Controversy as Adolf Hitler’s autobiography hits bookstores

Adolf Hitler, German Dictator, left the world with an autobiography he titled ‘Mein Kampf’, meaning ‘My Struggle’, which was till 2015 seen as a taboo that must not be touched or republished.

German historians from The Institute for Contemporary History have broken the taboo by reprinting the Mein Kampf, which now sells in bookstores for about N13,000 ($63) a copy.

It is not appearing in its original form but is heavily annotated to expose the “lies, half-truths and vicious tirades,” behind a Nazi vision of racist hostility that ended in the deaths of tens of millions of people in World War II, the institute revealed.

According to CNN, re-publication is possible in Germany because the copyright on Mein Kampf ran out on December 31, 70 years after Hitler’s death.

With the copyright gone, the historians saw themselves obliged to be the ones to re-publish.

“It seeks to thoroughly deconstruct Hitler’s propaganda in a lasting manner and thus to undermine the still effective symbolic power of the book,” the Institute for Contemporary History said.

“The rantings of a madman may not have been of historic interest had they not become gruesome reality.”

Hitler declared ahead of time in a unique way what horrors he would unleash on Europe, Jews and other minorities, and the world.

Mein Kampf was originally around 600 pages long, and the book sported Hitler’s photo with the title splashed across a red background, with about four million copies sold in the Nazi era.

The institute’s version, which is titled, ‘Hitler, mein Kampf, A critical edition’, is about 2,000 pages.

Germany’s justice system has vowed that any re-publication or distribution of the original book without proper annotation is to remain illegal.

Mein Kampf was the most important documentation of Hitler’s intentions. He wrote it in two volumes between 1924 and 1926 before the Nazis usurped power.

The book was originally published on July 18, 1925.