While serving a sentence for high treason as a result of the failed 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, Adolf Hitler penned the first volume of “Mein Kampf” (My Struggle), his political manifesto.
The original idea behind the book was not just to write a political tract, but also to reduce the costs of Hitler’s treason trial that was set to be held in 1924. The sales of the book initially did not capture Germany’s attention, however, after several attempts, it hit the market big. It was later translated into 16 different languages and had already sold around 8 million copies by the time Hitler died in 1945. It was estimated that the book had earned a million dollars each year, only in royalties.
A flyleaf of the original edition of “Mein Kampf”.
Hitler was a struggling artist and had little money when he was young. He fought in the WWI and than joined the newly formed Nazi Party. It was in 1923 that Hitler and his Nazi cohorts served sentence for treason. Hitler spent less than a year in the Lands berg prison and it was here that he wrote his political manifesto and autobiography.
In 1933, Hitler became the German Chancellor and it was in that year on that every newlywed couple in Germany received a free copy of “Mein Kampf”. The municipalities had to purchase the book from the publishers. Sales of “Mein Kampf” topped 10 million copies by the year 1945, and its royalties made Hitler a rich man.
The State of Bavaria
The allies gave the copyright of “Mein Kampf” to the Bavarian government after the war, and the government banned any reprinting of the dictator’s work in German-speaking territories. After the European copyright of “Mein Kampf” expired on the 70th anniversary of the author’s death on April 30, 2015, it entered into public domain.
Aside from the royalties he received from this political manifesto, Hitler’s assets also included Berghof, a house in the Bavarian Alps and an apartment in Munich. Hitler wrote a will before his death in April 1945, when he requested that all his assets be transferred to the Nazi Party. But with the abolition of the latter, Hitler’s remaining assets were transferred to the state of Bavaria.
The Berghof
Hitler’s Alpine retreat near Berchtesgaden had already been damaged by the bombings set by soldiers, and what was left of it was further blown up by the government in 1952. The decision to destroy the Berghof was taken into account to prevent it from becoming a tourist attraction. The apartment building in Munich is still upstanding and it’s been turned into a police station.
But still there is a lot to be found out about the dictator.
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