Hitler’s manifesto has not been reprinted in Germany since World War II ended.

希特勒《我的奮鬥》在德國面臨解禁爭議

二戰後取得希特勒著作《我的奮鬥》版權的巴伐利亞州一直禁止該書重印。但此書的版權保護即將在2015年底終結，德國正商討是否延長出版禁令。

對社民黨聯邦議會議員利什卡（Burkhard Lischka）而言，事情非常明確。他認為，2015年12月31日過後，若德國書店裡再次販賣希特勒著作《我的奮鬥》（Mein Kampf），或右翼極端分子在德國各大城市的步行街分發這本書籍，那便是對大屠殺受難者的冒犯。利什卡在接受德國之聲採訪時表示：「必須通過一切法律途徑防止事情成真。我認為，這個糟糕的作品應該永遠在歷史中灰飛煙滅。」因此，他與其他黨內成員共同向聯邦政府提出疑問，2016年後將如何處理這本希特勒著作。

至今為止，德國巴伐利亞州是這本書的版權和發佈權所有者。該聯邦州在二戰後取得了上述權利，以防止書籍被重印以及國內外國家社會主義（納粹）思想的傳播。在全歐洲境內，版權保護在作者死後的70年後便失效，而希特勒的《我的奮鬥》版權將於2015年結束。之後這本書將屬於「公共領域」，意即它基本上可以由任何人重印和散播。

取得以色列諒解

德國政府謹慎答覆社民黨提出的疑問，表示將釐清與出版禁令有關的法律問題，而版權保護即將到期一事已經是德國和以色列政府討論的議題，兩國間存在著「有效防止非人道思想傳播的共同利益」。

巴伐利亞內政部長赫爾曼（Joachim Hermann）則說得更明確。早在二月時他已就希特勒的著作表示過意見：「根據現有法律，書籍文本中明顯具有煽動性特質。」赫爾曼提出將對所有散播原始文本之人採取法律行動。

律師兼媒體專家赫斯曼（Tim Hoesmann）表示，德國《刑法典》第130條提供了禁止《我的奮鬥》出版的依據。就書籍內容看來，赫斯曼認為對此書發出出版禁令是相當有可能的事。在希特勒的著作中存在對個人和宗教團體清楚的誹謗。但他也保守地指出，「法院是否會據此作出裁決，仍是不可預測的」。屆時甚至可能出現不同的判決結果。

禁令取決於出版形式

在互聯網上已經存在許多希特勒著作的節錄，法律上難以採取行動。除此之外，《我的奮鬥》在多個國家的書店中都能夠不受任何限制的出售。但對聯邦議會議員利什卡而言，這不能作為在德國出版此書的理由：「那將會是一個致命的信號。我相信，德國基於歷史因素，對此必須負起特殊的責任。」

律師赫斯曼推測，是否將禁止此書出版，將取決於出版形式。「在學術研究方面，人們對這本書抱有濃厚的興趣，而一本加上註釋的《我的奮鬥》與缺少註釋的重印版本相比，在評斷上肯定有所區別。」

打破神話，歷史學家欲發表一份註釋版的《我的奮鬥》

位於慕尼黑的當代歷史研究所（IZF）自2009年起便著手製作《我的奮鬥》註釋版本，並且獲得巴伐利亞州的資助。聯邦政府對這個項目的態度維持中立，雖然該項目並非由政府主動發起，但或能「以適當的形式對納粹獨裁統治進行深刻的歷史性評估。」

社民黨人利什卡對於這項計劃表示質疑，因為在法律上很難界定註釋內容的好與壞。「若普遍允許發行註釋版本，右翼極端分子可能會在加上我們不樂見的註解後重印此書。」

慕尼黑的歷史學家正致力分析應為希特勒著作加上哪些註釋內容。研究人員希望在《我的奮鬥》版權保護期滿的同時發表成果。研究所發言人波爾米赫（Simone Paulmichl）澄清說，他們不會直接闡述希特勒的觀點。所有的章節將依照思想史分類，並且暴露文本的矛盾之處。波爾米赫認為當代歷史研究所正進行的項目是重要的教育工作：「這本書越是被隱秘保護，在人們懷有疑問時，它所帶來的後果將更強大。」律師赫斯曼也持相同觀點：「我認為這是正確的一步。如果完全禁止這部書，圍繞著它的神話將繼續滋長。」（德國之聲中文網2013/4/4報導）


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By Ishaan Tharoor February 25 at 12:20 PM  

This undated file photo shows writer George Orwell, author of "1984." (AP)

As my colleague Anthony Faiola reported this week, Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" is expected to be reissued in Germany for the first time since the end of World War II. Although widely available elsewhere in the world, the book — Hitler's testament and what's considered the founding text of Nazism — was never reprinted in postwar Germany.

Its planned reissue in Germany, The Post notes, will come in the form of a 2,000-page academic tome that supplements Hitler's own text with sharp commentary and criticism. The new version offers "a useful way of communicating historical education and enlightenment," says one of the scholars behind the project. "A publication with the appropriate comments, exactly to prevent these traumatic events from ever happening again."

[Read: ‘Mein Kampf’: A historical tool, or Hitler’s voice from beyond the grave?]

There was a time, though, when "Mein Kampf" was not just the repugnant treatise of the 20th century's greatest villain. More than seven decades ago, Hitler and the message of Nazism had great traction, and it required clear-eyed thinkers to cut through its seductions.

George Orwell's 1940 review of an English edition of the book is as important now as it would have been then. (You can read a digitized version of the piece, which appeared in the New English Weekly, here.) That's not because he's uniquely right about the threat of Hitler — at this point, World War II was already in full swing. But the celebrated British man of letters has a special lens into the dangers and allure of fascism.

Orwell offers this withering assessment of Hitler's ambitions:

What [Hitler] envisages, a hundred years hence, is a continuous state of 250 million Germans with plenty of “living room” (i.e. stretching to Afghanistan or thereabouts), a horrible brainless empire in which, essentially, nothing ever happens except the training of young men for war and the endless breeding of fresh cannon-fodder. How was it that he was able to put this monstrous vision across?

It's not sufficient to answer that last question just by looking at the political and economic forces that buoyed Hitler's rise, Orwell contends. Rather, one has to grapple with the inescapable fact that "there is something deeply appealing about him."

Hitler, Orwell writes, "knows that human beings don’t only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene... they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags and loyalty-parades."

For good reason, the Atlantic's Graeme Wood quoted this same piece in his lengthy meditation on the worldview of the militants of the Islamic State. The militarist pageantry of fascism, and the sense of purpose it gives its adherents, echoes in the messianic call of the jihadists.

Wood cites this passage in Orwell's review: "Whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a more grudging way, have said to people 'I offer you a good time,' Hitler has said to them, 'I offer you struggle, danger, and death,' and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet."

But, in my view, the most poignant section of Orwell's article dwells less on the underpinnings of Nazism and more on Hitler's dictatorial style. Orwell gazes at the portrait of Hitler published in the edition he's reviewing:

It is a pathetic, dog-like face, the face of a man suffering under intolerable wrongs. In a rather more manly way it reproduces the expression of innumerable pictures of Christ crucified, and there is little doubt that that is how Hitler sees himself. The initial, personal cause of his grievance against the universe can only be guessed at; but at any rate the grievance is here. He is the martyr, the victim, Prometheus chained to the rock, the self-sacrificing hero who fights single-handed against impossible odds. If he were killing a mouse he would know how to make it seem like a dragon. One feels, as with Napoleon, that he is fighting against destiny, that he can’t win, and yet that he somehow deserves to.

Hitler projected this image — of a self-sacrificing hero, wounded by the universe — and went on to unleash horrors on the world. But the narcissism of a "martyr" and the penchant to make dragons out of mice, as Orwell puts it, can be found in demagogues of all political stripes. It's worth keeping these words in mind when watching the spectacle of our contemporary politics.