CGTN America
In this Jan. 8, 2016 file photo a books store clerk places the publication of “Hitler, Mein Kampf – A critical edition” in a book store in Munich, Germany. The annotated edition of “Mein Kampf,” Adolf Hitler’s notorious manifesto, has become a non-fiction best-seller in Germany. News agency dpa reported Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2017, that 85,000 copies of the book have been sold since it was first published a year ago. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)
In Germany, a new edition of Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” has become a bestseller.The book’s publishers say 85,000 copies were sold in just twelve months.
CGTN’S Guy Henderson reports from Berlin.
It’s not easy to get hold of National Socialist literature.
At Berlin’s Topography of Terror Museum, such universally discredited works are kept under lock and key.
But buried in the backrooms is the most infamous of that terrible era: Mein Kampf. Adolf Hitler’s flawed philosophy of hate.
Once you make your way upstairs in this former Nazi headquarters, the book hardly gets a public mention.
Historians widely agree on the dangers of reducing this period of history to just one man.
Twelve months ago, though, Mein Kampf returned to bookshops for the first time since the Second World War.
Its publisher said this week that 85,000 copies have been sold in the year since making it a German bestseller.
The new blank-covered version is very different from the old – essentially, a painstakingly methodical put-down.
Critics had expressed concerns that a new edition risked giving a platform to such extremist and inaccurate rants.
Even the team that developed this particular edition warn against giving the book too much significance.
It’s surprisingly strong sales seem to be driven not by an interest in the hatred within its pages; but more by the arguments in there that so utterly discredit it.
