Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf copyright expires Friday Jan 01,2016

The copyright runs out on Friday Jan 01,2016, and a new edition, which includes critical commentary, is being printed by the Munich-based Institute of Contemporary History (IFZ).

It will cost 59 euros (£43) when it hits shelves on January 08,2016

For the first time in 70 years, Adolf Hitler's Nazi manifesto Mein Kampf is to be available to buy in Germany. 

Reprinting the anti-Semitic book was banned after WW2 by Bavaria's regional government, which held the copyright.

 

The copyright has now expired and Munich's Institute of Contemporary History is to publish a new edition.

 

Mein Kampf was originally printed in 1925 - eight years before Hitler came to power.

After Nazi Germany was defeated in 1945, the Allied forces handed the copyright to the book to the state of Bavaria.

 

The local authorities have refused to allow the book to be reprinted to prevent incitement of hatred, although the book was so widely printed during the war that it remained relatively easily available.

Note

Under the European Copyright law the rights of an author of a literary or artistic work runs for the life of the author and for 70 years after his death - in Hitler's case on 30 April 1945, when he shot himself in his bunker in Berlin.