Censorship in Texas

[sartorias]

Stemming from the news about YA poet Ellen Hopkins being uninvited from the Teen Lit Fest in Humble, Texas, Texan Katherine Eliska Kimbriel speaks upIt's easy to condemn the parent committees for minding their neighbors business, especially when they haven't actually read the book in question. The really vexing question that I see is, what exactly

Comments

[kalimac]

On the other hand, lots of Germans with pretensions to philosophical insight wrote like that. Mein Kampf was indeed not read much even when Hitler did come to power; if it had, people might not have been so surprised when he launched his campaigns of national aggrandizement and anti-Semitism, because he laid it all out right in the book.

[estara]

I'm rather annoyed we can't read it in history lessons in Germany - the nearest I'v seen is excerpts pre-chosen (and only one or two) in the history book for the 9th grade. Annoying.

A fellow teacher bought one outside of Germany, as it is still illegal (as far as I know) to own one here.

[sartorias]

Well, if you travel, I suppose you could read it, but it's killingly boring. And the ideas are not new--just rehashed versions of List, Wiligut, and the various Ariosophists. I suspect it's forbidden because of the horrific dark glamor still attached to his name.

[estara]

The point for me is that it would be an original work - not filtered through an educational publisher - and it would be possible to compare his aims and ideas with how he carried them out - clearly demonstrating that this was premeditated in all ways. Probably it could be compared to other propaganda material of previous or later ages in different cultures, so my boys have the danger signs of megalomaniac egoism reinforced.

[sartorias]

Yep. I imagine that the book is available for students of higher education, it's just not carried in bookstores, and I guess not in libraries, either?

Gosh, I remember the university library in Vienna in 1971. Anent WW II detritus, I checked out some very old stuff, and some of those works had a huge JUDEN stamped all over the title page and inside--but at least they hadn't thrown it away! I wonder if all those have either silently vanished or been replaced.

[estara]

Ah, I actually found a page that explains what is the case here (which I didn't know) - the copyright owner (Bavaria) - does not allow new editions of Mein Kampf.

I really ought to see if I can get some edition, then.

My mum should still have a biology book I saw (which she worked with after the war in Münster - but of course they only had pre-war school books then -) which showed why Jewish heads had the marks of evil inherent, etc.

[sartorias]

Whoa, that would be seriously creepy.

For the other side of the fence, I just was given a copy of Entscheidende Augenblicke in der Erziehungen, by Emilia Bosshart;

The copyright date is 1943, and here is the opening:

Jede denkende und verantwoertliche Mensch bemueht sich, einen Ausweg zu finden aus gem grauenvollen Zustand des Voelkerhasses, des Meschenmordens, des namenlosen Elends Millionen von Kindern und Erwachsenen. Geordnete, gisicherte Lebensverhaeltnisse, das ist das erste, wonach sich die Menschen unserer Tage sehen.

[estara]

Not too shabby indeed, considering that is a copyright before the war ended...

[kalimac]

Try a used bookstore or antique store. And tell them you're a teacher, so you won't be mistaken for a creepy Neonazi. "Mein Kampf" occasionally shows up among the belongings of deceased elderly people and then ends up in used bookstores or antique stores via "Entrümpler" companies

[estara]

That's a good idea.

Kudso to your grandma! The German side of my family had to flee from East Prussia, so all the books inherited in some way are postwar stuff or donated pre-war stuff or things like those pre-war school books which was all they had in bombed Münster at the time.

A full annotated version would be ideal, I should think. However, if you read the answer to question 3 of that Damaschke email query, it sounds more likely that the Bavarian state would sue the initiator of something like that - even in five years when the copyright runs out.

I totally agree on the creep factor of that book.

[kalimac]

My maternal grandmother's copy of "Mein Kampf" is probably still buried somewhere in the Lausitz area, together with the ubiquitous Hitler portrait and the family silver. My grandmother and her great-aunts buried everything before leaving and reportedly cried when Hitler was laid to the ground.

Cora

[sartorias]

It's astounding how the world has changed, the more dramatic when we can see it in two generations or three right before us. My greatgrandmother was the daughter of pioneers--what a vast worldview shift!

[estara]

My grandmother and the servant's at the forestry house also buried everything, but from what I remember no one clearly marked in some way where it was

[sartorias]

I agree. One of my German profs once said wryly that during the war, everyone had a copy, but no one had read much past the first few pages.

[laransb]

Hi Cora,

indeed, the book IS available for academic purposes at German university libraries. How else could serious historical research be done? The only restriction is that often the student won't be allowed to take the book home - instead you have to read it in the reading rooms (which many people do anyway).

I heard something about a critical edition ("historisch-kritische Ausgabe") for research purposes being in preparation by some historians, but I am not sure where I have read this, in some newspaper or maybe my historian mailing list...

Laran

[estara]

I wonder why that wasn't pointed out to me in Erlangen, hmmm. Or did it change? I finished the first state-exam in 1998.