Mein Kampf in English
In 1928, the literary agency Curtis Brown, Limited secured the assignment for negotiation of translation rights in the United States and Great Britain, and a German copy was picked up by their employee, Cherry Kearton.[4] In early 1933, at the time of the Nazi seizure of power in Germany, Dugdale apparently contacted Eher Verlag, who referred him to Kearton, now working for the firm of Hurst and Blackett.They arrived in Southampton in June, while James finished up the rest of his commissioned translation work in Berlin and came to London in early September.[18] In London, Murphy contacted his literary agent, Robert Somerville, awith her ex-house keeper, she decided to visit one of James' former secretaries whom he had employed as a typist.[22] While neither Hitler nor any of the German government officials endorsed the Murphy translation, they ultimately took no action against it and, by May 1939, Eher Verlag was inquiring about possible royalties.The publishers did not feel the need to pay him any more after they received a letter from Germany prior to publication, stating he had already been paid for his efforts when he was employed by the Propaganda Ministry.[24] The German Government used 90% of James Vincent Murphy's rough draft translation of Mein Kampf to form the body of an edition to be distributed in the UK once Operation Sea Lion was completed.[26] However, on 8 December 1938, Stackpole Sons Inc. announced that they would be publishing their own translation of Mein Kampf, arguing that Hitler, as a stateless person in 1925, could not have transferred his copyrights to Eher Verlag and thence to Houghton Mifflin.Reynal & Hitchcock claimed to have stated that they had already been working on the project for months, had a translation in hand, backed by a committee of prominent scholars, and were in the process of negotiating the rights with Houghton Mifflin.Houghton Mifflin would print and bind the book at its Riverside Press in Cambridge, Massachusetts and was allowed to keep publishing the My Battle abridgement.Notably, Houghton Mifflin agreed to pay all the expenses for seeking a copyright injunction, and subsequent legal fees would be split between the two companies.[29] To counter Stackpole's claims that sales of its translation would go to Nazi Germany, Reynal contacted the various boycott committees and pledged all profits above their legitimate expenses would go to a charity for refugees.After deducting $11,500 for legal costs, Houghton Mifflin was prepared to give $11,500 to Curtis Brown to pay to their client, Eher Verlag.[31] As far as Hitler's royalties went, they were governed by the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 and put into an account assigned to the Office of Alien Property Custodian, succeeded by the United States Attorney General after the war.[35] As the translators deemed the book "a propagandistic essay of a violent partisan", which "often warps historical truth and sometimes ignores it completely", the tone of many of these annotations reflected a conscious attempt to provide "factual information that constitutes an extensive critique of the original".John Haynes Holmes, James M. Landis, Thomas Mann, Bishop William T. Manning, Eugene O'Neill, Theodore Roosevelt Jr., Mgr.Coxe reasoned that "The Defendants Stackpole have raised questions of title and validity which are not free from doubt; the facts are in dispute; and the issues cannot properly be determined on affidavit.[43] Stackpole then appealed for delay and rehearing, based on legal technicalities because only one copy of Mein Kampf had been deposited with the United States Copyright Office, according to Houghton Mifflin's Bill of Complaint.Chase and Robert P. Patterson, who ruled in July that Houghton Mifflin did need to get authorization from Eher Verlag to prove their contract valid.This committee included: Harold Lasswell, Wesley C. Mitchell, George Gordon Battle, Reinhold Niebuhr, Horace Kallen, Ernest Meyer, Max Eastman, Vida Scudder, Louis Hacker, Bernson Y. Landis, Allen Heely, Milton Winternitz and Edward Smith Parons.[57] In the words of Burt A. Folkart of the Los Angeles Times, Manheim himself later argued that his translation was a “troubled effort because Hitler’s style and mixed metaphors had to be rendered into simple English.”[58] In its efforts to counteract the influence of Dugdale's Mein Kampf abridgement, the American Jewish Committee drew up a mimeograph of quotations which showed that Hitler "attacked not only the Jews but the liberal institutions that are the basis of the government of the United States and in which he glorified war and the militaristic spirit.While dictating the translation to secretaries in Manhattan, one of the transcribers who happened to be Jewish became alarmed at the contents and contacted the Anti-Defamation League, who sent Benjamin Epstein to investigate.He explains in his preface that he was concerned about Germany's expansionism in the late 1930s and wished to alert the public to the dangers Hitler presented, but which were not shown in the abridged edition of his book.Prominent stock broker Louis Lober and others petitioned the New York City Board of Education to cease buying textbooks from Houghton Mifflin, in retaliation for publishing the book.Department store owner Louis Kirstein, industrialist Max Conn, the Chicago Israelite and lawyer Samuel Untermyer also urged that it not be published.[74] There is no firm evidence that Stanley Baldwin or Neville Chamberlain ever read the abridgement, but Franklin D. Roosevelt had one in his library in which was annotated: "The White House – 1933 This translation is so expurgated as to give a wholly false view of what Hitler is and says – the German original would make a different story.[77] In January 1939, the National Book Club published a new English edition of Mein Kampf, for which Arthur Bryant wrote a foreword praising Hitler (with reservations: he denounced Nazi persecution of Jews) and comparing him to Benjamin Disraeli.
Adolf HitlerMein KampfEnglishEher VerlagRalph ManheimcopyrightCurtis Brown, LimitedCherry Keartonelections of September 1930Nazi PartyReichstagGreat DepressionBlanche DugdaleE.T.S. DugdaleNazi seizure of power in GermanyHurst and BlackettVölkischer BeobachterBerlinPaternoster LibraryHoughton Mifflinsaluteblack, red, and yellowDorothy ThompsonGerman revolutions of 1848–49Weimar RepublicGerman EmpireshillingInland RevenueReich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and PropagandaJames Vincent MurphySouthamptonReichskanzleiwar had broken out between the two countriesOperation Sea LionMunich crisisReynal & HitchcockNew School of Social ResearchStackpole Sons Inc.stateless personEdward J. Stackpolepublic domainCurtice HitchcockRiverside PressCambridge, MassachusettsinjunctionFranklin D. RooseveltThe International Museum of World War IINazi Germanyboycottrefugeeswar broke out between the United States and GermanyTrading with the Enemy Act of 1917Office of Alien Property CustodianUnited States Attorney Generalcorporation taxJohn ChamberlainSidney B. FayJohn GuntherCarlton J. H. HayesGraham HuttonAlvin JohnsonWilliam L. LangerWalter MillisPearl S. BuckDorothy CanfieldEdna St. Vincent MillayIda TarbellCyrus AdlerCharles A. BeardNicholas Murray ButlerTheodore DreiserAlbert EinsteinMorris ErnstHarry Emerson FosdickJohn Haynes HolmesJames M. LandisThomas MannWilliam T. ManningEugene O'NeillTheodore Roosevelt Jr.John A. RyanNorman ThomasWalter WhiteWilliam Allen WhiteStephen S. WiseWikisourceAlfred Conkling Coxe Jr.United States District Court for the Southern District of New YorkUnited States Court of Appeals for the Second CircuitLearned HandAugustus N. HandCharles Edward ClarkUnited States Copyright OfficeUnited States Supreme CourtcertiorariFelix FrankfurterRobert P. Pattersonparent companyHarold LasswellWesley C. MitchellReinhold NiebuhrHorace KallenErnest MeyerMax EastmanVida ScudderLouis HackerBernson Y. LandisWorldCatlegal precedentCopyright Act of 1909the BlitzBoard of Deputies of British JewsWest German governmentLos Angeles TimesAmerican Jewish CommitteemimeographChaim WeizmannBritish Foreign Officeeducation under NazismRennie SmithDuchess of AthollGreenwich, ConnecticutAlan CranstonHearst syndicateManhattanAnti-Defamation League