The first German edition of Mein Kampf published since the Second World War will be even more boring than usual—and it’s usually really, really boring. In January, the Institute of Contemporary History in Munich will publish an academic edition of the book “with some 3,500 annotations, [which] will be published in two volumes totalling 1,948 pages and sold at €59 ($62).” The decision to reprint Mein Kampf is controversial; it was banned in Germany following the fall of the Third Reich and is only being republished because it enters the public domain on January 1, 2016. But the book’s publisher is defending its decision by arguing that its annotations “shatter the myth” that surrounds the book and expose its “lies, half-truths, and vicious tirades.” Another argument is that the annotations will make the book so boring that it will lose all of its appeal—that would-be fascists will be lulled into passivity after annotation 887.
There is no indication that Karl Ove Knausgaard contributed any annotations, sadly.