German teachers call for Mein Kampf to be put back on the syllabus
German Teachers’ Association wants the new edition of Hitler's manifesto to be taught in secondary schools to 'inoculate adolescents against political extremism'
           
By Justin Huggler in Berlin1:25PM GMT 21 Dec 2015
Adolf Hitler could be about to make a return to German classrooms, after a teachers’ organisation called for his book Mein Kampf to be added to the syllabus — in order to protect children from extremism.
The notoriously racist and anti-Semitic work is to be republished in German for the first time since the Second World War in January.
The German Teachers’ Association wants the new edition to be taught in secondary schools to “inoculate adolescents against political extremism”.
The German Teachers’ Association wants the new edition to be taught in secondary schools to “inoculate adolescents against political extremism”.
The proposal has met with protests and been condemned as irresponsible by Jewish groups.
Mein Kampf, a rambling screed which contains Hitler’s thoughts on everything from eugenics and race theory to syphillis and movies, remains a taboo in Germany 90 years after its publication.
Although it has never been officially banned, its publication in the original German has been prevented since 1945 by the state of Bavaria, which owns the copyright.
• Publishing Mein Kampf is the best way to undermine Hitler's poison
The book is considered so dangerous that copies in the Bavarian state library are kept in a “poison cabinet” and anyone who wants to read them has to be specially vetted.
The copyright expires on New Year’s Day, and a government-funded institute is publishing a new critical edition.
Even though the new edition is aimed at academics and will contain hundreds of pages of notes exposing the flaws in Hitler’s thinking, its release is highly controversial in Germany, and has reopened a national debate on how to deal with the book.