Is Germany Ready for Mein Kampf?

(NEWSER) - Hitler's autobiography-manifesto Mein Kampf has been strictly banned in Germany since the end of World War II, but a proposal to reprint it has the endorsement of the country's leading Jewish organization, among other groups, reports the Independent. "A historically critical edition needs to be prepared today to prevent neo-Nazis profiting from it," said the head of the Central Council of Jews. But politicians and many academics oppose the effort. More»

(NEWSER) - This could be awkward. Mel Brooks’ The Producers has been a smash around the world, but will the Hitler-mocking musical play in Germany? The Admiralspalast theater in Berlin—which the real Führer once frequented—is betting Germans are ready to laugh at the blood-soaked past, the Daily Mail reports. “If there’s anywhere in the world where it should be performed, it’s Berlin,” says the Admiralspalast’s director. More»

Medical association sorry for role physicians played

(NEWSER) - Better very, very late than never. The organization of German physicians has issued an official apology for the role doctors played in the Holocaust. “Outstanding representatives of renowned academic medical and research institutions were involved” in organizing and carrying out the mass extermination of millions, and participating in barbaric medical experiments, said a statement from the German Medical Association, issued six decades after the end of World War II, notes MSNBC . More»

Germany prepares as copyright expires

(NEWSER) - German readers will soon be able to get their hands on something that hasn't been available since the end of World War II: a new edition of Hitler's Mein Kampf. The state of Bavaria holds the copyright and has effectively blocked any new prints over the decades, explains AP . But that copyright expires in 2015, and authorities there hope to circumvent neo-Nazis by putting out an annotated version that seeks to debunk Hitler's anti-Semitic ramblings. More»

Auschwitz Memorial Museum prints Birkenau inmate drawings

(NEWSER) - The Auschwitz Memorial Museum has published a collection of death camp sketches by a mystery inmate of Birkenau that was found stuffed in a bottle. The chilling pencil sketches of the camp, by a prisoner who signed them "MM," show children being torn from the arms of their parents, and a guard smoking a cigarette as gas chamber bodies are loaded onto a truck, reports Der Spiegel. "These sketches are the only work of art made in Birkenau that depict exterminations," said a museum spokesman. The sketches, made in 1943, were discovered four years later near the camp's crematorium by a former prisoner working as a watchman at the site. More»