Germany: It's time to demystify Mein Kampf

David Hugendick

Die Zeit

Ever since World War II, Germans have tried to erase all trace of Mein Kampf, says David Hugendick. Adolf Hitler’s anti-Semitic rant, written while he was in prison in the early 1920s, isn’t banned outright. But the state of Bavaria, which owns the copyright, has always blocked its publication, to avoid “stirring up bad memories.”

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Now British publisher Peter McGee plans to publish excerpts in his history magazine in Germany. He says the German public should be allowed to see and judge the book, adding that it’s so dull that many won’t even bother. Jewish groups are outraged, insisting that publishing it will encourage neo-Nazis in their hate-filled campaigns.

But even if McGee is just out for a quick buck, he’s right that Mein Kampf is long overdue for “demystification.” The book has acquired a “mystical, toxic aura” that just perpetuates the “popular superstition” that Hitler mesmerized the German people. In reality, far from being seduced by its “mumbo jumbo,” many Germans already shared Hitler’s anti-Semitism and belief in German superiority. Let Mein Kampf be published, and let the pernicious “fiction” of its magical power be exposed.