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The heavily annotated reissue of Adolf Hitler’s propaganda work Mein Kampf has become an instant bestseller in Germany.
The 2,000-page Hitler, Mein Kampf: Eine Kritische Edition (published by Institut für Zeitgeschichte, the Institute of Contemporary History), half of which consists of critical notes added by scholars, will debut on the Der Spiegel non-fiction bestsellers list this week in 20th place.
The ranking will be published on Saturday (16th January) in the new print issue of the news magazine, which last week devoted 10 pages to the book, which came out on January 8th.
The trade paper Buchreport which compiles the lists for Der Spiegel, also took the unusual step of issuing a statement on the tome’s inclusion in the ranking. In its daily online newsletter, the publication argues that a simple reissue of Mein Kampf would not have made the list because it wasn’t a new edition, whereas this book does because of its around 3,700 scholarly annotations by Christian Hartmann, Thomas Vordermayer, Othmar Plöcking and others.
All 4,000 copies printed by the Institut für Zeitgeschichte, priced at €59, have sold out in a few days, with a reprint announced for later this month.
Booksellers who have put the book front of store are few and far between. The vast majority of shops, independents and chains alike, so far do not stock the book but will order it if a customer asks for it. Some booksellers reported pre-orders of between five and 20 copies.
There is interest from schools as well, many of which have so far worked with extracts from the book. Because education is not a federal matter, each of the 16 German state governments (Bundesländer) will have to decide if they want to allow the annotated volume to be used in class.