SPIEGEL: At 12 million copies, Hitler's polemic "Mein Kampf" numbers among the best-selling books in the world. The text is also available online for free. What are you hoping to achieve by publishing an annotated scholarly edition?
Hartmann: We view ourselves as something akin to a bomb disposal team. "Mein Kampf" is the rusty old artillery shell, and we're removing the fuse. The idea is to defuse the book with a new introduction and especially with a thorough scholarly commentary. This removes the book's symbolic value and makes it what it essentially is: a historical record, and nothing more.
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