German magazine caves in battle to reprint Hitler's 'Mein Kampf'
A German magazine's bid to reprint excerpts of 'Mein Kampf' to promote a discussion of the past was blocked by a long-standing German ban on reprinting or selling the text.
A magazine supplement with an image of Adolf Hitler and the title 'The Unreadable Book' is pictured in Berlin on Thursday. Excerpts from Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' will be blacked out from the magazine supplement due to go on sale in Germany on Thursday following the threat of legal action from the state of Bavaria, the publishers of the magazine said on Wednesday.
Thomas Peter/Reuters
Berlin
A German magazine has backed down in its battle to reprint parts of Adolf Hitler's book "Mein Kampf," opting to black out the pages containing the excerpts in order to avoid legal problems.
The British publisher of the German magazine Zeitungszeugen, Peter McGee, intended to print excerpts of the book in today's issue of the magazine. “It is long overdue that the German public is exposed to the original text,” Mr. McGee told Der Spiegel magazine. However, legal proceedings initiated by the Bavarian state government dissuaded him.
The Bavarian state government was named the copyright holder of “Mein Kampf” by the Allied Forces after World War II and has blocked every other attempt to have the book printed and sold in Germany since 1945. In order not to jeopardize the entire issue of Zeitungszeugen (which translates as “newspaper witnesses”), Mr. McGee changed his mind just before his magazine went to print, he said.
