Mr. Mittens Controversy has erupted over the republication of Adolf Hitler’s autobiography, Mein Kampf , since the copyright expired this year. Opponents of the reprint outlined multiple reasons why the book shouldn’t be available but these fears are misguided as they are primarily built upon the belief that people actually read books. Below is an image of a bookstore. Note that no one is there.
Or here.
Or over there.
Another reason this book will never be read has to due the people behind the republication, the Institute of Contemporary History in Munich (Institut für Zeitgeschichte). Their new release expands Hitler’s original 500 page book by including numerous footnotes and historical criticism showing the logical errors and factual inaccuracies strewn throughout the text. As a result the new edition is broken in two volumes and composes around 2,000 pages which would, on average, take a person more than a billion years to read. It would also require the reader to care enough to keep reading the book, which seems impossible because the book sucks and is really boring and because new episodes Gilmore Girls are coming to Netflix.
But detractors have no shortage of reasons why there shouldn’t be a reprint of Hitler’s bestseller. We’ve listed those arguments, and proper responses to them, below:
The book will be used by anti-Semitic groups to gather more disparaging material.
This new edition will be heavily annotated and many of the anti-Semitic arguments derived from the book in the past should actually be leveled. But because hate groups are known to ignore facts right in front of them, The Institute of Contemporary History has decided to use click baity titles for their essays to trick anti-Semites into learning the uncomfortable truths about how bland Jews can be.
This will certainly lead to a Hitler copycat.
Again, the book is annotated to illustrate the fallacies in anti-Semitic rhetoric. Please direct all excess fear towards the Internet.
Hitler was the most evil person in history so why should we buy his book and give him our money!?
1) Hitler is dead.
2) The copyright expired so it doesn’t go to Hitler anyway.
3) Let me tell you about Stalin and Mao…
People are going to hear about how evil the book is and read it and then find out it sucks just like Catcher in the Rye.
Yes but disillusionment can be a beautiful thing!
It will probably get so popular it will spawn a movie; a toy line; a low budget NBC spinoff of a lesser known character like the Nazi’s Economy; then a Twitter account; and a History Channel documentary on The Search for the Rest of Hitler’s Mustache, investigating why is most of his mustache missing, where could it be hidden, and how can it help us see dieting in a whole new way!
I guess you have a point there…
Most people will buy it to put it on their shelf and look educated, or to make it okay for them to have Nazi memorabilia because they understand the historical significance of it and stuff.
Yes. In the past, you would typically have had to travel to Jerusalem and get a photo with Rabbi Joseph ben Joseph to put on your bookshelf to not look intolerant. But due to an increase in travel costs this method has rapidly dwindled in popularity and many illegitimate “Friend of the Jews” online certification programs have propped in its place. Students have to read through a lengthy legal disclosure and complete a final exam with tough questions such as: What address should your certificate be mailed to, What is your middle initial, and Would you like to make a charitable donation to the program? With this new scholarly edition of Mein Kampf, people can get a cost effective means to display Nazi memorabilia in their homes and not look bigoted, without having to resort to these illegitimate “Friend of the Jews” certification mills. So this is actually a positive change.
