Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' Returns to Stores_美文_双语阅读-查字典英语网

Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' Returns to Stores

"Mein Kampf can't be read like a bible. It has to be put into context, with sociologists and historians. If we do it like that, it will no longer have a negative influence on the public, compared to what we see today with [the anti-immigrant group] Pegida for instance, who quote Mein Kampf without thinking," said Timo Schnirlein, an engineer.

Hitler's book is banned in several countries, including Austria and the Netherlands, and it is taboo in Israel, where only abbreviated copies are available for study. Some Israeli scholars, like Dan Micham of the Yad Vashem International Institute for Holocaust Research, believe there is a need for the complete version.

"Mein Kampf is an important book because Hitler spent a lot of time writing and phrasing it, so it has basic ideas from his thoughts, of which parts were implemented and other parts not; but, even the parts that were not implemented have importance, to understand the background in which he grew," said Micham.

Many Israelis are ambivalent.

"It's complicated. On the one hand I'm not thrilled about the fact that Mein Kampf can be in even wider dissemination around the world, given the hateful content that it contains, but on the other hand, it's kind of impossible to control speech, and I'm not even sure that we should," said Ayo Oppenheimer, a Jerusalem resident.

Mein Kampf outlines Hitler's ideology and is considered the basis of his politics of National Socialism. He wrote it in a Bavarian prison while serving a sentence for treason after his failed 1923 putsch in Munich.