machiavelli's The Prince too?
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
A I recall it was Hitler's Speeches.
Which to my mind is more frightening.
With their hearts they turned to each others heart for refuge
In troubled years that came before the deluge
*Jackson Browne, 1974, Before the Deluge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SX-HFcSIoU
I admit listening to Hitler's speeches I always was
dumbfounded of how the hell people were impressed by them back then. I remember when watching real film footage of Hitler's regime as a child with my parents on German TV in the late fifties and early sixties, that the only thing my mother was frightened of was reliving the sounds of the bombing alarm sirenes before the planes came over Berlin en masse to drop their bombs and they had to evacuate into the bomb basement shelters. The real footage within the documentaries my parents had some pain to watch. The movies about that time, even the better ones, my father couldn't stand much, as they seemed to him very unrealistic and not representative of what was going on. But he tried to read a lot of political books his whole life ... in his bed... after being tired of work ... and falling asleep over them.
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I feel the same way
when I watch the Trump crowds get so wound up over cheap jingoisms and shamefully stupid slogans.
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
I guess now I have to read that Machiavelli Prince story too?
To be better educated?
really, sniff ..
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it is short
and old from the 1500's I think. A despots training manual. I sure wouldn't make it assigned reading, but it is interesting in a way.
Now, The Little Prince, that should be assigned reading.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
did you know that German highschools
had nothing like assigned book reading lists? Just saying, when I faced those assigned reading lists my son got in US highschools, I was pretty amazed.
I would hesitate to give anybody a despot's training manual. You never know what comes out of it ....
How authoritarian is that to force people to read certain books?
That went against my anti-authoritarian educational point of views for children back in the sixties and early seventies. (I grew up ... don't worry.)
I changed a bit my attitude about it. But I still prefer kids grabbing the books to read they want to read and not force-feeding books to them.
With a twitter commander in chief, that shouldn't be an issue. Everyone can digest 140 character "books" if they were ever be force-fed via twitter reading lists ...
Well, "Der kleine Prinz" was not only assigned listening pleasure on cassette and records for my son before bed-time, as well as volunteer reading pleasure for me, my sister and my niece. So "Alles ist gut".
There is another good "book" fairy tale called "Das kalte Herz" (Heart of Stone) by Wilhelm Hauff. The favorite "book" of my son in elementary school. I can recommend it. It's for adults too.
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In the 1950s, Ayn Rand was on the list of books we were
supposed to choose from to write a paper. Basically all sorts of things with an anti-communist message. I remember writing a paper about Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon. And a book report on Boy on the Rooftop, supposedly written by one Tamas Szabo, who had (it was claimed) as a teen taken up arms against the Russians in the Hungarian uprising of 1956.
I had never heard about Ayn Rand in Germany in the seventies
and was pretty amazed about the cult status she had in the US. When I read about her, I even was more shocked.
I know that for my son, who started US schools only in nineth grade had the most difficulties with the reading assignments for history classes. (lack of vocabulary and all around slow reading speed and diminished reading comprehension like many immigrant English as a third language kids have).
He wrote a book report about a book by Amiri Baraka in a college class. His choice. I remember he was pretty shocked and struggled with the book, but ended up to judge it great writing.
https://www.euronews.com/live
German Phoenix TV is airing a 3-part series “CIA von innen”
(= “CIA from the inside” = “CIA: the inside story”) at this very moment.
German viewers who watch it will be reminded that the U.S. uses murder as a standard tool and commits war crimes right and left. And that anyone who takes Washington DC’s official statements at face value and urges others to do so as well, is either complicit or a fool.
But how many people in Germany watch Phoenix?
thx, for pointing to it, I haven't watched yet Phoenix
basically just discovered ARTE and 3SAT and found it quite good. I just don't watch much. I like the fact that after 8 pm there are no commercials disrupting broadcasts anymore. I know I will miss that when I return to the US.
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The quickest way to repeat history ........
is to not know it.
Just knowing the final horrific effects is not good enough either, you have to know how and why it got that far.
Hitler was not universally considered evil in his time, that is a luxury/pitfall of 20/20 hindsight.
21st Century America: The distracted, superficail perception of a virtual reality.
right, we never repeat history, we always
come up with our own new one, no matter what we know about the past history or not. Guaranteed. We just go through that ... right?
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Oooo, The Prince!
Now that book is fascinating!
Life is strong. I'm weak, but Life is strong.
I wouldn't buy it
but I wouldn't stop someone from republishing it.
I just had a similar conversation with my boyfriend, who is a librarian at a university, about Simon & Schuster deciding to publish a book by Milo whatever-his-name-is, who appears to be a white supremacist and all-around miserable person. One of the book review journals has decided to boycott Simon & Schuster's books because of the decision to publish Milo.
My librarian bf and I agree that censorship is never the answer for two reasons. First, people need and deserve information, even negative, horrible information produced by despicable people. And second, censorship of content that we don't approve of will inevitably backfire, and there will then be censorship of content we do approve of.
I don't think a new edition of Hitler's book was necessary or helpful, but I wouldn't stop anyone from republishing it. I wouldn't remove it from libraries or prevent anyone from reading or discussing it. But I also wouldn't criticize those who choose to boycott the publisher or otherwise express their displeasure.
I guess I'm a free-speech absolutist, although I understand the distress caused by Nazism, past and present (two of my uncles survived Hitler's Germany and came to America with numbers tattooed on their arms).
There is no justice in America, but it is the fight for justice that sustains you.
--Amiri Baraka
thx. for this great comment, I think we pretty much
are on the same wave length. I guess I struggle a lot with this issue and am more fearful than others about the consequences an absolute free speech right can have to those who want to abuse it.
I like your sig line. Isn't it something that my undereducated son picked like a blind chicken Amiri Baraka to write a book report about? That makes me a believer in the power of unintended consequences as well as occasional God-sent miracles.
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MEIN KAMPF was never banned in Germany.
The worldwide rise of the FRWingnutjobs follows historical patterns. I was such a world history nut as a kid that I wouldn't waste time reading badly written garbage by a fascist fruitcake! WWII wasn't that long ago, and a lot of people are still alive who know what started it. Rec'd!!
Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.
right, not banned ... people were just not
interested ... for good reasons for those who lived through those times.
May be I read it some day, but I have so many better things to read and I don't do historical research.
I had one book though that researched the attitudes of German lawyers during early nineteen thirties and the Third Reich in details with original documents for proof. THAT one I will study. I guess I find some similarities to current times role of lawyers. ...
Sigh.
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You're right--
It was never banned. Publishers were waiting for the copyright to expire. I guess whomever owned the rights wanted too much money for a crappy book.
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
I don't think so, the copyrights belonged to the Bavarian
state government and they had used them to control and prevent any further publication. When those copyrights expired, they had not anymore the power to block a republishment.
It was an Institute of Contemporary History, who then republished it. So, basically those people, who knew the most of the history of the Third Reich. Ironically, those, you would think know about history and want to prevent it to be repeated, believe the republishment is actually preventing such history to be repeated. (as someone in the thread pointed to out to me)
Obviously the opposite is happening. So, what's up with that?
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Whatever, Mimi--
It was the copyrights that kept it from being published. That was my point.
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
I agree with you ... I guess I just asked for your opinions
because I observed in many online conversations that it is often assumed that the German laws restricting the glorification of the Nazi regime is a sign of Germans being prone to be authoritarian and not willing to protect absolute free speech rights.
That tendency of judgment by many non-Germans online has slowly eroded my support I otherwise have for those opinions. It just occurs to me a bit "too easy" a judgment. There is the question of how much you can marginalize or ignore those, who make their support to Fascism, Racism, Supremacist and Nazi-ism openly and vigorously known, without at the same time supporting to make such behavior "the new normal". "It's ok to be right-wing and xenophobic and it's ok to paint anything as "being Hitler" so to speak. I think it's not ok, just an easy shout-out. Like Azazello said in his comment.
But I guess it somewhat makes sense that the teachers need some "better editions with annotations" of "Mein Kampf" considering that younger teachers are born in the late eighties and basically have no recollection of either communism, Third Reich memories of their parents or other forms of faschism. I guess that's why the survey of buyers came out that way.
Well, forget my questions, I am just another generation. I remember me wanting to be considered a Swedish girl in the late sixites in France and hide me being German and my sister just told me she did the same in Engliand as in the mid sixties in England, her saying she is Danish. Just to avoid the "categorization" of ... you know being a German.
Who cares. Times are by-gone.
Let's move on. May be Trump is doing the shtick of going towards a
German
US-Soviet Pact. just to just end up with doing the opposite one day...Ok we don't need that to happen again. Replace German with US and Poland with Ukraine and I think it doesn't feel right, right?
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As a child i hated Germans
I read the history. I saw the photos and films of the camps.
I had no sympathy for their shame and guilt.
As I matured I came to know that the shame and guilt was on us all.
Germans did it. Germans are humans. Therefore humans did it. I am human also.
The Germans are not alone amongst those who've committed such great crimes.
As a member of my species, I too share the shame and the guilt.
Mercy and comfort for the repentant replaced my hate.
With their hearts they turned to each others heart for refuge
In troubled years that came before the deluge
*Jackson Browne, 1974, Before the Deluge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SX-HFcSIoU
that's a very nice song in your sig line
thx. for the lyrics on that one too.
We are in troubled years that come before the deluge again.. but then some survive the deluge and somehow life goes on. Unintended consequence...
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Thank you, dennis
I really appreciate the humility and compassion of this comment.
I struggle with this every day -- how to fight against the awful actions committed by (some) people while not succumbing to hating them as human beings. I know that my own hate and anger harms me, while not accomplishing anything positive for the world.
Thank you again.
In solidarity,
blaze
There is no justice in America, but it is the fight for justice that sustains you.
--Amiri Baraka
a confession
Once upon a time I found a copy of My Six Crises laying on the sidewalk in the Haight Ashbury. On a lark I picked it up and today it's in a box in a corner of my bedroom - unread. And did you know that JFK also wrote a book entitled Eight Courageous Americans?
On to Biden since 1973
Was Eight Courageous Americans the working title
for "Profiles in Courage?" Sounds like it.
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"
Relying solely on memory here, 2 different books.
I'm pretty sure I read Eight Courageous Americans. I have a fleeting memory of being disappointed it wasn't about war heroes and setting it aside without finishing it.
update: I had to go look it up. Indeed they are two books separate yet related.
https://www.amazon.com/Courageous-Americans-Robert-Associates-Producer/d...
With their hearts they turned to each others heart for refuge
In troubled years that came before the deluge
*Jackson Browne, 1974, Before the Deluge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SX-HFcSIoU
Robert Saudek Associates is listed as author/producer of
Eight Courageous Americans which is based on the TV program "Profiles in Courage" which was based on the book "Profiles in Courage," incidentally ghost written by Kennedy's speechwriter Ted Sorensen. The original idea was Kennedy's, but Sorensen did the writing. The book you cite is twice removed from the original and was not directly the work of Kennedy/Sorensen.
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"