Hitler's Mein Kampf Back in Print in Germany

MOSCOW (RIA Novosti) - German weekly "Zeitungszeugen" magazine will start publishing excerpts from Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" next week, a move that has already caused criticism in Germany, French daily Le Figaro reported on Wednesday.

Peter McGee, the British-born publisher of German paper Zeitungszeugen, which has reproduced excerpts from Nazi newspapers Der Angriff and Völkische Beobachter, said he plans to start publishing excerpts of Hitler's book. The Mein Kampf texts will be published as an insert to magazine, with accompanying comments by historians, Le Figaro said.

"We're not publishing 'Mein Kampf,' we're publishing ... some excerpts of 'Mein Kampf' with some critical commentary," McGee told the Associated Press.

Bavarian Finance Ministry which holds the Mein Kampf’s copyright until it will be lifted in 2015, told the Associated Press on Tuesday that McGee’s move may violate the law since “the segments are too long to be considered excerpts not covered by copyright.”

U.S.-based Holocaust survivors’ organization called on Bavarian authorities to prevent the publication in Germany, saying that it is a "crass commercialism" and "a moral offense to the memory of all Nazi victims," Associated Press said.

The president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Dieter Graumann, told the Jerusalem Post that he would prefer Germans read annotated excerpts from the book, but not online versions on extremist web sites.

"I can truly do without the publication of this hate-filled book,” Jerusalem Post quoted Graumann as saying. "If one must actually read it, then rather in the framework of a critical commentary."

Mein Kampf, written by Hitler after he was jailed in a failed putsch in Bavaria in 1923, is currently banned in Germany. It is widely available, however, on nationalist websites based outside Germany.