Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Germany’s Latest Best Seller? A Critical Version of ‘Mein Kampf’; New York Times, 1/3/17

Melissa Eddy, New York Times; Germany’s Latest Best Seller? A Critical Version of ‘Mein Kampf’:

"The dual-volume doorstop of a meticulously historically annotated version of Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” was one of Germany’s best-selling works of nonfiction last year, its publisher said on Tuesday, announcing that it would bring out a sixth run at the end of the month.

Originally published in the 1920s and banned for seven decades in Germany, the new version, “Hitler, Mein Kampf, A Critical Edition,” spent 35 weeks on Der Spiegel’s best-seller list and sold about 85,000 copies, according to the Institute of Contemporary History in Munich.

The success of the critical and annotated version, it said, was proof that the attempt by a team of historians to annotate, criticize and contextualize the original much-reviled work was worth it. The project had been planned to follow the expiration at the end of 2015 of a 70-year copyright held by the state of Bavaria and stirred controversy during the three years it took to complete."

No comments: