Hitler's Mein Kampf Banned in Russia

Nazi classic suddenly deemed 'extremist'
By Harry Kimball,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 26, 2010 11:15 AM CDT
Hitler's Mein Kampf Banned in Russia
This May 7, 1933, file photo shows German chancellor Adolf Hitler.   (AP Photo)

Russian authorities have just decided that Hitler’s anti-Semitic opus Mein Kampf is extremist, and have banned the book. The move comes as the country attempts to combat xenophobia in far-right circles, and prosecutors discovered that the book was freely available in a certain region. The government keeps a list of extremist materials whose distribution is illegal.

Mein Kampf espouses a “militaristic outlook and justifies discrimination and destruction of non-Aryan races,” the prosecutor general tells Reuters. For good measure, it also contains a raft of anti-Russian sentiment. Still, the prosecutor says, “up to now, Mein Kampf was not recognized as extremist.” That is doubly odd, RTE reports, since Russia has a standing law that deems all books written by Nazi leaders to be by definition extremist. (More Adolf Hitler stories.)

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