Etcetera

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."

Tags: edited by Port1080, written by MayorBob, Mein Kampf, Hitler, copyright, neo-Nazis (all tags)

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Re: views

zyxwvutsr.

Sun Jul 22, 2007 at 02:38:18 PM EST

4.33 (interesting, funny, funny)

What more can be said about Mein Kampf that hasn' been said already countless times by scholars of history? It turns out quite a lot, actually: through the miracle of the Internet and Amazon.com, there are scores of reviews available by people who claim to have read the book. Some excerpts:

Inspirational!

...[Hitler] had served bravely in the disastrous Great War of 1914-1918, was severely wounded, no doubt saw many of his buddies killed on the front lines -- only to come home to economic and political chaos and despair. That would be enough to make any man highly angry and bitter. But Hitler didn't just sit around and mope, he did something about it; he became active in politics and put forward a philosophy that, though it has its detractors, is still "controversial" eighty years later...

Very Informational

Great book!!!!!!

Lots of great information about how the media works.......also the real story of Nazism and Pan-Germanism


hitlers book

...i belive it is the only one which tells the truth about nazi germany.its really not "racist propaganda" as the school systems would have you belive but an account of a man who loved his country so much,he tried to perfect it.its basicly just a philosophy book.remember ,hitlers allies in ww2 were a half black man ,mussolini and the japanese leader.so,if you want truth,read this book

A man who means what he says, and says what he means

...Although this book was written around 80 years ago, it is still relevant in today's corrupt and decadent world. Note especially his astute comments and observations on poverty and international finance.
You could say that he foresaw the future that we are now living in

Better than anyone will admit

Hitler makes profoundly accurate indictments of modern internationalism and anti-culture. For anyone who has some understanding of how empty our modern culture is, this book will have a great deal of meaning.

The Jewish Question is a rather minor point in this book...


Mind Scrambler

...this book was a mind scrambler and was written by a horrable human being, it really gives you the insight look in Adolf Hitlers' mind. Some parts were exaggerated if you ask me but i think everyone does. It's so amazing to read this book because you can sometimes agree with some of the points he made

People who hate Hitler should really read this book

Even behind the philosophy there is something which is interesting if people took the time to think about it. It is a complicated mixture of autobiograhical study and theological rhetorics but if Hitler had not been so despised by the world, he would have been the next Nietzche

Just imagine Hitler didn't write it

Let's face it, Hitler is not the best writter a man can be. His writtings are, in some way, unorganized...If you dispise anti-semitism hardly, beware, since this book has too much pages insulting and telling how "threatening" Jews are

Don't Judge a Book by it's Author

This book may not be a great literary peace of art but it's a good token for history. In the book Hitler does call Jews, Commusist, Catholics, etc. bad names and says bad things about them; but in Mark Twain's book "Huck Finn" don't blacks get bad titles?

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Re: views

MayorBob.

Sun Jul 22, 2007 at 08:30:15 PM EST

none

And if you read the Declaration of Independence at random to Joe and Julie Average at the mall on Sunday, they're liable to tell you they think it's a communist document.  

Illegitimi non carborundum.

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Adolf Hitler and the Spear of Destiny

Steve Urkel.

Sun Jul 22, 2007 at 01:49:41 PM EST

3.00 (interesting, funny)

In Mein Kampf Hitler (I'm quoting from memory) writes:

At the back of his mind he had the idea that his son also should become an official of the Government. Indeed he had decided on that career for me...He was simply incapable of imagining that I might reject what had meant everything in life to him..

For the first time in my life--I was then eleven years old--I felt
myself forced into open opposition...I would not become a civil servant.

No amount of persuasion and no amount of 'grave' warnings could break
down that opposition. I would not become a State official, not on any
account...It nauseated me to think that one day I might be
fettered to an office stool, that I could not dispose of my own time but
would be forced to spend the whole of my life filling out forms...

...So long as the paternal plan to make a State functionary contradicted my
own inclinations only in the abstract, the conflict was easy to bear. I
could be discreet about expressing my personal views and thus avoid
constantly recurrent disputes. My own resolution not to become a
Government official was sufficient for the time being to put my mind
completely at rest...

One can't read of Hitler's struggle with his father and his perception of himself without thinking of Harry Potter. Like the boy Hitler, "mundane" people want to force the innately special boy Potter into growing up into being a mundane adult like them. Not coincidentally, both Hitler and Potter are gnosticists and occultists.

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Remembering

Lou.

Sun Jul 22, 2007 at 05:28:25 PM EST

none

Wow...4 paragraphs and 200 words...that's quite a memory you have there.  How do you do it?

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

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Re: Remembering

Steve Urkel.

Sun Jul 22, 2007 at 06:59:50 PM EST

none

A memoritizing trick you can use: whenever you read something, imagine the words are the new lyrics to theme from Gilligan's Island, and sing them out loud.

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Re: Remembering

Lou.

Sun Jul 22, 2007 at 07:24:30 PM EST

none

Actually, I was wondering why you would want to memorize something from Mien Kampf.

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

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Re: Remembering

Steve Urkel.

Sun Jul 22, 2007 at 07:27:45 PM EST

4.00 (funny)

For the same reason you want to memorize the words to the theme from Gilligan's Island - it impresses chicks.

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Impressive

Lou.

Sun Jul 22, 2007 at 10:40:01 PM EST

none

Is she your latest love interest?  Do you read Mien Kampf to her by moonlight?

As an aside...this picture could only be more surreal if she were giving the "Live Long and Prosper" Vulcan peace sign with her hand.

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

9

This ties in with the dangerous ideas thing

Steve Urkel.

Mon Jul 23, 2007 at 04:28:24 AM EST

none

I agree with the scholars statements above. I would add that because we live in world where hardly anything is prohibited, not publishing Mein Kampf gives it a sort of totemic power, and that for today's cretin such symbolic status holds a more powerful appeal than the words contained in the book itself.

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Re: This ties in with the dangerous ideas thing

thefadd.

Mon Jul 23, 2007 at 04:49:49 PM EST

none

No doubt. If it is trite crap, then let it dry up in the sun of the public eye and not fester in the damp, dark corners of prohibition.

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

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