New edition of Mein Kampf?

[unnormahl]

I have now read several times that some people or organizations, e. g. the Central Council of Jews here in Germany, want to have a new edition of Hitlers Mein Kampf (My Struggle in English) published. It is supposed to be a critical edition with footnotes and comments by experts to prevent neo-nazis from using it for propaganda purposes.

Here is also an article that explains it a bit:
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/5978047/German-Jews-back-historians-push-to-publish-new-edition-of-Adolf-Hitlers-Mein-Kampf.html

Now my question is: Do you think this would help in any way? Does the fact that this book is (at least in Germany) forbidden make it more interesting?
Should an annotated version maybe even used at schools to explain how horrible the holocaust and the whole nazi regime was?
What do you think?

[Isa]

Hmm... I guess it's not a bad idea, especially with the footnotes and comments to put everything into context. It's already available in many countries anyhow, and lots of people read it out of curiosity so it might be better if they could learn something valuable at the same time.

[Michelle]

I think it should be published. As bad as Hitler and the Holocoaust was, it is still a part of our history and we should be allowed to understand history. Critical footnotes would help, I think to frame it in that context.

[Steph]

I think that it should be published too. I think that the world should be ready about now to deal with it correctly. And the footnotes would be really interesting, and would make it more educational about the situation back then and make it easier to understand the whole picture.

[Halie]

I agree, I think it should be published, especially for students or scholars studying German history. It's so important not to forget the past. In the Constitution, there are references to slavery, such as "slaves equal 3/4 of one person in population counts." But now, the references aren't eliminated, they're just crossed out. History repeats itself. We need to learn about the past in order to never do something so terrible again.

In my history class last year, we watched "The Birth of a Nation", which is a creepy movie about the KKK because it shows them in a positive light. But at the same time, it was a groundbreaking movie due to the length and techniques used. So it's kind of similar.

I really don't think I would want to read Mein Kampf, though.

[Pilleriin]

Aug 22, 2009 17:09:23 GMT -5 Halie said:

I really don't think I would want to read Mein Kampf, though.

Actually, I tried to read some parts of it in German last year for history olympiad and I'd really like to read it fully, with notes.