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Adolf Hitler’s Manifesto ‘Mein Kampf’ To Return To German Bookstores

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Neal Earley Contributor
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For the first time in decades, Adolf Hitler’s manifesto, “Mein Kampf,” is making a return to bookstores, NBC News reports.

A historical research center in Munich, the Institute of Contemporary History (IFZ), will publish a new annotated version of the manifesto in January.

The decision to publish Mein Kampf is arising because the copyright on the book is about to expire.

Currently the copyright belongs to the Bavarian government, given to them after the end of the Second World War. Since holding the copyright, the Bavarian government has restricted the publishing of the book out of respect for victims of the Holocaust.

Now with the copyright to set to expire, Hitler’s political declaration will return to German bookstores, a rare sight in the country since the days of the Third Reich.

Copies of Mein Kampf will be published with annotations providing analysis on the content of the books.

With the added commentary, the length of the book will increase from 800 pages to 2,000 pages with five historians and 30 experts from other fields contributing to the new edition.

The new annotations are a prerequisite to publishing Hitler’ manifesto. According to NBC News, the Bavarian government has threatened to prosecute anyone who would try to publish the book without historical commentary under “racial incitement” laws.

While Mein Kampf is not banned in Germany, Nazi symbols are banned, unless they are used for historic or educational purposes. The soon to be publisher said that the goal of publishing the manifesto with the political commentary is an attempt to counter Nazi ideology.