Related Link Mein Kampf publication – the best way to destroy Hitler’s hateful legacy

A team of historians is publishing a two-volume, 2,000-page German edition of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf for the first time in seven decades.

The region of Bavaria in Germany—which was given the rights to the book by the Allies in 1945— has refused to publish Mein Kampf, which means “my struggle,” for 70 years. At the end of December, when their copyright runs out, publishers will have unfettered access to the text.

Hitler’s book also had an early history marked by struggle in the U.S., with two publishers vying to publish the first unabridged American version of the book, TIME reported in March 1939, just months before the September start of World War II.