Plans by German scholars to reprint Adolf Hitler's"Mein Kampf"" as an academic treatise were rejected by the state copyright holders, who said a new edition of the book could fuel support for far-right groups.

The Bavarian authorities this week reaffirmed a 64-year-old ban on the book after the Munich-based Institute of Contemporary History, or IFZ, applied for permission to reprint the work. State officials said that extremist groups could have legally promoted the book if the ban had been lifted.

"Scholarly as the aims of the institute are, we won't lift the ban as it may play straight into the hands of the far- right," Horst Wolf, a spokesman for the Bavarian Finance Ministry, the legal guardians of the state's copyright, said today in an interview."Prohibition is recognized and highly regarded by Jewish groups and we mean to keep it that way."

Written by Hitler in 1924 as he languished in a Munich prison, Mein Kampf, or My Struggle, combines autobiography with the Nazi leader's political manifesto. It last rolled off authorized German presses in 1945 before being banned that same year after World War II ended.