What to do with Mein Kampf?!

[Bannedcontent]

My late DF was a history buff and after he died we gave a lot of his books to charity but kept a few.

Among them was an English translation of Mein Kampf. It’s a first edition from 1939.

I held on to it as a historic artefact but would now like to move it on.

I can’t sell it on Amazon or eBay as it’s banned.

So the question is: do I bin it? (YABU)
Do I donate it to a library or something? (YANBU) Where?!

Ah right thanks for that. The things you learn on mumsnet!

It is totally unacceptable to call someone a Nazi apologist for mentioning that they have a German ancestor.

Ah I get you. Yes if go museum or shredder personally for similar reasons.

It's a bit fucking sick of you to say how sad it was that your grandfather died early, in this context, tbh. I think I need to leave this thread.
😮Wow. That's really nasty.

Imperial War Museum, there's one in Manchester and I think London?

I would add to this that @BloodAndFire has no idea whether any of us with German ancestry also lost family members to The Nazis.
While Jewish people did undoubtedly bear the brunt of Nazi hatred they were not the only group, some of us are very aware of what could happen to people who DID speak out.

Don’t worry @SwedeCarrotLime it wouldn’t be the first time we (including my DC) have been called Nazis purely for having German heritage and a German name

The World needs original hard copies - because what happens when the official originals get burned and the digital ones get edited otherwise?

You'd get people falsifying excerpts and without a large number of first editions knocking round, there's no way of showing 'no, the writer didn't say that, he said...'

It's preserving evidence. Evidence of a great evil, so that it cannot be misrepresented, falsified or erased in the event of similar threats to humanity.

I've reported it.

I mean, I know that - but OP will sell it and the money can go to an anti-Nazi cause somewhere. People who want to get hold of this can just buy it online - they don't need to go out of their way to search out a first edition.

This was the email I got from Ebay when I tried to list it:
"You listed the book Mein Kampf, but it is not a critically annotated edition. eBay only allows critically annotated versions of Mein Kampf to be listed on the site. While we appreciate that you chose to utilize our site, we must ask that you please not relist in this case."

And this from Amazon:
"After reviewing your title again, we confirmed that it is in violation of our content guidelines and we will not be offering this title for sale on Amazon.
We reserve the right to determine whether content provides a poor customer experience and remove that content from sale.
Thanks for your understanding.
Best regards,
Amazon"

Awww, it's sweet that you're all reuniting on this thread to reminisce about charming gifts of Mein Kampf to newborn babies, and heartwarming stories of family history. I really am hiding this thread now, it's a bit fucking much tbh. It's amazing how quickly people stopped even pretending to give a shit. It's not even out of living memory yet

There was another Hitler thread not that long ago which also went in a weird direction and had what I think were quite dodgy comments. Not sinister - I don’t think there are many neo-nazi mumsnetters lurking around - but there does seem to be a lot of genuine ignorance and naïvety around Nazism and it’s affects even today, and the influence Hitler’s rhetoric has even today. People seem to feel very distanced from it, or try and look at it from a ‘historical’ and purely objective point of view, as with other historical events, but it’s not really the past the same way as for example the English Civil War. This is why especially people who are German or with German heritage get very uncomfortable when people discuss ‘understanding Hitler’s motives’ or categorising a first edition of dangerous rhetoric as a ‘historical artefact’. It’s still raw and still feels risky - the way you discuss Hitler and the Nazis needs to be done responsibly and thoughtfully. You can’t talk about Hitler and the Nazis in the same way you discuss Henry VIII beheading his wives 500 years ago, like it’s history dead and buried. It isn’t.

Further examples being sold on eBay. Some are translations of Hitler's original German language edition. One has an introduction by a British writer and is quite thick.

She doesn't even say she was sad, @BloodAndFire! She says she wishes she could have talked to him about his history.

@DownNative I note that in that last listing, the title has been misspelled, presumably to get round the rules.

People should only be allowed to access information through “the right channels”? The spirit of fascism is alive and well in the modern liberal

Odd because I don't think this one is critically annotated. It's brand new in original shrink wrap though.

It's Hitler's own words in that one.

I'd report those ebay listings. They've tried to be sneaky and use phrases other than the actual title.

Anyway. This has been a really interesting discussion, I had just thought of getting rid of it not being an issue but I am slowly seeing the arguement to physical copies needing to be kept.

Yes they've not used the title of the book to get round it. Sneaky.

Exactly.

It's ironic that so many people support destroying a book written by a man who supported destroying books.

You'd think that if eBay and Amazon were serious about stopping the sale of the text on their platforms they might think to incorporate the key words 'Adolf' and 'Hitler' in their automatic screening of listings.

Good spot! Didn't notice that though I would assume Ebay have accounted for misspellings. I know when I helped run a forum years ago that's what we did. You just pop them in the algorithm and it'll automatically deal with it for you.

I kind of thought the world had enough copies but yes see the argument for keeping it a bit more now

Agree with above

Interesting.

"But on Amazon’s subsidiary AbeBooks, which operates largely independently, hundreds of new and used copies of “Mein Kampf” are available."

www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/technology/amazon-hitler-mein-kampf.html#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=16612610170817&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2020%2F03%2F17%2Ftechnology%2Famazon-hitler-mein-kampf.html

Abebooks does sell a leather book (cover?) for Mein Kampf.

www.abebooks.co.uk/Kampe-1812-Leather-Bound-Hitler-Adolf/30592991903/bd

It appears Amazon is inconsistent there.