Godwin's Law vs Intellectual Property Law
MayorBob.
Posted to Etcetera on Sun Jul 22, 2007 at 07:29:05 AM EST (promoted by port1080). RSS.
You can't go anywhere in Germany to find a freshly printed copy of what is "arguably the most controversial book of the 20th century." This is because Adolf Hitler's prison memoir Mein Kampf hasn't been printed in Germany for over 60 years. The state of Bavaria holds the copyright to the book and has since 1945. But even copyrights run out and the clock is ticking toward 2015 (or 70 years past when the author passed away). At that point every neo-Nazi with a printing press can start pumping out his own version of the work. At least one scholar would like to be allowed to publish a scholarly version of the book now - to get a head start on the neo-Nazis, so to speak.
Dr. Horst Moller of the Institute of Contemporary History in Munich is the historian who believes Germany ought not wait until 2015. He believes a well-researched and footnoted version of Mein Kampf will be the only effective way to rebut the "inevitable sensationalism" spewing forth from the neo-Nazi approved versions. According to Moller: "As long as Mein Kampf is not available in a carefully annotated edition, there will be no end to the oft simple-minded speculation about what is actually in the book. An academic edition could break the peculiar myth which surrounds Mein Kampf." The Bavarian Finance Ministry (BFM) said it has taken "a restrictive position" regarding publication and will continue to refuse to allow "complete works to be published, neither in Germany nor abroad, with the intention of preventing the distribution of Nazi ideology."
The book is widely available in a number of countries like the United Kingdom, the US, and was recently pronounced a bestseller in Turkey. The BFM has fought publication in foreign countries. In Sweden, an attempt to assert copyright authority failed with the Swedish Supreme Court ruling that Bavaria didn't own the copyright. However, publication was stopped because the court also ruled that the Swedish publisher had violated someone's copyright - it just didn't identify whose. It is currently opposing an attempt to have the book published in Poland. Unlike Austria, it is not against the law to own a copy of the book in Germany, but you apparently won't be seeing a German language version printed until 2015.
The BFM has its supporters in Germany. Historian Wolfgang Benz thinks the idea of a scholarly edition of Mein Kampf is "absurd" believing it impossible to annotate an "800 page monologue exposing Hitler's insane worldview." Holocaust survivor Salomon Korn also believes that Germany can wait on the publication of the book. Korn says his stand is informed out of sympathy for other Holocaust survivors, "It is unacceptable that such a symbolic work should be published with the state's stamp of approval while any survivors who suffered directly under the Nazis are still alive."
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