I’d say that banning the book is an argument that its contents have a dangerous alluring power. Best to let it be discussed and debated in the public domain to remove the mystery.
I hate it when I keep reading how Jewish groups are pushing for criminalizing speech they don’t like. Mein Kampf was one of the top ten most influential books of the 20th Century. It deserves attention.
I found the book hard to put down. My pulse raced all the way through it. I knew it was forbidden to read it. That it was supposedly the most evil document out there. How could one’s pulse not race?
When I read Mein Kampf, I felt like I understood Hitler better. I could see the world through his eyes. I felt like I had a better understanding of why the 20th Century turned out like it did.
At the time I first read it (late 1999, I think), I was writing extensively about the sex industry, which was disproportionately dominated by Jews. I noted that Hitler blamed the Jews for pushing sexual degeneracy. From my own research, I knew that Jews have played a big role in the sex trade for over a century, and they have played a big role in changing sexual mores in the West towards the permissive.
I think it is sad that Bavaria backed down on subsidizing an extensively annotated politically correct new edition of Mein Kampf because of criticism from Holocaust survivors. “Because Holocaust” is a much abused argument. How come you never hear “Because communism” or “Because of the Jewish role as Stalin’s willing executioners”?
I don’t view Jews or Nazis as the personification of evil. I see groups down through history as acting in their self-interest as they perceived it. Communism was not just a failed experiment and a horror show. It also fit a need that certain groups had at the time.
If Mein Kampf creates a hostile environment for Jews, perhaps that’s because it brings to fore hidden resentments that are a ticking time bomb for Jews anyway, and that Jews should just leave for some place more hospitable?
I wonder if the hysterical reactions of Jews to this republication, while completely understandable, will hasten an anti-Jewish backlash? Most people don’t like to be told what books they may read.
When world Jewry attacked the Nazis during the 1930s, did that do the Jews of Europe a favor or was it a factor in their demise? I wonder if Jews had concentrated on getting Jews out of Europe and into Palestine as the Nazis wanted (the Nazis were Zionists), instead of declaring their hatred of the Nazis, perhaps the Nazis might not have acted as they did with the Holocaust?
Not every country is going to be suited to Jewish prosperity just as not every country is equally suited for blacks and Muslims and Mexicans or any group.
Groups should do what is in their interests rather than simply what feels good. It feels good for many Jews to throw a fit over the republishing of Mein Kampf in Germany, but does it do Jews good?
There are a lot of sacred Jewish books (such as the Torah and Talmud) that contain hatred towards Gentiles. How would Jews feel about these books being banned? You might argue, well, Jews have never committed genocide so this hatred is harmless. Well, the victims of Stalin’s genocides that were in part carried out by Jews may differ. It was because Stalin’s executioners were frequently not Russian but Jewish or Georgian etc that they were able to carry out these genocides.
Hasidic Jews don’t campaign against the goyim reading whatever books they want, including Mein Kampf. They don’t obsess about the Holocaust. They don’t build museums about the Holocaust. They don’t monitor the speech of Gentiles for anti-Semitism. They don’t fight anti-Semitism. In short, they don’t worry about the goyim because they have their own full rich lives to lead. I think the Jews who get in a tizzy about what books the goyim are reading are leading lives so empty that they have to make up a pointless and destructive crusade to give themselves purpose in life.
As far as I am aware, our mesora (Jewish tradition) does not say anything about which goyisha books the goyim are allowed to read.
Although authorities here struck deals with online sellers such as Amazon.com to prohibit sales in Germany, new copies of “Mein Kampf” have become widely available via the Internet around the globe. In retail stores in India, it is enjoying strong popularity as a self-help book for Hindu nationalists. A comic-book edition was issued in Japan. A new generation of aficionados is also rising among the surging ranks of the far right in Europe. The neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party in Greece, for instance, has stocked “Mein Kampf” at its bookstore in Athens.
Regardless of the academic context provided by the new volume, critics say the new German edition will ultimately allow Hitler’s voice to rise from beyond the grave.
“I am absolutely against the publication of ‘Mein Kampf,’ even with annotations. Can you annotate the Devil? Can you annotate a person like Hitler?” said Levi Salomon, spokesman for the Berlin-based Jewish Forum for Democracy and Against Anti-Semitism. “This book is outside of human logic.”
Not surprisingly, the new edition has become a political hot potato, illustrating the always-awkward question of how modern Germany should deal with its past. Initially, Bavaria, for instance, had pledged $575,000 to directly support publication of the new edition for historical purposes. But it backed out after the Bavarian governor’s 2012 visit to Israel, where he heard withering criticism of the proposal from Holocaust survivors…
Despite the chorus of opposition, particularly from Jewish groups and Holocaust survivors, the institute has opted to go ahead with publication, funding it from its general budget — a task made easier by the fact that Bavaria allowed it to keep the original grant for other research purposes…
Brechtken said the new print version will point out, for instance, how Hitler appeared to borrow his views from other sources, and it will refute his racist claims. Bavarian officials also say they will seek to apply incitement-to-hate laws to any attempt to publish unannotated versions in the future. But so far, they say they will not seek to block publication of the institute’s expanded version, citing the benefits it may bring to historical research.
Yet vocal opposition appears to be growing. Charlotte Knobloch, head of the Jewish community in Munich, said she had not vigorously opposed it when the project first surfaced. But her position, she said, hardened after hearing from outraged Holocaust survivors.
“This book is most evil; it is the worst anti-Semitic pamphlet and a guidebook for the Holocaust,” she said. “It is a Pandora’s box that, once opened again, cannot be closed.”
