Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" on sale in Germany for the first time since World War II

What difference does it make?  It is readily available online

A critical edition of Adolf Hitler's autobiography Mein Kampf will hit bookstores in Germany for the first time since World War II as the copyright of the racist political treatise expires.

For 70 years, the southern German state of Bavaria - who was handed the copyright of the book by the Allies in 1945 following Hitler's death - refused to publish the anti-Semitic manifesto out of respect for victim of the Nazis.

But Mein Kampf, which means My Struggle, fell into the public domain on January 1.

Ian Kershaw, a Briton who is a leading biographer of Hitler, joined Friday's book presentation and said it was 'high time for a rigorously academic edition of Mein Kampf' to be made available.

'For years, I have considered the lifting of the ban on publication long overdue,' Kershaw said.

'Censorship is almost always pointless in the long term in a free society, and only contributes to creating a negative myth, making a forbidden text more mysterious and awakening an inevitable fascination with the inaccessible.'

But the Jewish community in Germany criticised the decision to reprint the anti-Semitic book, questioning whether it was necessary to propagate the inflammatory text again.

Charlotte Knobloch, leader of the Jewish community in Munich, said she could not imagine seeing 'Mein Kampf' in shop windows.

Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, told AFP that not only would 'Holocaust survivors be offended by the sale of the anti-Semitic work in bookstores again', but that he also failed to see a need for a critical edition.

SOURCE