Source:  European Jewish Press

Monday, 28 May 2007

WARSAW/COLOGNE - A regional court in Poland has conditionally dropped a criminal case against a Polish publisher charged with breaking copyright laws for publishing Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf".

The Wroclaw (Breslau) court in southwestern Poland ruled that a publisher, identified only as Marek S., broke copyright law by printing 3,000 copies of the Polish translation of Mein Kampf ("My Struggle") in 2005, the Polish news agency PAP reported.

The state of Bavaria in Germany, which owns the rights to "Mein Kampf" brought a case in 2005 against the publishing house in Poland.

Bavarian authorities underlined that they strictly adhere to the copyright laws in order to prevent the spreading of Hitler's philosophy.

Arguing that the harm caused by the small-scale publishing of the book was minimal - especially since Marek S. agreed in a 2005 civil trial to halt printing and withdraw the work from bookstores at his own cost - the Polish court agreed to drop the case against the publisher for a probationary period of two years.

Mein Kampf is banned from public display or sale in Germany, though it is available for historical research in libraries.