Hitler's Banned Book: How Mein Kampf Revealed The Nazi Plans All Along | Mein Kampf Documentary

April 1945. The Second World War ends in Berlin. The combats are particularly violent. The entire world suddenly realizes the unprecedented scale of this conflict. More than 50 million dead. Never before had a war been so deadly. In this chaos, the shocked allies discover the concentration camps. The shock is so great that the Americans forced the Germans to come and witness the horror for themselves. The Holocaust. The millions dead in combat. Some Germans swear they knew nothing about this disaster. Incidentally, at the Nuremberg trial, when confronted with the horror of the facts, that is exactly what some Nazis say. Like Hermann Goering, shown here on the left. However, one man states loudly and clearly that this was not the case. A British man, Elwin Jones, deputy public prosecutor. According to him, this appalling nightmare was almost scripted. Mein Kampf, literally My Struggle, the Nazi Bible written by Adolf Hitler, an inflammatory book which directly led to these atrocities, as Elwin Jones claims. From Mein Kampf, the road leads directly to the furnaces of Auschwitz and the gas chambers of Majdanek. And at the time, certain Germans thought exactly the same thing. What I was thinking, history proved. Mein Kampf helped to prepare one of the biggest crimes ever committed on a worldwide scale. The content is earth shattering because it's his actual plan. So were the Holocaust and the war written in Mein Kampf? What exactly does the book recount? More than a century after its initial publication, the book continues to divide opinions. This book should no longer exist. It's a recital of hatred, a crazy path that leads to loss, all written by a little man who was entirely convinced by what he's written. It's really just an anti-Semitic pamphlet of a violence that is hard to read. If we really want to know Hitler, we can't pass by this book. Here is the secret story behind one of the most sold political books in the world. Twelve and a half million copies were published before 1944. A wretched book from a man who incarnated absolute evil. A book that was forbidden in many countries for 70 years. A book with an incredible story. It all begins in November 1918. At the end of the First World War, the German soldiers return home. And among these millions of men, there is one who still won't accept this defeat. Adolf Hitler. At the time, he is just a simple corporal who is about to be demobilized. At the end of the First World War, Adolf Hitler is completely unknown. Born in 1889, he's someone at 30 who has very few prospects for the future. The risk for Hitler, and obviously what he feels, is going back to the same life he had before the war. That's to say, to cut to the chase, the life of a loser. Hitler has no career, no money, no family. So he sticks to all he has left, the army. And it's there that one man notices him. Captain Karl Mayer. He spots talents that can be used for two things. On one hand, the intelligence services of the army, and on the other, the propaganda services, including possible speakers. Karl Mayer takes on Hitler as a spy. His mission? Infiltrate the DAP, the German Workers' Party, affiliated with the extreme right. And there, Hitler feels particularly comfortable. He does what he's asked, but much more because at a certain point, he takes to the floor. And that is a key moment, because he discovers something he wasn't aware of, his talent as a speaker. And it's in Munich, in brasseries like this one, that Hitler progressively becomes leader of the NSDAP party. Several times a week, he launches into two-hour-long monologues. At the start, he only seduces a handful of militants, but ends up captivating thousands of people. At the start of the 20s, Hitler is a skilled agitator in bars. But he has no intention of writing. One event will change that. What happened was Mussolini's example of marching on Rome, which gave Hitler ideas. So in November 1923, Hitler imitates Mussolini. He's 34 and at the head of a rising political party. And at his sides is one of the heroes of the First World War, General Ludendorff. In Munich, the two men decide that the time has come to take power by force. Hitler and his troops dramatically interrupt a meeting of the Bavarian government. Hitler arrives in the middle of this meeting. Revolver shots are fired at the ceiling. There's a slightly farcical side to the whole thing, because he arrives, fires a pistol, makes a speech. At the time, Charlie Chaplin's impression of him is not yet known, but we can imagine it's a bit like that. And he threatens those who don't want to follow him. But the operation fails. Behind their barricades, in the street, the members of the Putsch are crushed by the army. Sixteen of them are killed. Hitler is safe and sound, but he is arrested and thrown in prison. The Landsberg fort, 60 kilometers from Munich. When he arrives there, Hitler is at his lowest point. We know that Hitler weighed 72 kilograms when he arrived and would quickly lose weight. He became depressed and started a hunger strike. He even apparently thought about suicide after the failure of the Putsch. It was a pitiful failure. And not only did he not have the audience he wanted in Bavaria, but he became the laughingstock of all the newspapers. Hitler's story could have stopped there. However, at the back of cell seven, where it was least expected, he finds a new lease of life. He knows he risks the death penalty, so for the first time in his life, he starts to write. Sixty pages. He prepares his defense for his imminent trial. And the seed of the idea was sown to write about his experiences and his enemies. So in 1923, it was about settling the score with his enemies. Three months later, journalists are jostling at the start of the trial. This historic image shows the conspirators of the Putsch. Accused of high treason, they all plead not guilty. All except one who stands up to the judge, Adolf Hitler. And there, he uses the trial as a platform. Hitler was charismatic and those around him felt it. That's what was fatal in his character. That he could influence people personally. Listeners hung on his every word. Everything that he dreamt up, people believed. Finally, Ludendorff is acquitted. The others receive minimal sentences. As for Hitler, he is also a winner in this trial. He risked the death penalty. Instead, he is sentenced to five years in prison and only serves nine months. And in exceptional conditions. In his cell, he has access to newspapers, drinks his tea from China cups with an amazing view of the countryside. Even better, dressed in his normal clothes, he talks to his fellow prisoners. Among them, he finds friends and former Putsch comrades like Rudolf Hess, who would become one of the key figures of the Third Reich. They could go into the common room when they liked during the day. They were free in their movements and to talk to each other. It was a bit like a flat share for men. In this four star prison, Hitler is treated like a star. Since his trial, he's become a kind of celebrity. Everybody wants to see him or give him gifts. He receives biscuits, flowers, letters of encouragement from fans like this one, starting with my beloved Führer. The leading figures of Bavaria also rushed to talk to him. The visitor's book is full to bursting, just like these cards detailing each interview to the last minute. And among the 330 visitors, there are some celebrities. General Ludendorff and also Wagner's granddaughter. Many encourage him to continue writing and notably Helena Bechstein. The heiress of the piano brand gives him a crucial present, a brand new Remington. She often visited him during this period. And so it's thought it must have been a gift from her, as these machines were very expensive at that time. And having such a device was not self-evident. Hitler has time. His party needs rebuilding and he needs money to pay his lawyers. And so he thinks that writing a book could be a good idea. From there, a myth is born. Hitler, the orator, wouldn't have written anything himself. He would simply have dictated his text to Emil Maurice and Rudolf Hess. However, nowadays, historians think that is not the case. The Führer did indeed type his text in prison. The first volume at Landsberg, he wrote alone. In any case, Rudolf Hess couldn't type very well. He learned to use it in prison. The others didn't really help him at that level. So he worked alone on the typewriter. This idea that Hitler dictated his work is a myth. It's false. Hitler rewrites his own story, giving himself a hero's role. But not only that, he takes advantage of his incarceration to read dozens of books, like the essay on the differences between human races by the French writer Gobineau. Or ones with charming titles such as Rassenhygiene, racial hygiene. Today, it may seem revolting, but at the time, these pseudo scientific theories were successful. Newspapers talk about races with no embarrassment. Hitler uses this as a source of inspiration. He starts collecting them. He puts them all together in a kind of heart to swallow soup. He manages to give a terrible, nightmarish coherence to these racial books and ideas. And so the months go on. Hitler perfects his terrifying theory, that of the racial struggle. At the top of his imaginary pyramid are the Aryans. In other words, the Germans in a permanent battle to protect the purity of their race, their biggest enemy, the Jews, who are considered a scourge. He is and remains a complete parasite, a scrounger, like a harmful bacteria always spreading further. His presence produces the effect of a parasitic plant. Wherever he settles, the people who welcome him will be wiped out eventually. Juden, in German, the Jews. It's one of the words that appears most often in Mein Kampf. It appears 373 times, an average once every two pages. An obsession for Hitler. He believes that they are responsible for all of Germany's failures, including their defeat in 1918. He tries to convince the Germans that the Jews are behind an international conspiracy to destroy Germany and which is the cause of all their problems. He goes through the entire range of anti-Semitic discourse and brings it to its maximum intensity. At the end of 1924, Hitler leaves prison with hundreds of pages under his arm, and he doesn't have any difficulty publishing his text, which is extremely violent towards Jews. Because of his notoriety, publishers are lining up. The first books about him start to be released. Newspapers are talking about him. He was a star in the media at the time. Well, maybe not a star, but someone very well known outside of Bavaria and even outside of Germany. And so the possibility of publishing his first book was very attractive. Hitler has the choice, so he opts for the publisher who offers him the most money, Max Amann. He is also a friend, his former sergeant during the 1418 war. He runs a small publishing house and shares the same extremist ideas. But before the book is released, they have to find the right title, which is not easy. The first title of Mein Kampf was four and a half years of struggle against lies, cowardice and weakness. The title says a lot, but it's not very catchy. The publisher insists on a shorter title, more compact, synthetic and something that could be catchy. In truth, we don't know exactly who chose the final title. One thing is sure, it will be Mein Kampf, my struggle. And for its release, it's highly advertised in the extreme right press. The best Christmas present, this newspaper suggests in December 1925. But when it arrives in bookshops, surprise, it's not a commercial success. A few thousand copies appeal to Nazi supporters, but the work does not break through as much as was predicted. Worse still, some newspapers annihilate him. Hitler is a political agitator who no longer understands the world. His ideas come from a twisted mind. The truth is that Mein Kampf is a book that is mostly unreadable. For his contemporaries, it's mostly a hodgepodge of ideas, a kind of volcanic explosion that isn't completely under control. In truth, the public expected sensational revelations about the putsch that Hitler would reveal insider secrets. The expectation was too much. People expected to see a political bomb explode. And that was in no way what was in Mein Kampf. But Hitler insisted. In 1928, he even writes another work, which is totally unknown, nicknamed The Secret Book, another very aggressive work. However, this second book is never printed in his lifetime. The publisher refuses, given the poor sales of Mein Kampf. So Mein Kampf could have stayed a small, unknown work, except fate is about to take a dramatic turn. It's 1930, and the economic crisis in America hits a still weak Germany hard. In the space of four years, the country has over four million more unemployed. At the elections, Germans avoid the classic parties and vote for the extremes. Hitler's party goes from three to 18 percent. Straight away, sales of Mein Kampf go through the roof. Fifty four thousand copies were sold just in 1930. We want to know what Hitler thinks, what he wants, this man who has become part of the German political system. And in his quest for power, this book improves the Führer's image. It establishes Hitler's credibility as no longer just a political agitator, just a speaker, but a writer. It's something that matters in Germany. Germany is still a country that respects its doctors and professors. 1933. Hitler amazes the whole world when he arrives in power, almost by surprise. He is appointed chancellor, though he only won 37 percent of the votes. To realize his dreams of greatness and the conquests he wrote about in Mein Kampf, he would need a united Germany. So with the help of Goebbels, he uses one of the theories contained in his book, propaganda. All effective propaganda must restrict itself to a few key points and enforce them with stereotypical formulas as long as required until the last of the audience is able to understand the idea. And one of the tools of this mass propaganda, of course, is Mein Kampf. Very soon, the state recommends that all government employees buy it. From 1936, it is given to all newlyweds. And then the Führer charmed the manufacturing industry. Thanks to rearmament, their orders increase eightfold. Businesses like Krupp hand it out to everyone. It was given as presents for birthdays and celebrations, or it was given out like a bonus for good performances. And to boost sales, the publisher offers the book in all formats. Braille editions for the blind. Deluxe versions with a marble cover and gold plated pages. A limited edition for high ranking Nazi dignitaries. And the ultimate in propaganda, an enormous version in Bible format. It was a symbol of domination for the National Socialists. It was considered like the Bible of Nazism. And even more important than the book itself was its symbolic function that everyone said, we know Mein Kampf, it's the Führer's book. By force, the book becomes a bestseller and so ensures Hitler's fortune. Through royalties, he earns the equivalent of around 10 million euros. He can buy himself his famous base, the Berghof, and satisfy his taste for luxurious Mercedes cars. In total, 12.5 million copies were printed in Germany until 1944. Hitler earned around one Reichsmark, which means through this book, he earned at least 12 million Reichsmarks. But behind the massive distribution, was Mein Kampf really read? This isn't certain. With its 700 pages and laborious text, the work certainly had enough to put people off. In 1940, Karl-Heinz Riener is enrolled in the Wehrmacht as a nurse. In his family, his father had received a copy from his company, but was not pleased with the gift. My father put the book on a shelf and it stayed there until 1945. My father looked inside it and said it was a declaration of war, pure and simple, and added he would never read this nonsense. In fact, at the time, like many other Germans, Karl and his father underestimated Hitler. We didn't take Hitler seriously. We didn't think a man who wrote something like that could stay in power. And we made jokes about him. We laughed at him. In the end, it's true. Perhaps we should have taken him seriously. In other families, conversely, the book crystallized all their fears. In the suburbs of East Berlin, on the banks of the Spree, Lutz Rackow remembers perfectly the first time he heard talk of Mein Kampf. In 1938, Lutz was only six years old. His father, Otto, was an architect. One evening, he got all his friends together at their house to talk about Hitler's book. I was sat under the table instead of being in bed because I was curious to know what they were saying. I heard my father keep repeating, but read this book. And of course, they weren't talking about the Bible or anything else, but about Mein Kampf. Lutz doesn't know if his father's friends followed his advice. But one thing is sure, his father was one of the few Germans to understand the future catastrophes that this Nazi book forewarned. He was of the opinion that all the answers to what the Nazis were going to do were in Mein Kampf. At that time, I remember Hitler talked about freedom, freedom, freedom. And in reality, he was preparing for a war with all his force. And of course, this war that was in preparation had to stay completely secret. And that is exactly what started to worry Hitler. He is afraid that his plans will be revealed in his books. Indeed, some of the passages do announce future conquests. The aim of our external politics, ensure the German people that they will get the territories they should. Territory will justify the sacrifice of our own children. And in his hunger for this needed space, Hitler targets one country in particular, France. The mortal enemy, the merciless enemy of the German people is and remains France. Mein Kampf predicts or in any case legitimizes the idea of a revenge against France, a military revenge. And there are many very violent pages against France, which is seen as a symbol of racial mixing, a country of Negroes. It's the word used by Hitler and a country of Jews. If the French took these threats seriously, they could prevent rearmament in Germany. So Hitler adopts a very daring strategy. November 1933 in Berlin, the Fuhrer is visited by a French journalist, Fernand de Brunon, a supporter of becoming closer to Germany. He speaks German and without a doubt has already read the passages in Mein Kampf. And Hitler gives him a scoop. The first French interview with the new chancellor. And when de Brunon asks the Fuhrer about his anti-France statement in his book, Hitler uses a ruse as old as time, an outright lie. Hitler explains that he only wants peace. He's been through war and Europe has already had too many deaths. Brunon has to ask him the question, as Mein Kampf is well known, saying that is not the opinion you have in Mein Kampf. It's not about peace. It's about war. And Hitler replies to him, I've changed, as would a politician that is faced with a text from his youth. I've changed. I wrote this text in prison in the fury of that time. And today, I'm chancellor. The interview is on the front page of the newspaper Le Matin, one of the biggest daily newspapers at the time, with a reassuring declaration from the Fuhrer. War will settle nothing. It will only worsen the state of the world. But in France, one man doesn't believe a word and will do everything to fight Hitler's book. This man is Fernand Solow, a publisher who had just started to break through in Paris in the 30s. Fernand Solow is a small publisher who publishes essays relating to political news. He publishes many political texts and literature. He's the fourth or fifth biggest publisher of foreign novels. Fernand Solow, whose politics are right wing, at the time, admires Mussolini. But Hitler and his work worry him a lot. In any case, this is how François-Savier Solow, one of the publisher's sons, remembers it. 30 or 40 percent of the text is anti-French. It's really an attack on the country. He hadn't fought in France. When he was 14, he was too young. But he met my mother, who was very anti-German, because my maternal grandfather was killed very early on in the 1914 war. Solow wanted to print Hitler's book to warn the French people and also for the commercial gain. The problem was that it would potentially be expensive. There were 700 pages to translate. And above all, Max Amann and Hitler refused any translation into French. Mein Kampf is packed full of anti-French passages. It is unthinkable that an uncensored version of the text would be released in French. So, Fernand Solow finds himself at an impasse. That is, until the day he is called to the ministry for former soldiers. There, he is welcomed with complete discretion. A secret operation is underway. Solow is put into contact with a Jewish former soldier whose name is Maurice Wannikoff and who will introduce it into the ministry of former soldiers. And it's through this ministry that a team, unofficially, of course, is put together. And so Solow begins a race against the clock. He wants to translate Mein Kampf into French as quickly as possible. And to do this, the ministry supplies seven experienced translators. Even better, the Liga, the League Against Anti-Semitism, buys 5,000 copies, meaning 50,000 francs for Solow. Which is absolutely crucial since, as you can see, in an operation like this one, which has to be carried out quickly, money needs to be raised quickly, and that was done. The book is released in February 1934 with a slogan aiming to shock. Everyone in France must read this book. Same turn of phrase on this poster. It plays on the fear that Mein Kampf inspires and predicts. A second world war is coming. Solow has pulled off a great book launch, but things soon take a different turn. Hitler is furious. This small French publisher is ruining his propaganda. Obviously, Hitler doesn't want the French to have access to his text without his propaganda and his ad hoc speeches. At that time, Hitler is on a pseudo-pacifistic offensive where he's declaring to anybody who'll listen that he's a pacifist. From that perspective, Mein Kampf is a thorn in his side. So the Chancellor takes Solow to court. The case takes place in Paris at the Commercial Court. 5th of June 1934. The German and French lawyers face each other. The right to alert the public against copyright. Solow against the most powerful man in Germany. The sentence is given 13 days later and may seem shocking. The French courts rule in favor of the dictator. It is forbidden to print or sell Mein Kampf with a penalty of 100 francs per infraction. Existing books have to be destroyed. But this doesn't stop Solow. He gets around the law with abridged versions, in other words, pirated versions, that are edited without the author's consent. As a bonus, he also manages to see off his stock with the collusion of the police. He sold a considerable number of books during this period, even after the court ruling, because when the Germans complained that the books were still on sale and demanded that the copies were seized from the publisher, the local police called my father to say, we are coming to see if you are still selling the book and seize any copies you have. And so we put all the books into a van. The police came and said there were no more copies. And that evening the van came back and the next day we carried on. However, Solow did fail in one aspect. The book didn't alarm any of the French elite. Even the 4,000 copies distributed by the leaker didn't have any effect. The decision-makers were blinded by Hitler's pacifistic talk. They considered the book too violent to be real. It's unthinkable to follow the politics suggested in Mein Kampf. So it is thought that Hitler has cooled his opinions. There is a refusal to see the violence in Mein Kampf. But also a refusal to understand that German political culture was such that Hitler would do what he said. Meanwhile, the ideas in the book progressively penetrate people's minds on the streets and over the radio waves. Goebbels, propaganda minister, reads extracts from Mein Kampf. The Reich even developed a low-price radio so they could be present in every home. And at school, some teachers sing the praises of the Führer's cult. The children sing it. They are ready to live and die for Hitler, their saviour, the most noble person in Germany. In fact, Hitler is putting into practice what is written in his book. And so his hatred of Jews becomes part of the public consciousness. This sign says, Germans, your enemy is the Jew. The papers are full of shocking caricatures showing Jews with monstrous features controlling the world. And as this terrible message is hammered home, some people end up believing it. I know that one day my brother came home from school crying. And my mother asked why he was sad. My brother said that Mr. Kornheim, who was Jewish, had given him sweets. And the other children said to my brother, whoever eats food from the Jews will die. I heard this story and thought, I don't have any sweets, so I'm not in danger. In an insidious and perverse way, anti-Semitism establishes itself in Germany. But could the Holocaust have been foreseen from Mein Kampf? For once, historians agree unanimously. Of course, Mein Kampf doesn't talk about the gas chambers, but the book theorizes at length about the combat to the death that the Germans must lead, and that there can only be one winner between the racially pure German people and the Jews. The Germans must have been more or less aware of what Hitler had planned, with or without Mein Kampf. Hitler never left any doubt that he wanted to modify the Treaty of Versailles and take revenge on France. And in the mind of anybody with any sense, that can only mean war. But how the war would be led, against who and what future he held for the countries in the East, that is not written in Mein Kampf. Right up until the eve of the war, Europeans held on to the idea that peace with the Führer was possible. October 1938, Hitler announces that he is going to annex Czechoslovakia. This is a violation of the borders that had been defined in 1918. Europe is on the brink of war. Everything plays out here in Munich. The British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and the French Defence Minister Edouard Daladier are urgently rushed there. In the end, they prefer to abandon their Czech ally in exchange for a promise of peace from Hitler. They sign the famous Munich Agreement. On their return, the French and British ministers are welcomed as heroes. This morning, I had another talk with the German Chancellor, Herr Hitler. And here is the paper which bears his name upon it as well as mine. We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German naval agreement as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again. Peace seems to be preserved. Don't mind Hitler, take your holiday, advises the press. Which politics want to be in favour of declaring war? What politician wants to say, I want to go to war? The majority of European companies are pacifists. Never again do we want war, never again the First World War, never again the slaughter. And even after the Munich crisis, very few of the elite foresee war, written in Mein Kampf. Churchill and the young Colonel de Gaulle saw it very early on. They said they were very worried. But at the time, they weren't in positions of power. De Gaulle is not in power. In England, Churchill has become almost an outsider. In 1939, the pacifistic talk which has been so carefully maintained, collapses brutally. Germany attacks Poland and invades a large part of Europe. The Reich's troops march through Paris. Hitler celebrates. The whole world trembles at the thought of falling under the control of the Nazis. That is when the elite change their mind about Mein Kampf. The harmfulness of Mein Kampf is discovered when Hitler starts to apply the politics that he had written about. So there's a discovery of what existed already, but that people didn't see or didn't want to see. That's when the fate of the book suddenly changes. Before 1939, the Allies hadn't seen its danger, but now they're going to use it to create effective counter-propaganda. That's what happens in the United States. There, Americans are protesting against the war. The average man is hardly thrilled with the idea of going to save Europe. Another war? Not for me. This time, America should keep out, and I know I will. In the event of war in Europe, I think we should stay out of it entirely. By all means, no. Yes, fine. No. No. So the authorities broadcast clips like these. The scene takes place in a church at mass. To mobilize its troops, the film is aimed at the minorities attacked in the book. Mein Kampf becomes a weapon of persuasion. I'm not going to read all of this, but there are one or two things in this book that will interest you. I quote, From time to time, the illustrated papers show how a Negro has become a lawyer, a teacher, perhaps even a minister. It never dawns on the degenerate middle-class America that this is truly a sin against all reason, that it is criminal madness to train a born half-ape until one believes one has made a lawyer of him. This book was written 20 years ago. The plan which it foreshadowed has become a reality. At the same time, on the other side of the Atlantic, the propaganda around the book intensifies. War is also a battle of ideas. And to win it, the Reich wants to impose its Nazi doctrine in schools. But this time, it takes place in conquered territories. It's a page of history that not much is known about. Part of France, Alsace and Mosul finds itself Nazified. From 1940, these two regions become German again and the teaching there is turned upside down. That's what we discovered at the regional archives in Alsace. Through the testimony of Margrit Forster, an Alsatian teacher who kept an intimate diary. From the summer of 1940, distressed, she writes, What will happen to my colleagues and me? I hate the German methods to the bottom of my heart. I'm horrified at the thought of teaching a member of the Hitler Youth, teaching them to think Deutschland über alles, Germany above everything. We have to teach them all of France's faults, teach them perhaps to hate it as an enemy. All of my being is against this state of things. My God, thy will be done. There was no use Margrit protesting. Like all of her colleagues in Alsace-Morzell, she had to follow the orders of the Reich. She goes to Germany to undergo an indoctrination. There she has to learn the program called Rassenkunde, the science of the races. Reading Mein Kampf is compulsory. And in her book, Margrit writes in German what the Nazis dictate on the subject of music. The Jew has no creative activity. He takes the creativity of others. Jewish music is going to take Europe back into the night. For her students, she now has to use this pro-Nazi book. Inside, Hitler is featured as an author to study. In their books, under the guidance of their teachers, pupils aged 8 to 10 draw Nazi symbols. The teacher gave the Nazi salute when he arrived. All the lessons started with an update from the front, where the German army were, the advances, the retreats. It's clear that some of the teachers, trained in Germany, didn't put this program into practice. That a minority did is possible. And we mustn't forget that there were some German teachers sent to Alsace-Morzell, some of whom applied the program zealously. From 1944, the German army saw a string of defeats. As time went on, the flagship book of the regime became an inconvenience. To avoid looking like Nazis, Germans tried to get rid of it. The greatest number of copies I ever saw was on the 23rd of April 1945. We had some land next to the Spree, and I saw a lot of copies floating in the water. It was poison. It had to be disposed of. And neighbours threw everything that was poisonous into a hole. Arms and books that had become embarrassing. And in all of this was Mein Kampf. They stood out with their red covers. We covered all of that with earth and prayed to our guardian angels that they would never be discovered. Of course, with the advance of the Red Army, people were afraid of being checked or identified as people owning this book. They were scared the Russians would turn against them. That's why they got rid of it. From then on, in a defeated Germany, all Nazi symbols had to be removed. The Allies demand that the machines used to print Mein Kampf have to be destroyed. Any republishing of the book is strictly forbidden in Germany. At that moment, nobody imagined that this bestseller would become a longseller. Its author is dead. His work is filled with hate. His politics ended in an appalling massacre. However, his forbidden work continues to be published. In France, for example, after the war, Solow printed Mein Kampf and continues to do so. On average, 2,000 copies per year. And it's not the only one. My Struggle in England. Amina Luta in Brazil. Wody Feng Do in China. The book is published worldwide and has been since the 1930s. It's impossible to ban its publication, especially in the age of the Internet. And so millions of copies have been sold since 1945. Mein Kampf continues to be read. Nazism, the Third Reich, Hitler fascinate. There is also the fascination for what is forbidden. If it's forbidden, it must be interesting. So we seek it out. In Arab countries fighting against Israel, the book seduces anti-Semites. Even more surprisingly, Kavgam, the Turkish version, topped the bestseller list in 2005. Nearly 100,000 copies sold in two months when nationalists arrived in power. It is also surprisingly successful in India where Hitler is sometimes quoted in management schools as a model of success. A country like India where for years, decades, Mein Kampf has been successful. Mein Kampf is the symbol of a warmongering ultra-nationalism that imposes itself on its neighbours. Since the 1st of January 2016, the book has begun a new chapter in its story. In accordance with copyright law, the work becomes part of the public domain. In theory, nothing now stops it being republished. But in Germany, the book is still considered dangerous. As such, only critical editions like this one are authorised. The Fuhrer's text is surrounded by 3,500 comments written by historians. Of course, we wanted to make a critical edition, one based on the essentials. It was about contradicting Hitler, correcting him. In France, the publisher Fayard took the same approach. A scientific council are preparing a version that is also commented, in order to neutralise the hate and lies in the original text.