Reprint of Hitler’s Mein Kampf Is Flying off Shelves in Germany

The new version of Hitler’s autobiography went on sale after a 70-year-old copyright expired in January 2016.

Latest edition of Hitler, Mein Kampf – A critical edition, republished in Germany after 70 years. (Photo: AP)

Sales of Adolf Hitler's ‘Mein Kampf’ have soared since a special, annotated edition of the Nazi leader's political treatise went on sale in Germany a year ago.

The German publisher said on Tuesday that a sixth print run will go on sale later this month.

The new edition is the first reprint since World War Two, released last January after a 70-year copyright on the text expired at the end of 2015. It includes explanatory sections and some 3,500 annotations, and has sold 85,000 copies to the surprise of its publishers.

The publisher spent years adding comments to Hitler's original text in an effort to highlight his propaganda. "These sales figures have taken us by storm," Andreas Wirsching, who heads up the publishers, the Institute for Contemporary History (IfZ) told German news agency dpa.

"No-one could really have expected them," he added.

Hitler wrote ‘Mein Kampf’, which translates to My Struggle in English, between 1924 and 1926. It was banned by the Allies at the end of World War Two.

The institute said in late 2015 that it planned an initial print run of up to 4,000 copies. In April, however, the book topped the weekly Der Spiegel's non-fiction best-seller list.

Despite its incendiary and anti-Semitic content, the book wasn’t actually banned in Germany and could be found online, in secondhand bookshops and in libraries.

The Institute for Contemporary History said fears that the new publication might help make Hitler's ideology socially acceptable had proven unfounded.

On the contrary, the discussion about Hitler’s world view and how to deal with his propaganda offered the opportunity to look at the disastrous roots and consequences at a time when authoritarian political ideas and right-wing slogans are again gaining followers.

Andreas Wirsching

German authorities have made clear they won't tolerate new versions without annotations.

Hitler wrote most of the first, highly autobiographical, volume while incarcerated in Landsberg prison after his failed Munich coup attempt in 1923.

After his release, he wrote much of the second volume at his mountain retreat near Berchtesgaden. By 1945, the book had sold 12 million copies and been translated into 18 languages

(With inputs from AP, Reuters)