Culture
Successful deconstruction: Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” as a critical new edition
70 years after the author’s death is now a scholarly Edition of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” on the market. The demand is huge. In the house of history in Bonn, it was the Edition presented.
Since it is now on the bookstore, the creation. Two thick, large volumes, bulky six kilos of weight. Not for a mobile handling suitable, rather for the Library designed. The simple linen-cover: stone grey, unspectacular opened. Not a screaming Red, no historical Typography. Already the title is a clear statement of the Historikerteams by the prestigious Munich Institute for contemporary history (IfZ): “Hitler, Mein Kampf. In a critical Edition.” The first name of the author comes, not before.
The book presentation in Bonn house of history are nearly 500 curious listeners come. The crush is great, the space in the hall is not enough to begin. In the Foyer, can everything on the screen be followed. On the Podium: from Munich publisher and project Manager Christian Hartmann, and the Director of the Institute for contemporary history, Andreas Wirsching. Also, the literary critic Helmut Kiesel of the University of Heidelberg has been invited.
Great demand from abroad
Hans Walter Hütter, President of the “Stiftung Haus der Geschichte of the Federal Republic of Germany” and on this evening, the Moderator said at the beginning of the astonishing success of the Critical Edition, the since 8. January 2016 available in bookstores is: Already on the first shipping date was the first edition of 4000 copies sold out. And the re-orders cracks not: 15.000 were already reprinted, the 3. Edition is already in preparation. “Success has many fathers. It would be a failure to become, it would only be Dr. Hartmann, the villain, the everything to answer for.” Laughs in the audience.
Historian Dr. Christian Hartmann (IfZ) led the elaborate Editions project
Project Manager Christian Hartmann may be the enormous interest the only way to explain: “Once this book is one of the last true relics of the third Reich, which is still there. And the second point: This is a book that in many German families still in the consciousness is present. ‘My struggle’ is so to speak the last remnant of the third Reich. Thus, many people have a personal relationship to this object – for Good or Bad.” On a total of 2000 pages, typographically very clear with 3,500 footnotes and scientific remarks, “surrounded”, as Hartmann calls it, you can the historical Text of Hitler’s ideological Kampfschrift page for page. 780 pages, includes the Original.
Hitler was a foreign word-fanatics
“You stay hang on to the small articles, the original text accompany notes Hütter appreciatively. For the publisher Team have the years of intensive work on the Text is always a bit of an Agonizing had reported Hartmann, since 1993, a historian at the IfZ: “Hitler is a stranger-fanatics have been.” With fondness, he had phrases and strange quotes used, he wouldn’t have understood. More than 12 million Times was Hitler’s Propagandaschrift to 1945 printed and among the German people. Abroad came in addition to numerous Translations. After the end of the Second world war was reprinted in Germany by the allies prohibited. Until today, around the world more than one thousand different editions in second-hand bookshops, libraries and online portals.
“My struggle” belonged until 1945 to the basic equipment in all German authorities, offices and households
“There is hardly a book with so many myths being overloaded, with so much disgust and fear to arouse curiosity and speculation of the could and last but not least, with the Aura of the forbidden is advertising”, is available on the website of the IfZ to read. The claim of the Critical Edition, therefore, was high: “she arranges historical facts, puts Hitler’s mental precursor to open and contrasted his ideas and ideological assertions with the results of modern research”, announced the IfZ 2012. More than four years has been intensively worked. The result of this politically ambitious book project: an all-Round success. In presentation, content and Faktendichte. Also easily readable even for younger history buffs. The
Reactions of the first readers and the professional world
are extremely positive.
The Secretary in the machine is dictated
Exciting and entertaining reads alone, the history of “Mein Kampf”. The then unknown Adolf Hitler was in 1923 with his Munich coup attempt grandiose failed: He was arrested, and the movement suppressed. In his prison cell in the fortress of Landsberg, he wrote the following year, all his resentment of the political situation of the Weimar Republic and the defeat of the 1. World war down. Volume 1 has the title “A settlement”.
Seizure of power in 1933: His national socialist racial policy prepares Hitler already in “Mein Kampf” before
264 days had the party leaders of the time, about its own strategic plans and a new beginning in his forbidden NSDAP thinking. His racist Pamphlet and typed it in his jail cell, which conveniently was equipped, the same on the typewriter. In the Writing of Band 2, he was on the Obersalzberg already a Secretary is available, he his half-baked Heilsvisionen only dictate had. The hate-tirades, his new habitat-ideology and anti-democratic attacks against the “Marxist contaminated Judaism” brought him great popularity in his party and strengthened its leading position.
No Footnotes-Jungle
The Team of scientists of the IfZ has these facts with the current Hitler-biographies matched. Everything is on the latest state of historical research. The Chapter on Hitler’s language, the Parteigeschichte of the NSDAP and the implementation of Hitler’s ideology in racial policy will be complemented by the Typography, a history of the different editions of “Mein Kampf”. After 1933, more modern, and more legible Antiqua font.
The observations of the Munich scientists reflect the original text in the smallest of Details at eye level and not in a hidden footnote apparatus. Hitler’s lies and half-truths are biographical and critical, on the right, historical contexts are explained. The story of the unstoppable rise of Adolf Hitler up to his dictatorial reign is almost parallel to the Text drawn.
Book presentation in Munich: Strong interest from abroad, now for the translation rights
Frightening, how clearly and distinctly the annotated edition of “Mein Kampf” the thrust of these Kampfschrift and the later political development of the so-called third Reich already in their early approaches. “I am with this work, not to Strangers but to those followers of the movement, with the heart in it and their brains to intimate enlightenment aims,” wrote Hitler in his Preface.
Critical Edition with point of view
You should the Text in no case be underestimated, notes literary scholar Helmuth Kiesel on the Podium in the house of the story. As preparation for a meeting he had years ago, worked intensively with the Original edition of “Mein Kampf” busy – under the question: “Was Hitler a good writer?” For days he had the book almost in self-test textkritisch read with growing fascination, he says. “The Thesis that Hitler’s work was unreadable, is untenable. But there I was, with my mind pretty much alone.”
His plea for a Critical Edition was, unfortunately, went unanswered, pebble retrospectively. But he was, in his opinion has not changed: The only thing that will help, the myth of this Kampfschrift to destroy, was a “radical destruction”. To the extent he was delighted that these are in the Form of two Editions-volumes of the IfZ now met.
Director of the IfZ: Prof. Andreas Wirsching
IfZ Director Andreas Wirsching, feels the same: The annotated edition “Hitler, Mein Kampf”, the retail price is 59 Euro is a Edition with point of view. The scientific Team of the IfZ construes it as a contribution to the historico-political education in the Federal Republic of Germany – also for a wider reading public. This view would also have recognition from Jewish circles. “What is important is the confrontation with the Symbol. We can so a factory does not work like a normal historical source,” said Wirsching. From abroad there were now 35-40 requests for Übersetzungsrechten before, reported the Director of the Institute in the Packed hall in the house of history. “We are open to it, but there is currently no contract for any language in which ‘Hitler, Mein Kampf’ could appear,” he says finally. Outside in the Foyer admits to the bookseller packaging envelopes and boxes to the page: All copies are completely sold. The demand will do not let, she says before the POS Packed up.
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