TOUT SUR MEIN KAMPF

The definitive work on the black Bible of Nazism.

Much has been said about Mein Kampf but how many people really know the book? Perhaps we thought the Bible of Nazism had been consigned to oblivion by now, but a fierce controversy arose in the Autumn of 2015 over the possibility of reissuing it. Many people are against the idea, claiming it would give immoral publicity to Adolf Hitler's poisonous theories. Others, however, find it absurd to want to prohibit a “first-rate document for understanding World War II.”

This heated debate – coinciding with the infamous work's entry into the public domain – warranted a historian's investigation. It covers the genesis and content of the book, as well as its real historical impact and its publishing history, full of twists and turns – and evidently continuing today, as Mein Kampf is still selling (quite well) all around the world.

Claude Quételconducts his inquiry by asking ten key questions:
1) Who was Hitler before Mein Kampf?
2) Under what circumstances did Mein Kampf come out?
3) What does Mein Kampf say?
4) Does Mein Kampf announce the future crimes of Nazism?
5) Is Mein Kampf the only book written by Hitler?
6) How widely distributed was Mein Kampf in Germany?
7) Did France ignore Mein Kampf?
8) What other countries published Mein Kampf?
9) Was Mein Kampf called into question after the war?
10) What has become of Mein Kampf until today?

CLAUDE QUÉTEL is the former director of the Caen Memorial and has published several important books on World War II, including La Seconde Guerre mondiale (World War II, Perrin, 2015) and L'impardonable défaite (The unforgivable defeat, Jean-Claude Lattès, 2010). He also edited, with Franz-Olivier Giesbert, the collective work Une journée avec (A Day with), which achieved major public and critical success.