Mein Kampf

Adolf Hitler wrote Mein Kampf while confined in Landsberg Prison after his failed Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. He began the project in early 1924 and finished it after release, with Volume 1 appearing in July 1925 and Volume 2 following in 1926. The two volumes span roughly 750 pages of autobiographical narrative mixed with political theory. Hitler dictated much of the text to his deputy Rudolf Hess, though SS member Emil Maurice helped transcribe the initial drafts. The governor of the prison noted that Hitler hoped for many editions to pay off debts from his trial, a goal the book eventually achieved once he seized power in 1933. The work serves as a foundational manifesto for Nazi ideology, outlining Hitler's antisemitic views, his plan for Lebensraum, and his vision for a racially pure German state. Sales remained slow during the Weimar Republic but exploded after 1933 when the regime made it required reading. Copyright passed to the Bavarian state government after World War II, which banned new editions to prevent propaganda spread. In 2016, scholars at the Institute of Contemporary History released a critical annotated version in Germany, expanding the text to nearly 2,000 pages with over 3,500 footnotes. This edition sparked intense debate among historians and Jewish groups about how to present hate speech without amplifying its message.[edit]