Removing the fuse [View all]

SPIEGEL: At 12 million copies, Hitler's polemic "Mein Kampf" numbers among the best-selling books in the world. The text is also available online for free. What are you hoping to achieve by publishing an annotated scholarly edition?

Hartmann: We view ourselves as something akin to a bomb disposal team. "Mein Kampf" is the rusty old artillery shell, and we're removing the fuse. The idea is to defuse the book with a new introduction and especially with a thorough scholarly commentary. This removes the book's symbolic value and makes it what it essentially is: a historical record, and nothing more.

SPIEGEL: Wolfgang Benz, the historian and former head of the Center for Research on Antisemitism (ZfA) at Berlin's Technical University, believes this annotated edition is unnecessary because he views Hitler's book as containing nothing more than "personal, hate-filled tirades without any additional insight."

Hartmann: I see it completely differently. This book is of key significance for understanding Hitler's policies. In it, he takes stock of his situation after a life that had been fairly hectic up to that point. Reading this book leaves little to support the theory of a weak dictator. In fact, it's disturbing to see just how precisely Hitler implemented what he wrote here in subsequent years.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-historian-discusses-new-scholarly-edition-of-hitler-s-mein-kampf-a-834560.html