Since the early 1930s, the history of
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...
's ''
Mein Kampf
(; ) is a 1925 Autobiography, autobiographical manifesto by Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler. The book outlines many of Political views of Adolf Hitler, Hitler's political beliefs, his political ideology and future plans for Nazi Germany, Ge ...
'' in
English has been complicated and has been the occasion for controversy. Four full translations were completed before 1945, as well as a number of extracts in newspapers, pamphlets, government documents and unpublished typescripts. Not all of these had official approval from Hitler's publishers,
Eher Verlag
Franz Eher Nachfolger GmbH (''Franz Eher and Successors, LLC'', usually referred to as the Eher-Verlag (''Eher Publishing'')) was the central publishing house of the Nazi Party and one of the largest book and periodical firms during the Nazi regi ...
.
Since the war, the 1943
Ralph Manheim
Ralph Frederick Manheim (April 4, 1907 – September 26, 1992) was an American translator of German and French literature, as well as occasional works from Dutch, Polish and Hungarian. He was one of the most acclaimed translators of the 20th ...
translation has been the most commonly published translation, though Manheim later expressed reservations about his translation, and other versions have continued to circulate.
Dugdale abridgement
Eher Verlag
Franz Eher Nachfolger GmbH (''Franz Eher and Successors, LLC'', usually referred to as the Eher-Verlag (''Eher Publishing'')) was the central publishing house of the Nazi Party and one of the largest book and periodical firms during the Nazi regi ...
took steps to secure the
copyright
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, ...
and trademark rights to ''Mein Kampf'' in the United States in 1925 and 1927. In 1928, the literary agency
Curtis Brown, Limited secured the assignment for negotiation of translation rights in the United States and Great Britain, and a German copy was picked up by their employee,
Cherry Kearton. However, the firm found it difficult to interest publishers in the 782-page book by the leader of what was then an obscure splinter party in Germany. Even after the
elections of September 1930, when the
Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor ...
became the second largest party in the
Reichstag, publishers were cautious about investing in a translation, due to the
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...
.
The same election inspired
Blanche Dugdale to urge her husband,
E.T.S. Dugdale, to write an abridgement of ''Mein Kampf''. Dugdale began his work on this abridgement in about 1931, but he, too, was unable to find a publisher for it. In early 1933, at the time of the
Nazi seizure of power in Germany, Dugdale apparently contacted Eher Verlag, who referred him to Kearton, now working for the firm of
Hurst and Blackett
Hurst and Blackett was a publisher founded in 1852 by Henry Blackett (26 May 1825 – 7 March 1871), the grandson of a London shipbuilder, and Daniel William Stow Hurst (17 February 1802 – 6 July 1870). Shortly after the formation of their partn ...
. The latter firm was in the process of buying the translation rights from Curtis Brown for a sum of £350. Dugdale offered the abridgment to Hurst & Blackett free of charge, with the stipulation that his name not be used for the British edition.
[Barnes and Barnes, pp. 6–7] Before the book could go to press, however, Hurst and Blackett were visited by Dr.
Hans Wilhelm Thost, London correspondent of the ''
Völkischer Beobachter
The ''Völkischer Beobachter'' (; "'' Völkisch'' Observer") was the newspaper of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) from 25 December 1920. It first appeared weekly, then daily from 8 February 1923. For twenty-four years it formed part of the official pub ...
'' and an active member of the "Nazi organization" in London. Although Eher Verlag was satisfied with Dugdale's abridgement, Thost insisted on taking a copy to
Berlin
Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
for further censoring and official sanction. The abridgement was finally published in October 1933.
Titled ''My Struggle'' the book was published as the second number in the
Paternoster Library.
In the United States,
Houghton Mifflin
The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star.
Computer scientists and mathematicians often vocalize it as ...
secured the rights to the Dugdale abridgement on 29 July 1933. The only differences between the American and British versions are that the title was translated ''My Struggle'' in the UK and ''My Battle'' in America; and that Dugdale is credited as translator in the US edition, while the British version withheld his name.
[Barnes and Barnes, p. 2] The original price was $3.00 ().
In January 1937, Houghton Mifflin issued a second edition, the first having sold out. The price was lowered to $2.50 (). The publishers replaced the old dust jacket featuring Hitler giving his
salute
A salute is usually a formal hand gesture or other action used to display respect in military situations. Salutes are primarily associated with the military and law enforcement, but many civilian organizations, such as Girl Guides, Boy Sc ...
over a black and white background with a new one with panels of
black, red, and yellow and a quotation from
Dorothy Thompson
Dorothy Celene Thompson (July 9, 1893 – January 30, 1961) was an American journalist and radio broadcaster. She was the first American journalist to be expelled from Nazi Germany, in 1934, and was one of the few women news commentators broadc ...
. This led to an official protest by the Nazi government, as the black-red-yellow color scheme was emblematic of the liberal
German revolutions of 1848–49
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany, the country of the Germans and German things
**Germania (Roman era)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...
and the
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich, was the German Reich, German state from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclai ...
, while the Nazis had returned to the
black, white, red of the
German Empire
The German Empire (),; ; World Book, Inc. ''The World Book dictionary, Volume 1''. World Book, Inc., 2003. p. 572. States that Deutsches Reich translates as "German Realm" and was a former official name of Germany. also referred to as Imperia ...
.
Thompson's quotation was also objected to, as she had been expelled from the Reich in 1934 after writing unflattering accounts of Hitler. The affair lasted into March 1937. Houghton Mifflin agreed to change the yellow to white, but it is unknown whether the Dorothy Thompson quotation was ever removed.
Sales and royalties
The first printing was a deluxe 18-
shilling
The shilling is a historical coin, and the name of a unit of modern currency, currencies formerly used in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, other British Commonwealth countries and Ireland, where they were generally equivalent to 1 ...
() book that sold out its 5,000 copies and was never reprinted. The popular edition cost 3s. 6d. () and each print run was about 1,750 copies. Below is a table of available sales figures of the Dugdale abridgment in the United Kingdom. "On hand" here means on hand at the beginning of the year. The commission was payable to Curtis Brown as literary agent, and the tax to
Inland Revenue
The Inland Revenue was, until April 2005, a department of the British Government responsible for the collection of direct taxation, including income tax, national insurance contributions, capital gains tax, inheritance tax, corporation ta ...
.
*In 1938, "slightly over 8,000 were colonial sales".
The first printing of the U.S. Dugdale edition was 7,603 copies, of which 290 were given away as complimentary gifts. The royalty on the first printing in the U.S. was 15% or $3,206.45 total. Curtis Brown, literary agent, took 20%, or $641.20 total, and the
IRS
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting Taxation in the United States, U.S. federal taxes and administerin ...
took $384.75, leaving Eher Verlag $2,180.37 or RM 5,668.
The January 1937 second printing yielded gross royalties of $1,311.38. Once the commission to Curtis Brown and corporation taxes were deducted, this left $891.74 or RM2,318.52.
[Barnes and Barnes, pp. 82, 148 n. 19]
There were three separate printings from August 1938 to March 1939, totaling 14,000; sales totals by 31 March 1939, were 10,345. This yielded gross royalties of $3,879.38 and a new of $2,637.98 or RM6,858.74.
Translations
Murphy translation
The
Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda commissioned
James Vincent Murphy, who had been employed to make English translations of Hitler's speeches and other items, to begin an English translation of ''Mein Kampf'' in late 1936 and it was finished by the fall of 1937. However, the Propaganda Ministry cancelled the project and sequestered all copies of the manuscript. Murphy was beginning to be seen as "unreliable" by the government and was dismissed from his position at the Ministry. As the international situation worsened in 1938, Murphy sent his wife and children to England to live with her mother. They arrived in
Southampton
Southampton is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Hampshire, England. It is located approximately southwest of London, west of Portsmouth, and southeast of Salisbury. Southampton had a population of 253, ...
in June, while James finished up the rest of his commissioned translation work in Berlin and came to London in early September.
In London, Murphy contacted his literary agent, Robert Somerville, awith her ex-house keeper, she decided to visit one of James' former secretaries whom he had employed as a typist. To her great relief, she still had one of the handwritten copies of the James Murphy translation. She left Berlin on 20 November.
Meanwhile, Hurst and Blackett had not yet decided whether to publish Murphy's manuscript, or any translation at all. On 21 November 1938, they received a message from Eher Verlag stating that they had not authorized Murphy to publish his edition in England, reiterating that Hurst and Blackett would be the publisher if any edition was ever released in England. Hurst and Blackett were informed that the American translations were going to go ahead on 31 December 1938 and decided to publish Murphy's translation in January 1939, despite their ambiguous legal standing (the contract with Eher Verlag did not explicitly say they could go ahead with a full translation). Unbeknownst to them, the various principals in Berlin and the German diplomats in the US were contacting each other, trying to find out what their position was with regards to the various translations. By the time the matter was finally sent to the
Reichskanzlei
The Reich Chancellery () was the traditional name of the office of the Chancellor of Germany (then called ''Reichskanzler'') in the period of the German Reich from 1878 to 1945. The Chancellery's seat, selected and prepared since 1875, was the fo ...
in February 1939, the point had been rendered moot. Murphy's translation hit the stores in the United Kingdom on 20 March 1939.
While neither Hitler nor any of the German government officials endorsed the Murphy translation, they ultimately took no action against it and, by May 1939, Eher Verlag was inquiring about possible royalties. They were told that royalties would only be paid after six months in print. However, by then
war had broken out between the two countries and copyright relations severed.
Because so many records were destroyed during the war, accurate sales figures on Murphy's translation are difficult to establish. Robert Sommerfeld reported that approximately 32,000 copies were sold by August 1939. There was also an illustrated edition and a serial edition in eight parts. It has been conjectured that 150,000–200,000 copies were sold in total. Murphy, for his part, did not feel he was adequately remunerated, being paid £250 up front and £150 six months later. The publishers did not feel the need to pay him any more after they received a letter from Germany prior to publication, stating he had already been paid for his efforts when he was employed by the Propaganda Ministry.
Stalag translation
The German Government used 90% of James Vincent Murphy's rough draft translation of ''Mein Kampf'' to form the body of an edition to be distributed in the UK once
Operation Sea Lion
Operation Sea Lion, also written as Operation Sealion (), was Nazi Germany's code name for their planned invasion of the United Kingdom. It was to have taken place during the Battle of Britain, nine months after the start of the Second World ...
was completed. This 'Operation Sea Lion Edition' was finalized and printed in the summer of 1940. Once the invasion was called off by Adolf Hitler most copies were distributed to English speaking POW camps. Very few copies survived after the war.
Reynal and Hitchcock translation
After the
Munich crisis
The Munich Agreement was reached in Munich on 30 September 1938, by Nazi Germany, the United Kingdom, the French Republic, and the Kingdom of Italy. The agreement provided for the German annexation of part of Czechoslovakia called the Sudete ...
in September 1938, the firm of
Reynal & Hitchcock
Reynal and Hitchcock was a publishing company in New York City. Founded in 1933 by Eugene Reynal and Curtice Hitchcock, in 1948 it was absorbed by Harcourt, Brace.'' American Authors and Books: 1640 to Present Day'' Third Revised Edition, Crow ...
decided that it would be imperative to have an unexpurgated edition available to the public. They found that a team of scholars at the
New School of Social Research
The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers. ...
were in the midst of preparing such a translation. Reynal & Hitchcock approached both this committee and Houghton Mifflin about publishing the translation under a license.
However, on 8 December 1938,
Stackpole Sons Inc. announced that they would be publishing their own translation of ''Mein Kampf'', arguing that Hitler, as a
stateless person
Stateless may refer to:
Society
* Anarchism, a political philosophy opposed to the institution of the state
* Stateless communism, which Karl Marx predicted would be the final phase of communism
* Stateless nation, a group of people without a ...
in 1925, could not have transferred his copyrights to Eher Verlag and thence to Houghton Mifflin. A conference was held at the office of Reynal & Hitchcock on 12 December 1938, with General
Edward J. Stackpole and
William Soskin, executive director of Stackpole Sons, to discuss the matter. Stackpole claimed that Reynal & Hitchcock said that if Stackpole could put the work in the
public domain
The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no Exclusive exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly Waiver, waived, or may be inapplicable. Because no one holds ...
they would not be interested in publishing their own translation. Reynal & Hitchcock claimed to have stated that they had already been working on the project for months, had a translation in hand, backed by a committee of prominent scholars, and were in the process of negotiating the rights with Houghton Mifflin. In any event, Stackpole and Soskin took this to mean that they were allowed to carry on with their translation unperturbed until they were visited at their office by
Curtice Hitchcock who informed him that they were going ahead with their translation, which was going to be under license from the exclusive copyright holder, Houghton Mifflin.
The agreement between Reynal and Hitchcock and Houghton Mifflin was finalized on 18 February 1939 and the book was available in stores on 28 February. The contract stipulated that Reynal and Hitchcock would pay Houghton Mifflin 15% royalty on each $3 copy. After one year, Reynal and Hitchcock had the option of releasing a cheaper edition, and the agreement itself would expire after three years. Houghton Mifflin would print and bind the book at its
Riverside Press in
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 United States census, ...
and was allowed to keep publishing the ''My Battle'' abridgement. Notably, Houghton Mifflin agreed to pay all the expenses for seeking a copyright
injunction
An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a special court order compelling a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts. It was developed by the English courts of equity but its origins go back to Roman law and the equitable rem ...
, and subsequent legal fees would be split between the two companies.
To counter Stackpole's claims that sales of its translation would go to
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
, Reynal contacted the various
boycott
A boycott is an act of nonviolent resistance, nonviolent, voluntary abstention from a product, person, organisation, or country as an expression of protest. It is usually for Morality, moral, society, social, politics, political, or Environmenta ...
committees and pledged all profits above their legitimate expenses would go to a charity for
refugees
A refugee, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is a person "forced to flee their own country and seek safety in another country. They are unable to return to their own country because of feared persecution as ...
. However, no assets could be touched for the Reynal and Hitchcock edition, including royalties or charitable donations, until the legal issues were settled. As it happened, the legal battle did not finally end until 25 October 1941. After deducting $11,500 for legal costs, Houghton Mifflin was prepared to give $11,500 to Curtis Brown to pay to their client, Eher Verlag. Before this could be done, however,
war broke out between the United States and Germany and Eher never received any royalties from this edition. Profits from the book went to a charity,
Children's Crusade for Children, which helped refugees. Included in this was the initial $35,000 for administrative and promotional costs, which also went to the child refugees.
As far as Hitler's royalties went, they were governed by the
Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917
The Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA) of 1917 (, codified at and et seq.) is a United States federal law, enacted on October 6, 1917, in response to the United States declaration of war on Germany on April 6, 1917. It continues to give the P ...
and put into an account assigned to the
Office of Alien Property Custodian
The Office of Alien Property Custodian was an office within the government of the United States during World War I and again during World War II, serving as a Custodian of Enemy Property, custodian to property that belonged to US enemies. The of ...
, succeeded by the
United States Attorney General
The United States attorney general is the head of the United States Department of Justice and serves as the chief law enforcement officer of the Federal government of the United States, federal government. The attorney general acts as the princi ...
after the war. As of 31 March 1972 the royalties on ''Mein Kampf'' paid to the US government amounted to $92,616.59. The Attorney General also paid a
corporation tax
A corporate tax, also called corporation tax or company tax or corporate income tax, is a type of direct tax levied on the income or capital of corporations and other similar legal entities. The tax is usually imposed at the national level, but i ...
on them to the
IRS
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting Taxation in the United States, U.S. federal taxes and administerin ...
. Today, the profits and proceeds are given to various charities.
The members of the New School committee that edited and translated the book were
John Chamberlain,
Sidney B. Fay,
John Gunther
John Gunther (August 30, 1901 – May 29, 1970) was an Americans, American journalist and writer.
His success came primarily by a series of popular sociopolitical works, known as the "Inside" books (1936–1972), including the best-sell ...
,
Carlton J. H. Hayes,
Graham Hutton
David Graham Hutton OBE (13 April 1904 – 14 October 1988) was a British economist, writer and Liberal Party politician.
Background
Hutton was born the elder son of David and Lavinia Hutton. He was educated at Christ's Hospital, the London ...
,
Alvin Johnson,
William L. Langer,
Walter Millis,
R. de Roussy de Sales, and
George N. Shuster.
The book was translated from the two volumes of the first German edition (1925 and 1927), with annotations appended noting any changes made in later editions, which were deemed "not as extensive as popularly supposed".
["Introduction," ''Mein Kampf''. New York: Reynal and Hitchcock, 1940; pg. viii.] The translation was made with a view to readability rather than in an effort to rigidly reproduce Hitler's sometimes idiosyncratic German form.
Significantly, the translation marked in the text areas that had been left out of the Dugdale abridgment.
The text was heavily annotated for an American audience with biographical and historical details derived largely from German sources.
As the translators deemed the book "a propagandistic essay of a violent partisan", which "often warps historical truth and sometimes ignores it completely", the tone of many of these annotations reflected a conscious attempt to provide "factual information that constitutes an extensive critique of the original".
Apart from the editorial committee there was also a "sponsoring committee" of prominent individuals including
Pearl S. Buck,
Dorothy Canfield,
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay (February 22, 1892 – October 19, 1950) was an American lyric poetry, lyrical poet and playwright. Millay was a renowned social figure and noted Feminism, feminist in New York City during the Roaring Twenties and beyond. ...
,
Ida Tarbell
Ida Minerva Tarbell (November 5, 1857January 6, 1944) was an American writer, Investigative journalism, investigative journalist, List of biographers, biographer, and lecturer. She was one of the leading muckrakers and reformers of the Progre ...
,
Cyrus Adler
Cyrus Adler (September 13, 1863 – April 7, 1940) was an American educator, Jewish religious leader and scholar.
Early years
Adler was born to merchant and planter Samuel Adler and Sarah Sulzberger in Van Buren, Arkansas on September 13, 186 ...
,
Charles A. Beard,
Nicholas Murray Butler
Nicholas Murray Butler (April 2, 1862 – December 7, 1947) was an American philosopher, diplomat, and educator. Butler was president of Columbia University, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a recipient of the Nobel ...
,
Theodore Dreiser
Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser (; August 27, 1871 – December 28, 1945) was an American novelist and journalist of the naturalism (literature), naturalist school. His novels often featured main characters who succeeded at their objectives despi ...
,
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...
,
Morris Ernst
Morris Leopold Ernst (August 23, 1888 – May 21, 1976) was an American lawyer and prominent attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). In public life, he defended and asserted the rights of Americans to privacy and freedom from c ...
, Rev.
Harry Emerson Fosdick
Harry Emerson Fosdick (May 24, 1878 – October 5, 1969) was an American pastor. Fosdick became a central figure in the fundamentalist–modernist controversy within American Protestantism in the 1920s and 1930s and was one of the most prominen ...
, Rev.
John Haynes Holmes,
James M. Landis,
Thomas Mann
Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novell ...
, Bishop
William T. Manning,
Eugene O'Neill
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of Realism (theatre), realism, earlier associated with ...
,
Theodore Roosevelt Jr.
Theodore Roosevelt III ( ; September 13, 1887 – July 12, 1944), often known as Theodore Jr.,Morris, Edmund (1979). ''The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt''. index.While it was President Theodore Roosevelt who was legally named Theodore Roosevelt Jr ...
, Mgr.
John A. Ryan,
Norman Thomas
Norman Mattoon Thomas (November 20, 1884 – December 19, 1968) was an American Presbyterian religious minister, minister, political activist, and perennial candidate for president. He achieved fame as a socialism, socialist and pacifism, pacifis ...
,
Walter White,
William Allen White
William Allen White (February 10, 1868 – January 29, 1944) was an American newspaper editor, politician, author, and leader of the Progressive movement. Between 1896 and his death, White became a spokesman for Middle America (United States), ...
and Rabbi
Stephen S. Wise.
Stackpole translation and controversy
The Stackpole edition was translated and printed in a hurry between December 1938 and February 1939. The translation job was left to
Barrows Mussey, who requested anonymity. On the eve of the publication of both translations on 28 February 1939, Stackpole had invested $21,000 in the project and had an initial print run of 15,000 copies. Also on that date Houghton Mifflin's motion for a temporary injunction against Stackpole publishing their edition was denied by Judge
Alfred Conkling Coxe Jr. of the
. Coxe reasoned that "The Defendants Stackpole have raised questions of title and validity which are not free from doubt; the facts are in dispute; and the issues cannot properly be determined on affidavit."
Houghton Mifflin appealed to the
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (in case citations, 2d Cir.) is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. Its territory covers the states of Connecticut, New York (state), New York, and Vermont, and it has ap ...
, and for a few months both translations were available for sale to the public. The case was heard on 18 May 1939, before the judges
Learned Hand
Billings Learned Hand ( ; January 27, 1872 – August 18, 1961) was an American jurist, lawyer, and judicial philosopher. He served as a federal trial judge on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York from 1909 to 1924 a ...
, his cousin
Augustus N. Hand and
Charles Edward Clark
Charles Edward Clark (December 9, 1889 – December 13, 1963) was the 5th Dean of Yale Law School and a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Education and career
Born on December 9, 1889, in ...
. The judges went into conference on 24 May 1939, and came down with a decision granting the injunction against Stackpole on 9 June 1939. Stackpole then appealed for delay and rehearing, based on legal technicalities because only one copy of ''Mein Kampf'' had been deposited with the
United States Copyright Office
The United States Copyright Office (USCO), a part of the Library of Congress, is a United States government body that registers copyright claims, records information about copyright ownership, provides information to the public, and assists ...
, according to Houghton Mifflin's Bill of Complaint. After this was denied later that June, Stackpole appealed to the
United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...
. Until the Supreme Court granted
certiorari
In law, ''certiorari'' is a court process to seek judicial review of a decision of a lower court or government agency. ''Certiorari'' comes from the name of a prerogative writ in England, issued by a superior court to direct that the recor ...
, Stackpole was now enjoined from selling its translation of ''Mein Kampf'' and Houghton Mifflin exercised its copyright by securing injunctions against ''Mein Kampf: An Unexpurgated Digest'' and ''Mein Kampf: A New Unexpurgated Translation Condensed with Critical Comments and Explanatory Notes''.
[Houghton Mifflin Co. v. Noram Pub. Co., 28 F. Supp. 676 (S.D.N.Y. 1939)](_blank)
/ref>
The Supreme Court denied Stackpole's petition for a writ of certiorari (that is, the Court declined to hear the appeal) on 23 October 1939, Felix Frankfurter
Felix Frankfurter (November 15, 1882 – February 22, 1965) was an American jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1939 until 1962, advocating judicial restraint.
Born in Vienna, Frankfurter im ...
recusing himself. Stackpole then tried further appeals, this time based on the original 1933 contract between Eher Press and Houghton Mifflin. The case again went to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in May 1940, again before Learned Hand, now accompanied by Herbert B. Chase and Robert P. Patterson
Robert Porter Patterson Sr. (February 12, 1891 – January 22, 1952) was an American judge who served as United States Under Secretary of War, Under Secretary of War under President Franklin D. Roosevelt and US Secretary of War, U.S. Secretary of ...
, who ruled in July that Houghton Mifflin did need to get authorization from Eher Verlag to prove their contract valid. However, Stackpole was still enjoined from selling its translation. Eher Verlag, who had not previously been involved in the case, gave a statement to a consular official in Munich in 1941, and the case was finally settled in District Court on 4 September 1941, when Houghton Mifflin was authorized to collect damages from Stackpole. $15,250 was paid by Telegraph Press, Stackpole's parent company
A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the Security (finance), securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own Share ...
, on 25 October 1941.
In its publicity campaign for the book, Stackpole set up a committee of prominent individuals who were to handle the funds that sales of the book would provide to refugee charities. This committee included: Harold Lasswell
Harold Dwight Lasswell (February 13, 1902 – December 18, 1978) was an American political scientist and communications theorist. He earned his bachelor's degree in philosophy and economics and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. He was a ...
, Wesley C. Mitchell
Wesley Clair Mitchell (August 5, 1874 – October 29, 1948) was an American economist known for his empirical work on business cycles and for guiding the National Bureau of Economic Research in its first decades.
Mitchell was referred to as Th ...
, George Gordon Battle
George may refer to:
Names
* George (given name)
* George (surname)
People
* George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George
* George Papagheorghe, also known as Jorge / GEØRGE
* George, stage name of Gior ...
, Reinhold Niebuhr
Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr (June 21, 1892 – June 1, 1971) was an American Reformed theologian, ethicist, commentator on politics and public affairs, and professor at Union Theological Seminary for more than 30 years. Niebuhr was one of Ameri ...
, Horace Kallen
Horace Meyer Kallen (August 11, 1882 – February 16, 1974) was a German-born American philosopher who supported pluralism and Zionism.
Biography
Horace Meyer Kallen was born on August 11, 1882, in the town of Bernstadt, Prussian Silesia (now B ...
, Ernest Meyer, Max Eastman
Max Forrester Eastman (January 4, 1883 – March 25, 1969) was an American writer on literature, philosophy, and society, a poet, and a prominent political activist. Moving to New York City for graduate school, Eastman became involved with radica ...
, Vida Scudder, Louis Hacker, Bernson Y. Landis, Allen Heely, Milton Winternitz and Edward Smith Parons.
During the short period it was in print from 28 February – 9 June 1939, Stackpole had sold 12,000 copies of its translation. No records show whether any profits were ever turned over to any charity. The translation remains a rare and valuable artifact. WorldCat
WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the O ...
lists 133 copies worldwide.
The case set a legal precedent
Precedent is a judicial decision that serves as an authority for courts when deciding subsequent identical or similar cases. Fundamental to common law legal systems, precedent operates under the principle of ''stare decisis'' ("to stand by thin ...
in US copyright law, as it established that stateless individuals have the same copyright status as other foreigners, a point not addressed in the Copyright Act of 1909
The Copyright Act of 1909 () was a landmark statute in United States statutory copyright law. It went into effect on July 1, 1909. The 1909 Act was repealed and superseded by the Copyright Act of 1976, which went into effect on January 1, 1978; ...
or in previous litigation.
Manheim translation
The Reynal and Hitchcock translation went out of print in 1942. No reason was given, but it was speculated that it was because Houghton Mifflin did not want to share profits with Reynal and Hitchcock, as well as a desire to produce a cheaper, less bulky version, without the elaborate notes and commentary that the Reynal and Hitchcock translation had. In 1943 Houghton Mifflin published their own edition, translated by Ralph Manheim
Ralph Frederick Manheim (April 4, 1907 – September 26, 1992) was an American translator of German and French literature, as well as occasional works from Dutch, Polish and Hungarian. He was one of the most acclaimed translators of the 20th ...
, which they still publish.
The plates of the James Murphy translation having been destroyed by the Blitz
The Blitz (English: "flash") was a Nazi Germany, German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom, for eight months, from 7 September 1940 to 11 May 1941, during the Second World War.
Towards the end of the Battle of Britain in 1940, a co ...
, Hurst & Blackett decided to issue the Manheim translation in the United Kingdom when they decided to produce a new edition in 1965. The decision to issue a new edition at all ran into opposition from the Board of Deputies of British Jews
The Board of Deputies of British Jews, commonly referred to as the Board of Deputies, is the largest and second oldest Jewish communal organisation in the United Kingdom, after the Initiation Society which was founded in 1745. Established in 17 ...
and the West German government. Nevertheless, Hurst & Blackett still possessed the copyright for the British and Commonwealth market. The new edition was finally published in Britain in an intentionally expensive hardcover edition in 1969. A soft-cover 1972 edition at £1.95 was also controversial, as it was seen as a betrayal of the original decision to keep the book from wide distribution.
In the words of Burt A. Folkart of the ''Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
'', Manheim himself later argued that his translation was a “troubled effort because Hitler’s style and mixed metaphors had to be rendered into simple English.”
Excerpts
In its efforts to counteract the influence of Dugdale's ''Mein Kampf'' abridgement, the American Jewish Committee
The American Jewish Committee (AJC) is a civil rights group and Jewish advocacy group established on November 11, 1906. It is one of the oldest Jewish advocacy organizations and, according to ''The New York Times'', is "widely regarded as the wi ...
drew up a mimeograph
A mimeograph machine (often abbreviated to mimeo, sometimes called a stencil duplicator or stencil machine) is a low-cost duplicating machine that works by forcing ink through a stencil onto paper. The process is called mimeography, and a co ...
of quotations which showed that Hitler "attacked not only the Jews but the liberal institutions that are the basis of the government of the United States and in which he glorified war and the militaristic spirit. As these were not part of the abridged edition, copies of this mimeograph were sent to book reviews across the country."[Barnes and Barnes, p. 74]
The first excerpts from ''Mein Kampf'' to be published in English were selections from the Dugdale abridgement in the London '' Times'' in July 1933. These were published on 24, 25, 27 and 28 July. Feeling that these extracts gave a too favorable impression of their author and his intentions, Chaim Weizmann
Chaim Azriel Weizmann ( ; 27 November 1874 – 9 November 1952) was a Russian-born Israeli statesman, biochemist, and Zionist leader who served as president of the World Zionist Organization, Zionist Organization and later as the first pre ...
composed a 28-page translation of selected extracts from the first German edition which he sent to the ''Times'' and to the British Foreign Office
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) is the ministry of foreign affairs and a ministerial department of the government of the United Kingdom.
The office was created on 2 September 2020 through the merger of the Foreign an ...
. Most of these were "semi-obscene allegations against the Jews", but others were on foreign policy and the role of education under Nazism.
A series of pamphlets published by the Friends of Europe included four which consisted of excerpts from ''Mein Kampf''. The first dealt with biographical information, and the other three contained quotations on race, religion and foreign policy. The latter pamphlet was originally "extracted and translated" by Rennie Smith, however, the pamphlet's "guiding spirit" quickly became the Duchess of Atholl. She contacted the Foreign Office and was given the excerpts that had been prepared by Weizmann. Further inquiries from her convinced the British foreign ministry to compose an in-house translation of some of the passages. The 11-page document, ''Central Germany, 7 May 1936 – Confidential – A Translation of Some of the More Important Passages of Hitler's Mein Kampf (1925 edition)'', was circulated among the British diplomatic corps, and a private copy was also sent to the Duchess of Atholl, who may or may not have used it in what was ultimately her translation of ''Mein Kampf'' in the Friends of Europe pamphlet.
In 1939, two further pamphlets containing excerpts from ''Mein Kampf'' were published. One of these, ''Mein Kampf: A New Unexpurgated Translation Condensed with Critical Comments and Explanatory Notes'', was published by a start up firm based in Greenwich, Connecticut
Greenwich ( ) is a New England town, town in southwestern Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it had a population of 63,518. It is the largest town on Gold Coast (Connecticut), Connectic ...
, called Noram Publishing Company, which had been created for the sole purpose of publishing parts of ''Mein Kampf'' that were not available in the Dugdale abridgement. It was formed by the reporter Alan Cranston
Alan MacGregor Cranston (June 19, 1914 – December 31, 2000) was an American politician and journalist who served as a United States Senate, United States Senator from California from 1969 to 1993, and as President of the Citizens for Global S ...
(later a Senator) and his friend Amster Spiro, a Jewish reporter with the Hearst syndicate. While dictating the translation to secretaries in Manhattan
Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...
, one of the transcribers who happened to be Jewish became alarmed at the contents and contacted the Anti-Defamation League, who sent Benjamin Epstein to investigate. When Epstein learned that the publication was meant to alert the American people to the danger Hitler presented, Epstein decided to collaborate with Spiro and Cranston. "Once I realized he was really on our side ... I opened our files and we worked very closely together", he was later quoted as saying.[Anthony O. Mille]
Court Halted Dime Edition of 'Mein Kampf': Cranston Tells How Hitler Sued Him and Won
United Press International 14 February 1988
This pamphlet was published in a 32-page tabloid edition with notes, maps and illustrations. The cover stated that not one cent of royalties would be paid to Hitler, and the profits would supposedly go to refugees. Cranston claimed that they sold half a million copies in 10 days at 10 cents each. However, Houghton Mifflin secured an injunction against Noram from the Federal District Court and they had to pulp their remaining stock of 500,000.
Finally, there is ''Mein Kampf: An Unexpurgated Digest''. Relatively little is known of this edition or its editor and translator, B.D. Shaw. He explains in his preface that he was concerned about Germany's expansionism
Expansionism refers to states obtaining greater territory through military Imperialism, empire-building or colonialism.
In the classical age of conquest moral justification for territorial expansion at the direct expense of another established p ...
in the late 1930s and wished to alert the public to the dangers Hitler presented, but which were not shown in the abridged edition of his book. Like the Cranston pamphlet it cost 10 cents and it had 31 pages.
Reception and readership
The British edition of the abridgement was reviewed by ''The Times'', ''Times Literary Supplement
''The Times Literary Supplement'' (''TLS'') is a weekly literary review published in London by News UK, a subsidiary of News Corp.
History
The ''TLS'' first appeared in 1902 as a supplement to ''The Times'' but became a separate publication ...
'', ''Birmingham Gazette
The ''Birmingham Gazette'', known for much of its existence as ''Aris's Birmingham Gazette'', was a newspaper that was published and circulated in Birmingham, England, from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. Founded as a weekly publicatio ...
'', ''Birmingham Post
The ''Birmingham Post'' is a weekly printed newspaper based in Birmingham, England, with distribution throughout the West Midlands. First published under the name the ''Birmingham Daily Post'' in 1857, it has had a succession of distinguished ...
'', ''Daily Express
The ''Daily Express'' is a national daily United Kingdom middle-market newspaper printed in Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid format. Published in London, it is the flagship of Express Newspapers, owned by publisher Reach plc. It was first ...
'', '' Daily Herald'', ''Daily Mail
The ''Daily Mail'' is a British daily Middle-market newspaper, middle-market Tabloid journalism, tabloid conservative newspaper founded in 1896 and published in London. , it has the List of newspapers in the United Kingdom by circulation, h ...
'', ''Daily Sketch
The ''Daily Sketch'' was a British national tabloid newspaper, founded in Manchester in 1909 by Sir Edward Hulton, 1st Baronet.
The ''Sketch'' was Conservative in its politics and populist in its tone during its existence through all its ch ...
'', ''Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was foun ...
'', '' Evening News'', ''Evening Standard
The ''London Standard'', formerly the ''Evening Standard'' (1904–2024) and originally ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), is a long-established regional newspaper published weekly and distributed free newspaper, free of charge in London, Engl ...
'', ''Everyman
The everyman is a stock character of fiction. An ordinary and humble character, the everyman is generally a protagonist whose benign conduct fosters the audience's identification with them.
Origin and history
The term ''everyman'' was used ...
'', ''Irish Independent
The ''Irish Independent'' is an Irish daily newspaper
A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray backgrou ...
'', ''Leeds Mercury
The ''Leeds Mercury'' was a newspaper published in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was published from 1718 to 1755 and again from 1767. Initially it consisted of 12 pages and cost three halfpennies. In 1794 it had a circulation of about 3,00 ...
'', '' Liverpool Post'', ''Listener
Listener(s) or The Listener(s) may refer to:
Literature
* The Listener (magazine), ''The Listener'' (magazine), a 1929–1991 British weekly covering broadcast media
* ''New Zealand Listener'', weekly magazine covering politics and culture
* The L ...
'', ''Manchester Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'', ''Morning Post
''The Morning Post'' was a conservative daily newspaper published in London from 1772 to 1937, when it was acquired by ''The Daily Telegraph''.
History
The paper was founded by John Bell. According to historian Robert Darnton, ''The Morning ...
'', ''New Britain
New Britain () is the largest island in the Bismarck Archipelago, part of the Islands Region of Papua New Guinea. It is separated from New Guinea by a northwest corner of the Solomon Sea (or with an island hop of Umboi Island, Umboi the Dampie ...
'', ''News Chronicle
The ''News Chronicle'' was a British daily newspaper. Formed by the merger of '' The Daily News'' and the '' Daily Chronicle'' in 1930, it ceased publication on 17 October 1960,''Liberal Democrat News'' 15 October 2010, accessed 15 October 2010 b ...
'', ''Northern Echo
''The Northern Echo'' is a regional daily morning newspaper based in the town of Darlington in North East England, serving mainly southern County Durham and northern Yorkshire. The paper covers national as well as regional news. In 2007, its the ...
'', '' Nottingham Guardian'', ''The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. First published in 1791, it is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.
In 1993 it was acquired by Guardian Media Group Limited, and operated as a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' ...
'', ''Oxford Times
''The Oxford Times'' is a weekly newspaper, published each Thursday in Oxford, England. The paper is published from a large production facility at Osney Mead, west Oxford, and is owned by Newsquest, the UK subsidiary of US-based Gannett Compan ...
'', ''Public Opinion
Public opinion, or popular opinion, is the collective opinion on a specific topic or voting intention relevant to society. It is the people's views on matters affecting them.
In the 21st century, public opinion is widely thought to be heavily ...
'', '' Punch'', ''Reynold's News
''Reynold's News'' was a Sunday newspaper in the United Kingdom, founded as ''Reynolds's Weekly Newspaper''Joanne Shattock, ''The Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature'', p.2908 by George W. M. Reynolds in 1850, who became its first edit ...
'', ''The Scotsman
''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact (newspaper), compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until ...
'', ''The Spectator
''The Spectator'' is a weekly British political and cultural news magazine. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving magazine in the world. ''The Spectator'' is politically conservative, and its principal subject a ...
'', ''Star
A star is a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by Self-gravitation, self-gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night sk ...
'', '' Sunday Dispatch'', '' Time and Tide'', ''Western Morning News
The ''Western Morning News'' is a daily regional newspaper founded in 1860, and covering the West Country including Devon, Cornwall, the Isles of Scilly and parts of Somerset and Dorset in the South West of England.
Organisation
The ''Western ...
'', ''Yorkshire Herald
The newspapers of Yorkshire have a long history, stretching back to the 18th century. Regional newspapers have enjoyed varying fortunes, reflected in the large number of now-defunct papers from Yorkshire.
Existing newspapers
Daily newspapers
*' ...
'' and the ''Yorkshire Post
''The Yorkshire Post'' is a daily broadsheet newspaper, published in Leeds, Yorkshire, England. It primarily covers stories from Yorkshire, although its masthead carries the slogan "Yorkshire's National Newspaper". It was previously owned by ...
''.
Publication of the Dugdale abridgement was actively opposed by Jewish organizations in the United States. Prominent stock broker Louis Lober and others petitioned the New York City Board of Education
The Panel for Educational Policy of the Department of Education of the City School District of the City of New York, abbreviated as the Panel for Educational Policy and also known as the New York City Board of Education, is the governing body of ...
to cease buying textbooks from Houghton Mifflin, in retaliation for publishing the book. Department store owner Louis Kirstein, industrialist Max Conn, the '' Chicago Israelite'' and lawyer Samuel Untermyer also urged that it not be published.
In the United States the book was reviewed by the ''New York Times'' twice – once on its day of publication, 11 October 1933, by John Chamberlain and two days later by former American ambassador to Germany James W. Gerard
James Watson Gerard III (August 25, 1867 – September 6, 1951) was a United States lawyer, diplomat, and justice of the New York Supreme Court.
Early life
Gerard was born in Geneseo, New York. His father, James Watson Gerard Jr., was a law ...
. Other reviews were made in the ''New York Herald Tribune
The ''New York Herald Tribune'' was a newspaper published between 1924 and 1966. It was created in 1924 when Ogden Mills Reid of the '' New York Tribune'' acquired the '' New York Herald''. It was regarded as a "writer's newspaper" and compet ...
'', ''New York World-Telegram
The ''New York World-Telegram'', later known as the ''New York World-Telegram and The Sun'', was a New York City newspaper from 1931 to 1966.
History
Founded by James Gordon Bennett Sr. as ''The Evening Telegram'' in 1867, the newspaper began ...
'', ''Saturday Review of Literature
''Saturday Review'', previously ''The Saturday Review of Literature'', was an American weekly magazine established in 1924. Norman Cousins was the editor from 1940 to 1971. Under Cousins, it was described as "a compendium of reportage, essays a ...
'', '' American Mercury'', ''Christian Science Monitor
''The Christian Science Monitor'' (''CSM''), commonly known as ''The Monitor'', is a nonprofit news organization that publishes daily articles both in electronic format and a weekly print edition. It was founded in 1908 as a daily newspaper b ...
'', ''Baltimore Sun
''The Baltimore Sun'' is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local, regional, national, and international news.
Founded in 1837, the newspaper was owned by Tribune Publish ...
'', ''Dallas Times Herald
The ''Dallas Times Herald'', founded in 1888 by a merger of the '' Dallas Times'' and the '' Dallas Herald'', was once one of two major daily newspapers serving the Dallas, Texas ( USA) area. It won three Pulitzer Prizes, all for photography, an ...
'', ''North American Review
The ''North American Review'' (''NAR'') was the first literary magazine in the United States. It was founded in Boston in 1815 by journalist Nathan Hale (journalist), Nathan Hale and others. It was published continuously until 1940, after which i ...
'', ''Chicago Daily News
The ''Chicago Daily News'' was an afternoon daily newspaper in the midwestern United States, published between 1875 and 1978 in Chicago, Illinois.
History
The ''Daily News'' was founded by Melville E. Stone, Percy Meggy, and William Dougherty ...
'', '' St. Louis Globe-Democrat'', ''Louisville Courier-Journal
The ''Courier Journal'', also known as the ''Louisville Courier Journal'' (and informally ''The C-J'' or ''The Courier''), and called ''The Courier-Journal'' between November 8, 1868, and October 29, 2017, is a daily newspaper published in ...
'', ''Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
'', ''Milwaukee Journal
The ''Milwaukee Journal Sentinel'' is a daily morning broadsheet printed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where it is the primary newspaper and also the largest newspaper in the state of Wisconsin, where it is widely read. It was purchased by the G ...
'', '' Cleveland Plain-Dealer'', ''Kansas City Star
''The Kansas City Star'' is a newspaper based in Kansas City, Missouri. Published since 1880, the paper is the recipient of eight Pulitzer Prizes.
''The Star'' is most notable for its influence on the career of President Harry S. Truman and a ...
'' and '' Springfield Sunday Union and Republican''. It was also reviewed in ''The Nation
''The Nation'' is a progressive American monthly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper ...
'' by Ludwig Lore who would go on to write the introduction for the Stackpole edition.
There is no firm evidence that Stanley Baldwin
Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley (3 August 186714 December 1947), was a British statesman and Conservative politician who was prominent in the political leadership of the United Kingdom between the world wars. He was prime ministe ...
or Neville Chamberlain
Arthur Neville Chamberlain (; 18 March 18699 November 1940) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from ...
ever read the abridgement, but Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...
had one in his library in which was annotated: "The White House – 1933 This translation is so expurgated as to give a wholly false view of what Hitler is and says – the German original would make a different story." He had been sent a complimentary copy by the publishers.
It is known that Chamberlain read the above-mentioned extracts circulated in the Foreign Office by Anthony Eden
Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon (12 June 1897 – 14 January 1977) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1955 until his resignation in 1957.
Achi ...
. When the unabridged translation was published, Chamberlain immediately bought a copy and annotated it. The Murphy translation was also reviewed in ''The Times,'' ''The Spectator'', ''The Daily Telegraph'', ''The Observer'', ''Times Literary Supplement'' and ''Evening News''. Reviews were mostly positive about the translation itself, but felt that Murphy's introduction was too favorable to the author.[Barnes and Barnes, pp. 64–5, 146 n. 17]
In January 1939, the National Book Club published a new English edition of ''Mein Kampf
(; ) is a 1925 Autobiography, autobiographical manifesto by Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler. The book outlines many of Political views of Adolf Hitler, Hitler's political beliefs, his political ideology and future plans for Nazi Germany, Ge ...
'', for which Arthur Bryant wrote a foreword praising Hitler
Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...
(with reservations: he denounced Nazi persecution of Jews) and comparing him to Benjamin Disraeli
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield (21 December 1804 – 19 April 1881) was a British statesman, Conservative Party (UK), Conservative politician and writer who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He played a ...
.
See also
*Antisemitism in Europe
Antisemitism, the prejudice or discrimination against Jews, has had a long history since the Classical antiquity, ancient times. While antisemitism had already been prevalent in ancient Greece and Roman Empire, its institutionalization in Europ ...
*Antisemitism in the United Kingdom
British Jews have experienced antisemitism – discrimination and persecution as Jews – since a Jewish community was first established in England in 1070. They experienced a series of massacres in the Medieval period, which culminated in th ...
*Antisemitism in the United States
Antisemitism in the United States is the manifestation of hatred, hostility, harm, prejudice or discrimination against the American Jews, American Jewish people or Judaism as a Religion, religious, Ethnic group, ethnic or Race (human categorizat ...
* Contemporary imprints of ''The Protocols of the Elders of Zion''
* Jewish conspiracy theories
* ''Mein Kampf'' in Arabic
*New antisemitism
New antisemitism is the concept that a new form of antisemitism developed in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, typically manifesting itself as anti-Zionism. The concept is included in some definitions of antisemitism, such as the working d ...
References
Further reading
*Pastore, Stephen R., Andreas Stanik, and Steven M. Brewster. 2016. ''Adolf Hitler's Mein kampf: a descriptive bibliography.'' New York, New York: American Bibliographic Press, 2016.
External links
Mein Kampf sales statistics
Murphy translation at Gutenberg
Murphy translation at greatwar.nl (pdf, txt)
Complete Dugdale abridgment at archive.org
1939 Reynal and Hitchcock translation at archive.org.
1940 Stalag Edition at archive.org
Stackpole edition of Mein Kampf
*
Some plain talk about a book by Hitler.
', a publicity pamphlet by Stackpole
Excerpt pamphlets
*Hitler, Adolf, 1889–1945; Nevinson, Henry Woodd, 1856–1941.
Hitler the man
', "Friends of Europe" publications No. 34 London : Friends of Europe, 1936
*Hitler, Adolf, 1889–1945; Katharine Marjory Stewart-Murray Atholl, Duchess of, 1874–1960.
Germany's foreign policy as stated in "Mein Kampf"
', "Friends of Europe" publications No. 38 London : Friends of Europe, 1936
*Hitler, Adolf, 1889–1945; Edward Hugh John Neale Dalton, Baron Dalton 1887–1962.
The Nazi party, the state and religion
', "Friends of Europe" publications No. 41 London : Friends of Europe, 1936
*
Mein Kampf, an unexpurgated digest, translated with critical comments by B. D. Shaw.
' New York, Political Digest Press 1939
This year also marks the start of the World War II, Second World War, the largest and deadliest conflict in human history.
Events
Events related to World War II have a "WWII" prefix.
January
* January 1
** Coming into effect in Nazi Ger ...
{{Adolf Hitler, state=collapsed
Mein Kampf
Translations into English
Hurst and Blackett books