Some of our readers may recall the IPKat's reports of 2009 on the Zeitungszeugen case which concerned a copyright battle between the Bavarian State government and a British publisher relating to the re-publication of historical Nazi newspapers in an educational reprint series. (see the IPKat's earlier posts here, here and here). The IPKat then reported in 2010 that the Institut für Zeitgeschichte (Institute of Contemporary History, "IfZ"), a German history institute based in Munich, planned to prepare an annotated version of Adolf Hitler's controversial book "Mein Kampf" (in English: "My Struggle") for publication in Germany after 2015.According to various press reports (here, here, here) British publisher Peter McGee, who is also behind Zeitungszeugen, has now also announced his plans to publish selected excerpts of "Mein Kampf" in Germany and it appears he does not want to wait until 2015. He claims he wants "demystify" the "unreadable" book and his excerpts will include a column of the original text next to a column of historical and critical comment.
By way of background: contrary to popular belief in Germany, "Mein Kampf" is is not banned in Germany but it should be noted that "Mein Kampf" can only be re-published when the copyright held by the Bavarian State government (more precisely the Finance Ministry) will expire in 2015 - 70 years after Hitler's death. The Bavarian State government took over the rights of the main Nazi party publishing house Eher-Verlag after the end of World War II as part of the Allies' de-Nazification programme.
As to be expected, the Bavarian State Government is not pleased, reports Der Spiegel, and the Bavarians will try to block the publication since "permission to publish the prints is neither granted in Germany nor abroad."
While this Kat agrees that there is some merit in Mr McGee's argument trying to "demystify" the book, she somehow does not think that spreading its awful content further is a good idea. Dieter Graumann, president of the German Central Council of Jews, appears to take a more relaxed view, again according to Der Spiegel, mr Graumann echoes Mr McGee's argument about "demystifying" the book, espcially since it was already available via the Internet for everyone to read.
So should the Bavarian State government still try to police the content of the book and should this be done via copyright law when really this is a political decision?