With an initial print run of 4,000, newly-published copies of Hitler’s Mein Kampf sold out as soon as the book went on sale in Germany on 8 January.
Advance orders for the 2,000 page annotated text in two volumes were more than 15,000.
The partly-autobiographical manifesto had not been published for 70 years. The state of Bavaria had the copyright and refused to publish, but that exclusive right was set to expire on the first day of 2016.
In preparation, scholars at the Institute for Contemporary History spent three years working on critical annotations for a new version.
The authors believe that the critical edition will “deconstruct and put into context Hitler's writing” with the aim of demystifying the inflammatory text.
The heads of the German Teacher’s Association said Mein Kampf is best taught as a revised edition by “professionally trained politics teachers,” rather than being accessed by youngsters on the web without any guidance.
The contentious work– which outlines strategies to exterminate entire peoples, and also Hitler’s attitude towards the so-called “Jewish issue” – was priced at €59, with one copying hitting the auction site Amazon.de with the asking price of €385.
The Central Council of Jews, the leading Jewish group in Germany, said it did not object to the book’s publication in its critical form, but was strongly opposed to any version without annotation.
Its president Josef Schuster said he hopes the critical edition will “contribute to debunking Hitler's inhuman ideology and counteracting anti-Semitism”.
But others, Jews and non-Jews, in Germany have been critical of the decision. A recent YouGov poll indicated that two out of five Germans were concerned that the reprint could bolster the right of the far-right in Germany.
The publisher, the Munich-based Institute for Contemporary History, has also received requests to translate the edition into Italian, French and English.
Roger Cukierman, the president of the Council of Jewish Institutions of France, called any plans for French reprints "a disaster".
Hitler wrote Mein Kampf in 1924 while in jail for treason. Initially it was deemed a failure but went on to sell more than five million copies between the Nazis grabbing power in 1933 and the start of WWII in 1939.
Comments
This kind of claptrap should not be censored, but should be in the public domain so that everyone can see what sort of rubbish it is.
The far-right in Germany and in the rest of Europe will be countered successfully not by suppressing political nonsense, but by the so-called leaders of the EU making a success of their mission.