Italian Newspaper Offers Free Copies of Hitler’s Mein Kampf, Angers Many

The conservative Milan daily Il Giornale gave the book free to whoever purchased the newspaper and first installment of William Shirer’s “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.”

An Italian newspaper has published Hitler’s political manifesto “Mein Kampf,” angering Italy’s premier and the country’s Jewish community.

The daily is publishing volumes exploring Third Reich history and defended its decision in its Saturday edition by arguing that reading “Mein Kampf” is the “true antidote to the toxins of national socialism.”

Editor Alessandro Sallusti stressed the version included critical commentary by an Italian professor of contemporary history. Sallusti also said he wanted to make readers understand “where and why absolute evil was born,” but acknowledged that protests over the publication were “legitimate” and even “understandable.”

Italian Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi addresses the Knesset. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

Premier Matteo Renzi says it’s “squalid” an Italian paper published it.

An Italian Jewish community leader, Renzo Gattegna, said it was “indecent” of Il Giornale to publish Hitler’s work.

Hitler’s blueprint for the Holocaust, Mein Kampf, returned to the book store shelves in Germany last year. The Institute for Contemporary History in Germany issued a heavily annotated, 2,000 page edition of the work.

Publishing the book has been banned in Germany since World War II under laws prohibiting the promotion of Nazi ideology, and Jewish community leaders were outraged by the lifting of the ban.

Mein Kampf was written as an autobiography by Hitler during the time he spent imprisoned for the failed 1923 Beer House Putsch in Munich, in which he led an attempt overthrow the government. The book outlined his visions for a new Germany, including the end of the democratic system, the conquering of lands to the east (Lebensraum), the persecution of Jews and Communists, and the killing of the sick and the weak. During Hitler’s rule, three editions of the book were published: a standard edition; an edition given by certain cities as a gift to marrying couples, and an edition to be sent with soldiers to the front.

By: AP and United with Israel Staff

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